THE DOVER ROAD 235 



England went mad on a May morning at the Restoration 

 of lier exiled king; when through sixty-one miles as it 

 were of conduits running wine, triumphal arches, gabled 

 streets hung with tapestry — through battalions of citizens 

 in various bands, some arrayed in coats of black velvet 

 with gold chains, some in military suits of cloth of gold or 

 silver — Charles, who had slept at Rochester the night 

 before, rode on to I^lackeath between his brothers, the 

 Dukes of York and Gloucester. 



And on Blackheath he saw on one side the stern array 

 of the great army which he had seen last (and seen too 

 much of) at Worcester ; and on the other, according to 

 Walter Scott, a very favourite family group, well known 

 to readers of the Waverley Novels. In point of fact, 

 Sir Henry Lee, of Ditchley, arrived at the uttermost 

 limits of a noble old age, "having a complacent smile 

 on his face and a tear swelling to his eye, as he saw 

 the banners wave on in interminable succession, and 

 heard the multitude shouting the long-silenced accla- 

 mation, ' God save King Charles ! ' " And round the 

 old man's chair stood a delightful group, it will be re- 

 membered, of all the pleasant characters of Woodstock 

 — Colonel Everard and Alice, now his wife ; Joceline 

 Joliffe, of quarter-staff renown, and Mrs. Joceline Joliffe, 

 iiee Phoebe ; then Wildrake too, the incomparable of 

 Squattlesea Mere, In the moist county of Lincoln, much 

 given to singing " Rub-a-dub," and requesting the moon 

 and stars to catch his hat. This morning he blazes in 

 splendid apparel, but his eyes, I regret to say, have been 

 washed with only a single cup of canary. And last, but 

 not least, Beavis, the wolf-hound, dim also as to his eyes, 

 stiff as to his joints, a ruin of his former self, but having 

 lost none of his instinctive fondness for his master. 



It will be remembered that when Charles from the 

 midst of a maze of pursuivants and trumpeters, and 

 plumes and cloth of gold, and waving standards and 

 swords gleaming in the sunlight, saw this group, he 

 had the tact to remember it, the urbanit)' to dismount, 



