At this unsettled time, and in a driving shower, Cymlin and Doctor Verity were seen galloping up the avenue one evening. Every one was glad at the prospect of news and company, Sir Thomas so much so, that he went to the door to meet the Doctor. "Nobody could be more welcome," he said; "and pray, what good fortune brings you here?"
"I come to put my two nephews in Huntingdon Grammar school. I want them to sit where Cromwell sat," he answered.
Then he drew his chair to the hearth, where the ash logs burned and blazed most cheerfully, and looked round upon the company—the genial Sir Thomas, and his placid, kindly lady, and the beautiful girl, who was really his hostess. Nor was he unmindful of Cymlin at her side, for in the moment that his eyes fell on the young man, he seemed to see, as in letters of light, an old description of Englishmen, and to find in Cymlin its expression—"a strong kind of people, audacious, bold, puissant and heroical; of great magnanimity, valiancy and prowess."
As he was thinking these things, Sir Thomas said, "You must make us wise about events. We have had only the outlines of them, and we are going into the midst of we know not what. As to the great plot, was it as black as it was painted?"
"Like all the works of the devil, it grew blacker as it was pulled into the light. It was soon an indisputable fact, that de Baas, Mazarin's envoy extraordinary in London, was head over heels in the shameful business. I can tell you, de Baas had a most unpleasant hour with the Protector; under Cromwell's eyes and questions, he wilted away like a snail under salt."
"What did Cromwell do to him?"
"Sent him back to King Louis and to Mazarin with a letter. They have done the punishing, I have no doubt. He would better have thrown himself on Cromwell's mercy than face Mazarin with his tale of being found out. More like than not he is at this hour in the Bastile. No one will hear any more of M. de Baas."
"Then you think Mazarin was really in the plot to assassinate?"
"No doubt of it; de Baas was only his creature. Both of them should be rolled into their graves, with their faces downward."
"And King Louis the Fourteenth?"