“Nay, I’ll not clasp thy hand,” said the robber, though at the same time suffering the cavalier to take his hand up. “Thy hand has met the clasp of Papists; and by my sweet Saviour, whom they once made me deny, mine never shall.”
“Nay, good Bernard Gray, this is hardly honest,” said the cavalier, in a tone of remonstrance. “By my faith, I did not seek the Nevilles; I was seeking thee, not them, when they fell unhappily in my way. I did but help the weaker side.”
“Was it any concern of thine?” demanded the man called Bernard Gray, his eyes lighting up with the fiercest enthusiasm. “Am I to be thwarted in my revenges by thee?”
“’Twas not the Nevilles, Bernard, Papists though they be, that burned my father,” said the cavalier.
“Be they not of the devil’s flock?” returned Bernard. “But though it hath cost me my comrade’s life, let it pass now; and tell me, if thou canst, what ill deed of mine led thee to run away from me.”
“Alas! Bernard, I never ran from thee,” answered the cavalier; “I was forced away, and carried off, against my will, to the new plantations. Thence I finally escaped, and, getting on shipboard, became a mariner. I have prospered on the seas, and am now, I thank Heaven, well to do in the world.”
“Forced away, saidst thou?” rejoined Bernard. “This must be honest Master Shedlock’s work.”
“He was secure of my patrimony,” observed the cavalier, “yet would he have made me a slave.”
“And a bastard,” muttered Bernard.
“Even so,” answered the cavalier.