“Peace, malignant!” exclaimed Shedlock.
“Peace thou, Sir Sheriff!” answered Sir Edgar; “and remember, though power may abet thee now, a day of reckoning will come, when thou shalt be called to account.”
“Aha! dost thou threaten me?” replied Shedlock. “Thou thinkest to see the day, then, when the Papist faction shall hold the powers of the state? But surely the Lord will protect his people! O! my trust is in the Lord, and he is mighty to deliver his saints!”
“Enough, Master Shedlock,” observed Sir Walter, impatiently. “’Tis our duty, from what we have heard, to send this gentleman to prison; but we have no warrant to give him any offence.”
Evaline, who had listened anxiously to the whole of the preceding dialogue, heard these last words with a mingled sense of dejection and hope—dejection that her father should be dragged so ignominiously from his home; and hope, abetted by what had passed, that Sir Walter might still be their friend, and leave him at large. Though of a timorous temper, this hope emboldened her, in the pressure and excitement of the crisis, to step somewhat forward, and by a timely intercession, seek to secure Sir Walter’s good offices.
“Is there no resource, Sir,” she said, in a tone of deep anguish, “but my father must go to prison? He is innocent—indeed, indeed, he is!”
Sir Walter looked on her so intently, that he seemed, for the first moment or two, to be reading her very heart; but the fair girl, whom such a gaze would have confounded at another time, was affected too deeply by her sorrow to be moved by his survey. Her dark eyes, which were wont to beam with tranquil joy, were still turned imploringly on his, and her face remained deadly pale, as if the mournful expression that hung over it braced and locked up every feature.
“I do believe thee, lady,” answered Sir Walter, in a kind tone; “but there is, unhappily, no resource. Thy father must to prison, but, if it please thee, thou mayst bear him company to Exeter, and there, at thy convenience, have free access to his presence.”
There was little mitigation of the first sentence in this; but the assurance that she might bear her father company, and, whenever she felt inclined, share the discomforts of his prison, was not without a soothing influence. She thanked Sir Walter for his urbanity; and, Sir Edgar, seeing that he was not actuated by a spirit of persecution, but solely by a sense of duty, which the extraordinary circumstances of the times pressed with particular severity on Roman Catholics, also tendered him his acknowledgments. It was then arranged, that Sir Edgar should immediately repair, under an escort of two constables, to the county gaol, at Exeter; and that instructions should be forwarded to the gaoler, on the responsibility of Sir Walter, to allow him to be freely visited by his daughter and cousin, and to treat him with the utmost respect. This arrangement, so much more lenient than the accused party had been disposed to expect, was not effected with the concurrence of Shedlock; but Sir Walter overruled his opposition, and induced him, by a few peremptory words, to yield acquiescence. Matters having been thus settled, Sir Walter dropped a courteous bow to Sir Edgar and his family, and, breaking through the group around him, passed out of the mansion, followed reluctantly by Shedlock.
Sir Walter did not address a word to his companion till they had mounted their horses, which, on emerging from the mansion, they found waiting them at the door. On setting forward, however, in their way down the avenue to the road, he broke the silence.