“Sir Edgar de Neville,” answered Bernard.
The minister’s brow darkened. “Ah!” he cried.
Bernard, looking up, met his scowl with an unruffled brow, but ventured no reply.
“Innocent, is he?” reiterated Burleigh. “These are bold speeches, Master Gray. Why, the man hath murderously slain one of thy fellows, is bound up with the Spaniard, and, to crown all, is a pestilent Papist. I have this on the word of—”
“A rank knave, my Lord,” said Bernard, seeing him hesitate to name his authority: “even of Master Shedlock, his inveterate enemy.”
The enlarged observation displayed by his answer, showing that, wherever he might be placed, his eyes were always on the alert, was far from drawing upon him the minister’s displeasure. Indeed, it reminded him how serviceable he had been to the state, and to himself personally, in time past, and determined him to retain him in his service at whatever cost. Unfortunately, however, the charge against Sir Edgar de Neville was of so serious a cast, and had been urged with such an appearance of truth, that it could not be dismissed without a full investigation; and though policy and state-craft inclined him to comply with his emissary’s request, his sense of justice, which he rarely disregarded, forbad him to interpose, and suggested that he should allow the law to take its course. But on one point he was resolved, and that was, that, come what might, he would in no case offend his emissary.
In this frame of mind, he shortly replied to that person’s remark.
“I knew not Master Shedlock was a knave,” he said, “but rather thought otherwise, seeing that, from whatever cause, he hath acted with much zeal in this matter, professing it to evidence a new plot. But even an’ he be what thou call’st him, how doth that, which concerns only him, certify the innocence of the prisoner?”
“The prisoner, my Lord, says that he was journeying peaceably on the highway, when he was wantonly assailed by two armed men,” answered Bernard. “While he was beating these men back, there came that way a certain traveller, who, seeing him hard pressed, straight rode up to his succour. By this cavalier was the man deceased put to the sword; and the other, without waiting a further issue, thereupon made off.”