"Come this way, sir," said the man, with a suspicious look round at his other customers; and he led the way to his own especial little room, the door of which he carefully locked as soon as they had entered. "I believe I may trust you, sir," said the landlord; "and it will be a relief to speak without fearing that my Lord Privy Seal's spies will report what I have said, if I should make a slip."
Sir Miles wondered for a minute whether the inn-keeper was mad; but he reflected that they were not far from help if he was, so he sat down to listen to what the man had to say.
"If you have been living in the country secure among your own people, and know nought of what things are like in London, I should advise you to go back with all the speed you can, for it is not safe for you to be abroad among my Lord's spies."
"Spies!" repeated Sir Miles. And then he suddenly remembered that Wolsey was not above employing this un-English means of attaining his ends; but as he listened to the inn-keeper's account of what was the known practice of the present Lord Privy Seal, Thomas Cromwell, who practically ruled the kingdom as Wolsey had done, he was almost aghast; for it seemed that no man's life or liberty were safe if they stood in the way of this man's plans, which were to make the king such an absolute ruler, that neither the Law nor the Church should stand in the way of his power.
As the inn-keeper went on with his story of how one and another had been arrested and tortured, Sir Miles reflected with bitterness that his late master, the Cardinal, whose memory he revered, had first planted this seed. Wolsey had never ceased to teach other men, and, to the last, inculcate in his own acts, the doctrine that men only held their property at the will of the king, and that if he chose to recall it, he had a perfect right to do so. Wolsey had carried this doctrine into practice, too, by handing over to the king his palace of Whitehall, or York House, and Hampton Court—all the wealth in fact that he had gathered. Aye, surely the last words of the Cardinal were true; for if he had only served God by service to the people of England, instead of devoting all his great powers to the aggrandisement of the king, and the curtailment of English liberty, how much better it would have been for himself, and for the nation.
Painful as it was to listen to such a recital, Sir Miles could not but be thankful for the warning, for it seemed that an incautious word or joke might land him in prison, especially if it seemed to have any bearing on the king's supremacy in matters of faith and religious belief. So he went to his chamber feeling considerably saddened by his talk, but he was too tired with his wearisome journey to keep awake very long; and before he awoke the next morning, Lady Paton and the children were talking of all the wonderful things they were going to see and do when they reached the royal town of Greenwich.
There was no time or opportunity to indulge in gloomy thoughts this bright spring morning, for early as Sir Miles and his party were astir, they could see from their windows that boats and barges were already afloat on the river, and several gay parties of pleasure-seekers had started for Greenwich, or for the cherry gardens that were near, although no promise of cherries were to be seen yet.
"Oh, make haste! make haste!" exclaimed Muriel to her little sister. "There will not be a boat left for us, to go and see our granddame, if you are not quicker. Let us go, mother, now at once," she implored, as she saw another party put off from the shore.
Lady Paton smiled, although she was almost as impatient as her children to be on the river once more, and nearing her old home.
"We must have breakfast first," said their father, "and Bunce has not ridden forth more than an hour to tell the Greenwich folk that we are coming."