"I will be gaoler no longer," he said, after a long pause; "this sweet girl is shamefully ill-treated; and if an Englishman's rights and liberties be really valuable, they should be as dear to me in the person of another as of myself. I have served this King well enough, without having this task thrust upon me. I will be a gaoler no longer, and so I'll tell the King to-morrow when I see him."
"What are you muttering there, Conyers?" asked his wife, who was still sitting at the table.
"I was saying, Joan," replied Mr. Conyers, "that I have had enough of a bad and disgraceful task, which no one had a right to force upon me, without even asking my consent. Let the servants know, that the strict watch which I have seen kept up, without my orders, displeases me."
"But it was by the King's orders," replied the lady, "and you forget that you lose all chance of promotion, if you disobey."
"Out upon promotion at such a price!" replied her husband. "I have yielded to this too long. I am not a turnkey; my servants are not spies, or, if they are, they shall stay no longer here. If the King must have such vermin, let him keep them himself, I will not. What right had he to impose such a trade upon me? and as I have never promised to obey, I will do so no more. I even reproach myself that I have done it so long already. The grief of the sweet lady touches me. Were she harsh and vehement, proud and indignant under injustice, I might feel it less; but she bears her wrongs with such gentle meekness, even when she feels them most poignantly, that it were a base heart indeed which did not share her sorrow and take its part with her."
"Well, Conyers," answered the lady, "I grieve for her, too; but I see no cause why you should sacrifice yourself for others; and you must recollect that if she were anywhere else she might be treated still more harshly."
"That comforts me for the past," answered her husband, "If I had refused to receive her, others would have been found to undertake any base work that a king may require of a subject; but I can bear it no longer; and at all events none shall give orders in my house but myself.--Baldock," he continued, as a servant entered to clear the table, "call the men and women of the household hither. My own, I mean, not the Lady Arabella's people."
The servant retired, and Mr. Conyers walked with a hasty step up and down the room, still murmuring to himself, "It is too much."
In a few minutes the greater part of the household, which, as was the case in every gentleman's establishment of those days, was about five times as numerous as at present, was arrayed at the further end of the room, displaying a number of somewhat anxious faces; for their master's summons had been accompanied by an intimation from him who bore it, that Mr. Conyers seemed somewhat angry.
"Shut the door," said that gentleman. "Now mark me, men and maids. I have seen things that I dislike. No matter what. But a spy is a thing I dislike, a base unworthy animal, which I will drive forth from my house like mice or rats, or any other vermin. Let me have none of them, or if I catch them, beware their ears.--You all know me well. I love my people as my own family, while they are honest and true; but no person, not the highest in the land, has a right to give orders in this house but myself, and if those orders are disgraceful to a good man of an upright heart, I will find means to punish him who obeys them. You all understand me, so away without a word."