"Why, may it please your majesty," replied Lakyn, "I do think the man said true in that, for knowing that I was bearing a letter to your Majesty's Court from the Lady Arabella Stuart,--that is, not to say that he did know it, but he might, for all I can say to the contrary.--However, he followed me all the way down from Cambridgeshire, and as there were more people with him, I can't help thinking it was a plot to get the letter and see the contents."
"Ha!" cried the King, turning pale--"a plot already? Did we not tell you, Sir Robert, did we not tell you, Taylor, that it would not be long first?--Why, what's the matter there? The man seems to have tumbled down," and he pointed with his hand to the other side of the room, where there was a good deal of bustle about the spot where the personage who called himself Winter had been standing in custody of a pursuivant.
"What's the matter there, I say?" cried the King. "Will nobody answer their Sovereign Lord and Master?"
"It is the priest, your Majesty," said the pursuivant; "he has fallen down in a swoon, after complaining much of the heat."
"Let him take care that he get not to a hotter place," answered James; "but take him out, man, take him out, and keep him in the ante-room till further orders.--Now, man, what is this you tell me?" he continued, turning to Lakyn; "a plot, did you say?"
Lakyn, according to the King's command, and in answer to his manifold questions, detailed all that had occurred since he had left Sir Harry West's house, and the reasons which made him suspect that he had been watched and pursued. On one point, however, it must be acknowledged, he was not quite sincere with the King, never hinting the slightest suspicion that the man whom he had seen in the King's presence under the name of Winter, was one of those by whom he had been dogged.
The truth is, however, that good Matthew Lakyn had, in common with other Englishmen, a great respect for the laws of the land, and loved not to see them violated, whether by King or commoner. James's dealing with the man Slingsby had shocked all his notions of an Englishman's rights and privileges; and he was resolved that he would not willingly bring another under the rod of a monarch who seemed inclined to make such an arbitrary use of his power. His account seemed to give the King great satisfaction, however; for there are many men whose minds, like the body of a ferret, are so constituted as to find themselves most at ease when twisting in and out, through long and intricate holes; and nothing pleased the first of our Stuart race so much as tracing the small lines and narrow connexions of any plot or intrigue.
While making these inquiries, the King had drawn forth the letter of the Lady Arabella, and kept turning it in his hand with an evident inclination to open it, although he must have seen clearly that it was not addressed to himself. The presence of Cecil, however, restrained him from the pitiful act; and after one or two woful looks of irresolution, after thrusting his hand once or twice into his pocket, and twitching the ties of his stuffed doublet, he gave the letter to his English councillor, saying, "There, Sir Robert, there! This epistle is addressed to you, though by my soul, man,--" and he added an oath which for so pious a monarch was neither very reverent nor cleanly,--"I know not why our cousin has not addressed herself to us. Read, read, man; and let us hear the contents as far as may be in discretion."
Cecil immediately took the letter, and without displaying in any degree the hesitation which he really felt, he merely opened it, and having spread it forth, put it into the king's hand.
"Well and dutifully done, Sir Robert," said James, with a gracious inclination of the head, and then commenced reading as follows in a tone which, though somewhat subdued, rendered the words audible to those who were immediately about his person, commenting from time to time, as he proceeded, after his own peculiar fashion.