"This must not be, George," replied the other cavalier.
"Must not be!" thundered Sir George Herrick; "but it shall be! Who shall stay me?"
"Your own better reason and honour, I trust," replied the other. "Hear me--but hear me, Herrick! Your lady mother promised this fellow safety to stay and to go; and upon her promise alone, she says, he staid. Had that promise not been given, we should not have found him here. Will you slay a man by your own hearth, who put confidence in your mother's word? Fie, fie; let him go! We have slain enough this night to let one rebel escape, were he the devil himself."
Sir George Herrick glared round for a moment, in moody silence, and then put up his sword. "Well," said he, at length, "if he staid but on her promise, let him take himself away. He will grace the gibbet some other day. But do not let me see him move across the room," he added, with a look of disgust, "or I shall run my blade through him whether I will or not."
"Come, fellow, get thee gone!" said Henry Lisle, "I will see thee depart;" and while his companion fixed his eyes with stern intensity upon the fireplace, as if not to witness the escape of the roundhead, he led him out of the chamber to the outer door.
The stranger moved forward with a firm calm step, keeping his naked sword still in his hand, and making no comment on the scene in which he had been so principal a performer.
As he passed through the room, however, he kept a wary glance upon Sir George Herrick; but the moment he quitted it, he seemed more at ease, and paused quietly at the door while the boy brought forward his charger. During that pause, he turned no unfriendly look upon Henry Lisle; and seemed as if about to speak more than once. At length he said in a low voice, "Something I would fain say--though God knows we are poor blinded creatures, and see not, what is best for us--of thanks concerning that carnal safety which it may be doubted whether----"
"No thanks are needed," interrupted Henry Lisle, cutting across what promised to be one of the long harangues habitual with the fanatics of that day, "no thanks are needed for safety that is grudgingly awarded. I tell thee plainly, that, had it not been for the lady's promise, I would willingly have aided in hanging thee with my own hands; and, when next we two meet face to face, we shall not part till the life-blood of one or other mark our meeting-place!"
"It may be so, if such be God's will," replied the parliamentarian, "and I pray the Lord to give me strength that I may never be found slack to do the work appointed me."
"Thou hast never been so yet, though it be the work of the evil one," answered Henry Lisle, and then added, "I know thee, though none else here does, or it had fared harder with thee in despite of all promises."