A faint smile came upon William's countenance, and he said, "Go on.
What happened next?"
"Before we could make our escape from the house," replied Wilton, "we were stopped by a large party of men, who entered; and, principally instigated by Sir John Fenwick, who was one of them, they opposed, in a violent manner, our departure."
Hitherto Wilton had been very careful of his speech, unwilling to compromise any one, and especially unwilling to mention the name of Lord Sherbrooke, the Lady Helen Oswald, or anybody else except the conspirators who had taken a part in the events of that night. Now, however, when he had to dwell principally upon the conduct of the conspirators and himself; he did so more boldly, and gave a full account of all that had been said and done till the entrance of the Duke of Berwick. He knew, or rather divined, from what had already passed, that this was in reality the point to which the examination he underwent principally tended. But yet he spoke with more ease, for, notwithstanding the danger which existed at that moment in acknowledging any communication whatsoever with Jacobites, he well knew that the conduct of the Duke of Berwick himself only required to be truly reported, to be admired by every noble and generous mind; and he felt conscious that in his own behaviour he had only acted as became an upright and an honourable heart. He detailed then, particularly, the fact of his having seen one of his opponents in the act of pointing a pistol at him over the shoulder of their principal spokesman: he mentioned his having cocked his own pistol to fire in return, and he stated that at the time he felt perfectly sure his life was about to be made a sacrifice to apprehensions of discovery on the part of the conspirators; and he then related to the King how he had seen a stranger enter and strike up the muzzle of the pistol pointed at him, at the very moment the other was in the act of firing.
"The ball," he said, "passed through the window above my head, and seeing that new assistance had come to my aid, I did not fire."
"Stay, stay!" said the King. "Let me ask you a question or two first.
Did you see, in the course of all this time, the person called Sir
George Barkley amongst these conspirators?"
"I saw a person, sire," replied Wilton, "whom I believed at the time to be Sir George Barkley, and have every reason to believe so still."
"And this person who came to your assistance so opportunely was not the same?" demanded the King.
"Not the least like him, sire," replied Wilton. "He was a young gentleman, of six or seven and twenty, I imagine, but certainly no more than thirty."
"What was his name?" demanded the King.
"The name he gave," replied Wilton, "was Captain Churchill."