"Why, I thought, young gentleman," replied William, "that before this time you were married to the pretty heiress."
"Oh no, sire," replied Wilton, with a sad smile, "that is entirely out of the question. Such a report got abroad in the world, but I have neither station, fortune, rank, nor any other advantage to entitle me to such a hope."
"And you, Colonel," said the King, turning towards Green, "is this the object of your coming also?"
"It is, sire," answered Green, advancing. "But first of all permit me to do an act that I have never done before, and kissing your majesty's hand, to acknowledge that I feel you are and will be King of England. May I add more, that you are worthy of being so."
The King was evidently pleased and struck. "I am glad to see," he answered, holding out his hand to Green, "that we have reclaimed one Jacobite."
"Sire," answered Green, kissing the King's hand, but without rising, "my affections are not easily changed, and may remain with another house; but it were folly to deny any longer your sovereignty, and," he added, the moment after, "it would be treachery henceforth to do anything against it.—And now, sire," he continued, "let me urge most earnestly this young gentleman's petition, and let it be at my suit that the Duke's liberation is granted. Wilton here may have many petitions yet to present to your majesty on his own account. I shall never have any; and as your majesty told me to claim a boon at your hands, and promised to grant me anything that was not unreasonable, I beseech you to grant me, as not an unreasonable request, the full pardon and liberation of a man who this young gentleman, and I, and Sir John Fenwick, and I think your majesty too, well know would as soon have attempted anything against your majesty's life as he would have sacrificed his own. This is the boon I crave, this is the petition I have to present, and I hope and trust that you will grant my request."
"And have you nothing else, Colonel, to demand on your own account?" said the King, gravely.
"Nothing, sire," replied Green: "I make this my only request."
"What!" said the King, after giving a glance as playful, perhaps, as any glance could be upon the countenance of William III. "Is this the only request? I have seen in English history, since it became my duty to study it, a number of precedents of general pardons, granted under the great seal, by monarchs my predecessors, to certain of their subjects who have done some good service, for all crimes, misdemeanours, felonies, et cetera, committed in times previous. Now, sir, from a few things I have heard, it has struck me that such a patent would be not at all inexpedient in your own case, and I expected you to ask it."
"I have not, and I do not ask it, sire," replied Green, in the same grave tone with which he had previously spoken. "I may have done many things that are wrong, sire, but I have neither injured, insulted, nor offended any one whom I knew to be a true subject of the Prince I considered my lawful King. Possessing still his commission, I believed myself at liberty to levy upon those who were avowedly his enemies, the rents of that property whereof they had deprived me fighting in his cause.—Sire, I may have been wrong in my view, and I believe I have been so. I speak not in my own justification, therefore. My head is at your feet if you choose to take it: death has no terrors for me; life has no charms. I stay as long as God wills it: when he calls me hence, it matters little what way I take my departure. My request, sire, is for the liberation of the Duke, who, believe me, is perfectly innocent; and I earnestly entreat your majesty not to keep him longer within the walls of a prison, which to the heart of an Englishman is worse than death itself."