“Yes.”
“Now, Maurice, be careful about your answer to my next question. Did you take the clothes off Captain Twinely?”
“Yes.”
“And was that part of the scheme entirely your own? Did the idea originate with you or with the prisoner whom you helped to escape?”
“It was my idea.”
“I apologise to you, Maurice. I did you an injustice. You have a certain sense of humour. It is not perhaps of the most refined kind, still you have, no doubt, provided a joke which will appeal to the officers’ mess in Belfast, Dublin, and elsewhere; which will be told after dinner in most houses in the county for many a year to come. And now, General Clavering, I presume there is no more to be said. I wish you good morning.”
“Stop a minute,” said General Clavering, “you cannot seriously suppose that your son, simply because he is your son, is to be allowed to interfere with the course of justice?”
“Of justice?” asked Lord Dunseveric in a tone of mild surprise.
“With His Majesty’s officers in the execution of their duty—that is, to release prisoners whom I have condemned—I, the general in command charged with the suppression of an infamous rebellion. Your son, my lord, will have to abide the consequences of his acts.”
“Maurice,” said Lord Dunseveric, “it is evident that you are going to be hanged. General Clavering is going to hang you. It is really providential that you didn’t steal his breeches. He would probably have flogged you first and hanged you afterwards if you had.”