“I know that I am speaking like a loyal officer of the king, Sir Henry, and that if I did my duty I should arrest you at once on a charge of high treason.”
“And get my head chopped off, eh, Hilary? Rather comical that would be, my boy, for a prisoner to arrest his visitor, and keep him in prison with him; but how would you manage to give him up to the law?”
Hilary bit his lip. Certainly it did seem laughable for him, a prisoner, to talk in such a way as that, and he felt vexed, and looked uneasily at his visitor; but he brightened up directly as he felt that he had shown his loyalty to the king he served.
“So you believe in the Dutchman, Hilary?”
“I don’t understand you, Sir Henry,” said the young man.
“I say you believe in the Dutchman—the man you call George the Second—the Pretender.”
“I do not believe in the Pretender,” exclaimed Hilary quickly.
“Don’t quibble, my boy,” said Sir Henry smiling. “You call my sovereign the Pretender, and that is what I call the man you serve. Good heavens, boy! how could you devote your frank young life to such a service?”
Hilary had finished all he wanted of the chicken, and he sat and gazed in the baronet’s face.
“Well,” said the latter, “what are you thinking?”