As the spy crept near, Master Freake stood up, wheeled round on him smartly, and said, "How d'ye do, Turnditch?"
"Stap me!" cried his lordship. "His name's Weir!"
"He will know me better if I call him Turnditch," said Master Freake icily.
He spoke unmistakable truth. I could see the shadow of the gallows fall across the man's face. What stiffening there was in him oozed out, and he stood there wriggling in an agony of apprehension, like a worm in a chicken's beak. Master Freake knew him to the bottom of his muddy soul. My Lord Tiverton was a man of another mould, but he too was in the hands of his master. Plain John Freake, citizen of London, had taken a hand in this game of fate, and had thrown double six.
This noble room had seen the agonizings and rejoicings of a dozen generations of the sons of men, but nothing to surpass this scene in living interest. They come back to me now--the line of blue-and-white troopers, still with levelled carbines; the stolid Welshman, as indifferent as Snowdon; the dapper nobleman, still polished and lightsome, no longer play-acting but rather vaguely anxious; the high-minded troubled Jacobite, fear for his wife and babe gnawing at his heart; the spy, Weir or Turnditch, with the noose he had made for another drawn round his own neck; Master John Freake, the quiet, Quakerlike merchant, whose power was rooted deep in those far haunts of the world's trade, so that we were here shadowed and protected by the uttermost branches thereof. Last of all I remember myself, with my heart thrumming good-morrow to Margaret.
"Come now, Houndsditch, or Turndish, or whatever it is," said his lordship. "Precisely what have you to say?"
The poor devil had nothing to say. He was aflame to be off and out of Master Freake's eyesight. He choked up something about mistakes, and zeal, and forgiveness.
"That's enough! Out you go, the whole damn lot of you!" cried my lord. These not being familiar military words of command, the men stuck there like skittles. "Ground arms, or whatever it is!" he continued. "About turn! Quick march!"
Their sergeant took charge of them and they filed out. Sir James followed them and became their host, routing out servants to wait on them.
As soon as the door was closed on Sir James, his lordship hastened to Master Freake's side, and entered into low and earnest conversation with him. I walked across to the folios, hoping to find amongst them an editio princeps of Virgil, but was recalled by a loud "Oliver" from Master Freake.