“And you could not help the King’s going, I suppose,” said the soldier, “even when he went past your very nose?”
“No, I could not help myself,” said the landlord again.
“And wherefore could you not?”
The soldier’s rage was giving place now to a self-contained harshness which did not distress the landlord to observe.
“I do not know why I could not stay the King’s going,” said the landlord.
“What do you mean?” said the soldier.
“When the King went,” said the landlord, “I was not the master of myself; but, thank God, I am master of myself now.”
“You will soon cease to be,” said the soldier, regarding him with a grim surprise.
“That is as maybe,” said the landlord.
The soldiers crowded about the landlord with sinister intention upon their faces. Captain Culpeper briefly told two of them to procure a rope.