"What be these tidings?" inquired Arundel, noticing that the speaker hesitated.
"I neither am, nor desire to be, in the confidence of the government," answered Colonel McMahon, haughtily, the wounds inflicted on whose loyalty by the mutilation of the standard, were not yet healed; "and the information I have is derived from a private source and uncertain rumor. For the former, the Knight is pointed at as an agent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges; for the latter, it becomes me not to heed the idle chatter of the vulgar."
"Comports it with your sense of propriety to reveal more?" asked Arundel.
"Were I never so desirous," said the Colonel, courteously, "I should be unable. In fact, what I have told is the sum of my knowledge. I could, indeed, indulge in surmises based on rumor, but that were too much like the gossiping of old women, and both unbecoming in me to speak and in you to hear, more especially as that rumor attaints in other respects the fair fame of your friend. It is different with the base-born scullions around us, who are licensed to utter whatever their unruly imaginations may conceive; but a gentleman will not allow epithets upon his tongue to the disparagement of another, which, after all, may be false."
Having thus spoken, the Colonel raised his steeple-crowned hat in a formal manner, slightly bending his body, and walked up to the landlord, to whom he paid his score, and then left the apartment.
"I will endure this no longer," said Arundel to himself, putting on his own hat. "I will seek the Governor immediately, and demand from him its explanation."
Upon arriving at the house of Winthrop, he learned, with a feeling of disappointment, that the Governor was absent on a visit at Plymouth, and he turned reluctantly away, in order to communicate to the rough Dudley, instead of the polished chief magistrate, the result of the mission, and to obtain that information which would enable him to give shape to the chaotic rumors.
He was received with neither cordiality nor incivility by the Deputy Governor, to whom the young man communicated the success of the conciliatory efforts of Sir Christopher with the Taranteens, and at the same time delivered the Knight's message. His auditor listened in grim silence, interrupting him by no inquiry, nor did he, when the communication was finished, vouchsafe a word of thanks for the service rendered. Dudley had been a soldier in his youth, having received a captain's commission from Queen Elizabeth, and commanded a company of volunteers under the chivalrous Henry Fourth of France, at the siege of Amiens, in 1597; and, if he had not the quality of frankness by nature, had acquired an appearance of it in the camp, together with a military decision and roughness of manner. It was not his wont to disguise his feelings, and on the present occasion they were obvious, even before he opened his lips to speak. When Arundel had concluded, he waited for the comments of the Deputy, nor had he to wait long. First, however, Dudley inquired,
"Is there nothing more thou wouldst communicate?"
"If there be any thing of importance or of public concern omitted, it is done unwittingly," said Arundel.