"What other things?"
"Among them, why you live here, and what you hide here."
"And if I will not tell you?"
"There is an old adage that a wizard is ten times worse than a witch, and many a witch hath died during these last twenty years. When King Charles comes to England it will be easy to prove that an old man at Pycroft Hall hath a familiar spirit."
"King Charles!" he cried, and his old eyes sparkled. "Am I afraid of King Charles? I will claim a secret audience with King Charles, and in two short minutes King Charles will obey me like a child."
"Obey you?"
"Ay, obey me. Now, then, do your worst. Fool that I was to be duped by a puling boy like thee, but since I have been a fool, I will e'en pay for it. Thou canst tell thy story—ay, thou canst drag me to Folkestone town. Well, what then? Suppose the ignorant fools which inhabit this countryside cry out for my death? Well, listen—I am Elijah Pycroft—a gentleman, and I can claim to have an ear of the king. And then it will be even as I say. Even King Charles will do the will of old Elijah Pycroft."
He had cast aside all his claims to the supernatural, and had become the clever scheming old man.
"I know what you mean," I replied quietly, "But the thing by which you think to obtain the mastery over the new king doth not exist."
He started to his feet like a man bereft of his senses.