Say what we will of the gloom of gathering night, it is as nothing to the grimness of the gray dawn. Night swallows up detail. The facts of one's life seen in midnight hours may look tragic; but they are large and vague, with somewhat of the vastness of eternity. In the morning they stand out in all their bare, shabby pettiness, and we shrink back appalled from the tasks of the coming day.
As Neville woke he felt a hand upon his breast, and looking up saw Philpotts standing over him with a grave face.
"They've come for you, Master Neville."
"'They?' Who?"
"They are come by the Governor's orders to fetch you away, belike to St. Mary's for trial. Oh, sir, but you'd best have heeded my offer last night and got away while there was time!"
"My good Philpotts, when milk is spilled it is spilled, and there's no good in thinking what fine puddings it would have made. You've done your best for me, like a man. Now go away and forget the whole business. Plant your cabbages in the spring, and water them not with any tears for me!"
"Me go away! Not me, sir! And by good luck it's orders that I'm to be one of the escort to St. Mary's. That is, if 'tis to St. Mary's we're bound; but the orders are sealed, or some flummery like that they talked about, as the paper's not to be opened till we're out in the river."
"Ah! You make me feel like a State character. My importance is rising. Where are the gentlemen? We must not keep them waiting."
A rattle at the door showed that the visitors were growing impatient, and as Neville stepped toward it two men flung it open and entered hastily. One was tall, the other short. Both wore long cloaks and hats pulled rather low over their faces, as though they felt little pride in this charge of their prisoner. In truth, Neville even in his short stay in the colony had made the reputation of a gentleman and a brave man, and there were many that grieved for him, and wondered whether the knife alone were evidence enough to hang a man upon. Moreover, despite the wise and liberal rule of the Lord Proprietor, the Papist-Protestant feeling ran high throughout the length and breadth of Maryland, and the Protestants were ready to a man to swear to Neville's innocence for no other reason than his religion.