“Master Trevor; I want you to be witness—see and hear for yourself how your Cavaliers and King’s officers comport themselves. If I mistake not, you’ll have an opportunity now.”
In the words, as well as tone, was conveyed an insinuation which, ten days before, Eustace Trevor would have resented by drawing sword; all the more that his own kinsman came in for a share of it. He had no thoughts of doing so now. Since then his sentiments, social as political, had undergone a remarkable change; and he but answered the observation by pressing in to the window, till his face almost touched the glass.
By this Lunsford had halted, and formed his troop from flank to line, fronting the house. The movement brought the cousins face to face at close distance, Eustace bowing in a frank, familiar manner. The cold, distant nod vouchsafed in return would have surprised and perplexed him but for a suspicion of the cause. His own conscience had whispered it.
All this while was Ambrose Powell standing in the porch, just as when he gave reception to Reginald Trevor delivering that letter of Privy Seal so contemptuously torn up. Nor looked he now repentant for having torn it; instead, defiant as ever. For he had cast his eyes over and beyond the men in uniform, taken stock of those out of it, compared numbers, and made mental estimate of the chances for a successful resistance. A word, too, had reached him from inside; spoken from the door of the withdrawing-room by Sir Richard Walwyn. So that when Colonel Lunsford approached, in the swaggering way he had been accustomed to in the Low Country, he was met with a firm front and look of calm defiance. It all the more irritated the King’s officer, thinking of him he had observed inside; and with the soldiers at his back, supposing himself master of the situation, all the more determined him to show his teeth.
“You are Ambrose Powell, I take it?” were his first words, spoken without even the ceremony of a salute, as he brought his horse’s head between the supporting columns of the porch.
“Ambrose Powell I am, sir,” responded the Master of Hollymead. “If you doubt my identity,” he added, in his old satirical tone, “I refer you to the gentleman by your side. He knows me, if I mistake not.”
This was a shaft shot at Reginald Trevor, further stinging him, too. But it was not his place to reply; and he bore it in sullen silence.
“Oh!” lightly ejaculated Lunsford, “it don’t need the formality of Captain Trevor’s endorsement. I’ll take it for granted you’re the man I want.”
He spoke as might a policeman of modern days about to “run in” some unfortunate infringer of the laws.
“The man you want! And pray what for?”