“Signed, Lenthal.”
The astonished colonel made some vapouring protest in speech, but not by action. For the son of Lord Saye and Sele had not come thither unattended. At his back was a posse of stalwart fellows—soldiers, who, that same morning, were under the orders of him now being placed in arrest, but, having learnt there was a change of commanding officers, knew better than to refuse obedience to the new one.
So the deposed governor, forced to part company with his convives, was carried off to prison as a common malefactor. He, too, the son of the Earl of Essex, Lord General of the Parliamentary army—the Parliament itself having ordered it! Verily, these were days when men feared not to arraign and punish—unlucky times for tyrants and traitors! To have concealed a deficit of four thousand pounds in the national exchequer then would have been a more dangerous deception than to waste as many millions now, without being able to render account of them.
Chapter Twenty Two.
The Cadgers on Dangerous Ground.
“Yonner be the big city at last! Glad I am. Ain’t you that, Jinkum?”
It was Jerky Jack who spoke, the exclamation meant for his sister, who was with him, the interrogation addressed to the donkey.
They were not upon any of the Forest roads, but quite on the other side of the Severn, trudging along towards Bristol, the big city whose spires Jack had caught sight of.