“You,” continued Scarthe, speaking to the other trooper, who had entered with him, “you set about collecting those papers. Secure that valise. It appears to need no further packing. See that it be taken to Bulstrode. Search every room in the house; and bring out any arms or papers you may light upon. You know your work. Do it briskly!”
With like alacrity the second attendant hastened to perform the part allotted to him; and Scarthe was for the moment left to himself.
“I should be more hungry,” muttered he, “after these documents, I see scattered about, were I in need of them. No doubt there’s many a traitor’s name inscribed on their pages: and enough besides to compromise half the squires in the county. More than one, I warrant me, through this silent testimony, would become entitled to a cheap lodging in that grand tenement eastward of Cheap. It’s a sort of thing I don’t much relish; though now I’m into it, I may as well make a wholesale sweep of these conspiring churls. As for Holtspur and Sir Marmy, I need no written evidence of their guilt. My own oral testimony, conjoined with that of my worthy sub, will be sufficient to deprive one—or both, if need be—of their heads. So—to the devil with the documents!”
As he said this, he turned scornfully away from the table on which the papers were strewed.
“Stay!” he exclaimed—the instant after facing round again, with a look that betokened some sudden change in his views; “Not so fast, Richard Scarthe! Not so fast! Who knows that among this forest of treasonous scribbling, I may not find some flower of epistolary correspondence—a billet-doux. Ha! if there should be one from her! Strange, I did not think of it before. If—if—if—”
In the earnestness, with which he proceeded to toss over the litter of letters and other documents, his hypothetical thought, whatever it was, remained unspoken.
For several minutes he busied himself among the papers—opening scores of epistles—in the expectation of finding one in a feminine hand, and bearing the signature: “Marion Wade.”
He was disappointed. No such name was to be found among the correspondents of Henry Holtspur. They were all of the masculine gender—all, or nearly all, politicians and conspirators!
Scarthe was about discontinuing his search—for he had opened everything in the shape of a letter—when a document of imposing aspect attracted his attention. It bore the royal signet upon its envelope.
“By the eyes of Argus!” cried he, as his own fell upon the well-known seal; “What see I? A letter from the King! What can his majesty have to communicate to this faithful subject, I wonder? Zounds! ’tis addressed to myself!”