“‘Off with his head!—So much for Buckingham.’
“Well, they had their wish, in a manner, a year after; and I always minded after, that Master Felton was one of them.—Poor fellow! He gave me four-pence in silver, when I hadn’t a halfpenny to buy bread in London; and that same morning I saw his Grace of Buckingham in a sedan chair in Whitehall, and I would have tossed my staff before him, in hope of a largess; but his running footmen, with their fine silver badges, shouldered me into the gutter, crying, ‘Room for his Grace! room for my Lord’s Grace!’ Well, it was little room he took or wanted that day was a month! I was very sorry for Master Felton,—and I went to see him hanged.”
“You know he was a murderer.”
“O yes, I know that; but he gave me four-pence when I was starving; and, though he was only a lieutenant, he was a better officer than Buckingham, who was all lace and velvet, satin and feathers:—a likely man to look upon, and did not want courage; but he knew no more about commanding an army than the court fool.”
“Don’t you know, friend, that you must one day die yourself; and that it is a terrible thing to die and go before God without preparation?”
The veteran gave his buff jerkin a twitch, and said, “Why, for the matter of that, Parson, you see, I am no scholar, and cannot tell a B from a bull’s foot.”
“You believe in God?”
“Why, Master, haven’t I lain half my life abroad in the open fields, with the stars shining over my head? Ah, you don’t know what grand things come into a poor fellow’s mind when he wakes in the night and sees them bright things above him.”
“Yes, but I do,” said Noble with emotion; “and it is because I do, that I ask you these things. Do you ever pray to God?”