“What a strange question! quite well.”
“No, Master Cuthbert, it is not always that a man is well who calls himself so, or even who thinks himself to be so. We are alone; we are friends; tell me what has thus moved you; tell me what it is that has so changed and saddened you; what are the dark purposes which lie hid in your bosom?”
“Methinks this question is yet more strange. I have no purposes that be not honest; none that will not bear the light of open day; but, yet, I may not care to trouble others or myself by babbling of them.”
“Does the blow still rankle in your bosom, Cuthbert? Have you retracted the pardon uttered on your bed? And do you mean to seek out Sir Charles, and make him do battle for your revenge?”
“Master Juxon, that is not well asked: such purpose would be dark, indeed: was not my pardon spoken before God, and at the grave’s mouth? No; I forgave him as I hope to be forgiven; nay, in that it was a stab which sought my life I forgave it more readily than I could have done a blow; that, indeed, such slaves we are of pride, that might have rankled still.”
“True—I had forgotten—and my words have wronged you; but, Cuthbert, whatever are your purposes, they do not make you happy. I met you the other day riding much faster than is your wont, and your countenance was clouded, and your teeth were set, as if in hottest anger, and you would not stop, but only muttered a good morrow as you passed swiftly by. What do all these things mean?”
“They mean that I am sick at heart for England; sick for the meek man’s wrongs. I had just then met an aged countryman, his furrowed cheek newly branded, for a churchyard brawl: I questioned him closely, and found him a sufferer for conscience’ sake, falsely accused and persecuted by a godless parson of his parish.”
“Cuthbert, did the countryman tell truth? Did he name the parish and the parson?”
“He did; I know them well: in Oxfordshire was this outrage done, and the crime is not three months old.”