“Life of me! Thou dost not confess thy fault—thou dost not say thy pænitet for teaching this false lesson to my child!”
“I would not be slow to speak out my sorrow and shame if I felt them, but I am conscience-whole in this thing,—and my few words did give no other lesson than one of plain humanity.”
“Master Cuthbert, I do believe thee a true and gentle youth, of best intentions, and thou comest of a good stock. Thy father is my good friend from the gladsome days when we were school-fellows together at St. Mary, Winton; and where hath church or state a better parson or better subject than he? therefore, I would for his sake, as for thine own, entreat thee mildly. Youth is warm and tender, and wanting a far sight to the great end of punishment—the axe might rust and the scourge gather cobwebs before hearts like thine would give rogues their due.”
“I am of sterner stuff, Sir Oliver, than to wish a rogue safe from the beadle, or a traitor from the headsman; but I am not so taught as to think the mistakes of a severe piety treasons deserving of torture.”
“Odd’s life! I see how it is—thou art bitten by these gloomy fanatics—the venom is in thy veins:—well for me that I have seen its first workings. By my fathers! these new papists, these worse Carthusians, would drive sunshine from the earth, and kill the flowers, and stop the singing of birds, and give us a world of rock and clouds—hard as their stony hearts, and gloomy as their cold minds! Master Cuthbert, we must part. I’ll not have the path of my boy shadowed over before it be God’s will. The earth is green and goodly, and pleasant to the eyes; and long may his heart rejoice in it, as mine has before him. Look you, we must part.”
“At your pleasure I came, Sir Oliver, and I am ready, at your pleasure, to return to my father’s. My stay with you has been short, and I would fain hope that I have not failed in my duty to you. May you be more fortunate in your choice of a tutor for Master Arthur than you have been in me!”
Cuthbert spoke these words with so much self-command that not one syllable trembled in the utterance; yet the tone was at once mournful and resolved.
The better feelings of Sir Oliver were touched: the expression of his eye showed plainly that he was repenting of his hastiness, relenting in his decision. What his reply might have been, may, in its spirit, be easily imagined; but a sudden interruption checked the words that were rising to his lips; and a sounder and more prudential reason for desiring the departure of Cuthbert was presented to his judgment than any objection which could have been urged at that time, with any semblance of fairness, against his errors as a churchman, or his sins as a subject.
“Master Noble,” called a rich clear voice from above them,—“Master Noble, we poor players do wait your pleasure, and are ready with our parts; but we cannot go on with our rehearsal till the manager doth come to us.” Looking up, Sir Oliver saw his daughter leaning over the balustrade, with a paper in one hand, and a tall wand wreathed with flowers in the other; and, as he turned his eyes upon Cuthbert Noble, the strong emotions with which Cuthbert was evidently struggling did not escape his observation.
“I have business with him just now, Kate,” said her father: “go thy way. He shall come to thee in the hall anon.” But as he spoke, the boy Arthur came down the steps, leading in his hand the little girl; and, running up to Cuthbert with joyous eagerness, cried out, “Kitten can do her part—she can say every word quite perfect—you must hear her.” With that, the little girl letting go his hand, and putting back her sunny curls, which had fallen over her blue eyes, repeated, with an air of sweet intelligence and pretty innocence, these lines:—