Cromwell bit his nether lip, and passed his hand quickly across his brow.
“I did not think that bluff old man was a plotter. They told me that he was turned hunter again; but it is me that they would hunt. My soul is as a partridge on the mountains: they hunt for the precious life;—but,” he added (recovering the tone which a gloomy and passing emotion had discomposed), “it is the Lord: it is he that hath called me. I am his servant, and no weapon formed against me can prosper. Who are these that would disturb a peace which the Lord giveth, and kindle again the fires of a civil war which I have been commanded to extinguish? and so thou livest near this merry old hunter that would have my life?”
“My Lord, it is not so: the bishop meddleth not with any public affairs, and I have never seen him smile since the sad end of his royal master. No, sir, he doth only hunt for health and diversion of his mind, which is ever occupied at home in dull cares and grave studies.”
“That soundeth true of him. I do remember that he was accounted honest; and that, from his youth, he had a body comely and quick—apt for that manly sport;—but still, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who may know it?’—How long is it since thy cousin was at Cottesmore?”
“He was never there.”
“Is this true?”
“I would be sorry to utter any thing which might, by possibility, be proved mistaken; but, to my knowledge, he was never there.”
“And how long, then, is it since you have seen him?”
“It is many years since I have seen him; nor for these two years have I even heard of him.”
“He was an officer of the Parliament?”