"Your Highness—it is so."
"And you are the son of one Mary or Margery, proprietor of an hostelry, called the Gulls Nest?"
"The son of Margery Hays, as your Highness has said, who, God be thanked! still lives in a quiet corner of the Isle of Shepey, and of her good husband Michael, who has now been dead many years."
"I take it for granted that you know your own mother; but it is a wise son who knows his own father. Impurities are, praised be the Lord! fast fleeing from the land; but they were rife once, rife as blackberries that grow by the roadside. Yet this is nought; what business brought you here?"
"Your Highness knows: I came with the Rabbi Ben Israel."
"Parry not with me," exclaimed the readily-irritated Cromwell.—"I repeat, why came ye here?"
"Your Highness is acquainted with the reason of my coming."
"I do know; but I also choose to know it from yourself. Why came ye here?"
"Just then to seek out one who has fallen into your Highness's clutches; with favour, I would say, under your Highness's care," replied Robin, who felt himself not over comfortably situated.
"His name sir—his name?"