"I believe I made a mistake," replied the boy, "I took you—your Highness, I should say—for one Major Wellmore."
"We know you to be a faithful watchman, but it remains to be proved if you are an honest witness. Canst tell how came about this business, and how Sir Willmott Burrell escaped, and took refuge there?"
"It was always settled, please your Highness, that, if any thing happened, whoever could was to fire off the trains, which were always ready laid, to make an ending when needed: we little thought that there was any living being within the nest; but Sir Willmott had access to many of the cells, being as deep in their secrets as other resorters to this place—only he never had the bravery of the free trade about him, seeing he was far from honest."
Springall observed not the warning finger of Robin Hays, nor heard the murmured sentence of caution that fell upon his ear from the lips of Walter Cecil. Although he had assumed an attitude of daring, his whole thoughts were fixed on the Protector. He was proceeding in the same strain, when Cromwell interrupted him.
"Peace, youngster! it is ill from one who has committed evil, like yourself, to speak evil of the living, much less the dead;—it was you, we take it, who reduced this place to destruction?"
"Please your Highness, I did."
"You and another?"
"Well, sir, there was another: but he's gone—no use in trying to find him, he's away. If," added the young man, with his usual recklessness, "there should be punishment for destroying a wasp's nest, your Highness shall see that I will bear it as well as——"
The Protector again interrupted the youth's eloquence by adding, "As well as you did the hanging over yonder bay? No, no—we can discriminate, by God's blessing, between the young of the plundering fox and the cub of a lion: both are destructive, but the one is mean and cowardly: the other—it shall be our care to train the other to nobler purposes."
Springall raised his eyes, almost for the first time, from the ground, and started at seeing his friends standing on a level with the Protector. Robin's cheek was blanched, and his ken wandered over the blazing gulf which had swallowed up the dwelling of his early years.