De Guerre was particularly struck, during the brief repast that followed, by the extraordinary change in the manner of his companion, who, from being an animated and sensible speaker, upon matters connected with the state, had become more like a mystified and mystifying preacher than a soldier, but whose out-pourings were listened to with reverence and attention by the company. The Cavalier felt himself ill at ease in his presence, and but for a governing motive, hereafter to be explained, would have withdrawn from the house when the supper was concluded, despite the specious invitation, and much pressing to remain; he, however, accepted the apartment provided for him by Sir Robert Cecil. The ladies, attended by their women, withdrew immediately afterwards, and, as Lady Frances kissed her friend's cheek, she whispered,—
"Didst see how Major—plague upon me to forget his name—eyed both you and the handsome stranger?" And then she whispered so as to be quite inaudible, ending by saying—while Constantia affectionately pressed her hand,—
"Ah! those holy eyes of blue, remaining so silent and so fixed, do more mischief than my poor little brown ones, that are ever roaming about seeking what they can devour, but securing no prey."
CHAPTER X.
With that smooth falsehood, whose appearance charms,
And reason of each wholesome doubt disarms;
Which to the lowest depths of guilt descends,
By vilest means pursues the vilest ends.
Wears friendship's mask for purposes of spite,
Fawns in the day and butchers in the night.
Churchill.
The dwelling of Sir Willmott Burrell was about eighteen or twenty miles from the island of Shepey, on the Kentish border. The mysterious companion of De Guerre had correctly stated, that at the period of his introduction to the Cecil family the youth had little chance of meeting with his treacherous antagonist of the evening on which the remains of Lady Cecil were consigned to the tomb; the knight having been, for some days previous, occupied upon certain weighty affairs within his own house. A bad landlord can never succeed in convincing his tenantry that he is a good man. The presence of Sir Willmott was by no means desirable to his poorer neighbours and dependents, by whom he was at once dreaded and disliked. Rarely, indeed, was it that a blessing ever followed the mention of his name; and, although his influence and authority were such as to render it dangerous to murmur against the one, or oppose the other, Sir Willmott had ample reason to know that he was nowhere surrounded by so many secret enemies as when residing upon his hereditary estate. The domestics who had served his progenitors had long been dismissed, and their places supplied by more subservient creatures, and more willing panders to the vices that had increased with his increasing years. Although he had taken especial care to surround himself with knaves of great apparent devotion, in order that his character might not suffer in the estimation of the few really religious personages by whom he was occasionally visited, it required considerable care to prevent their exposing, by their own depravity, the gross and iniquitous life which their master led. It is seldom that a uniform hypocrite is found among the uneducated; a more than ordinary degree of talent and prudence being necessary to sustain a character that is but assumed. Nature may be suppressed by habitual caution; but the meaner, though not the baser, villain, finds appetite too strong for even interest to control. The household of Sir Willmott Burrell was ill-governed, and the lessons which the master sometimes taught, but never practised, the servants neglected or—despised. The butler, the housekeeper, the steward, and the numerous insubordinate subordinates were evermore in a state of riot and debauchery: the evil had at length grown to such a pitch, that Burrell saw its danger, and more than once resolved to adopt the only remedy, and discharge them altogether; but upon such occasions, he overlooked one very important circumstance, namely, that he was in their power, and was consequently any thing but a free agent in his own house. Burrell knew himself in their toils, and at their mercy. Large sums of money might, perhaps, have purchased their silence, but such a mode of procuring safety was now beyond his reach; and although deeply desirous to rid himself of them before his marriage with Constantia Cecil, he scarcely conceived it possible to escape from their trammels, without subtracting from the fortune that was to accompany her hand. He dreaded the danger of confiding his difficulties to Sir Robert Cecil, by whom they were unsuspected; and his fine property was so considerably mortgaged, as to render an appeal to his ancient friends, the usurers, a matter of much difficulty, if not totally useless. Manasseh Ben Israel, indeed, he knew had an inexhaustible store, and a not unready hand, as he had upon more than one occasion, experienced; but, villain as he was, he shrank from the idea of applying to him for assistance, at the very moment when he was thrusting the iron into his soul.
Burrell was seated alone in his library, musing over the labyrinth from which he saw no immediate prospect of escape; plan succeeding plan, as, unnoticed by him, the twilight had deepened into the night. His doors were ordered to be locked at an early hour—a command which, it is to be supposed, the servants obeyed or disobeyed according to their own pleasure.
The Lords' Commissioners, Fiennes and Lisle, who were travelling round the country on special business, had been his visiters for three or four days; and on the evening on which they took their departure, he was, as we have described him, musing in his library, upon no very amicable terms with himself, when his reverie was broken by a knock against the glass of an oriel window that was sunk deep into an embrasure of the wall. He started from his seat, and was so alarmed at perceiving the face of a man close to the fretted frame-work, as to draw forth a pistol, and present it towards the intruder. In an instant the shivered fragments of an exquisitely tinted pane flew into the library, and a voice exclaimed,—