Holles told him without preamble.
“And so your grace perceives,” he ended, “that I am now not only in danger of starving, but of hanging.”
His grace had not moved throughout the rendering of that account. Now at last he stirred. He turned from his visitor, and sauntered slowly away in thought.
“But what an imprudence,” he said at last, “for a man in your position to have had relations, however slight, with these wretched fifth-monarchy dogs! It is to put a halter about your neck.”
“Yet there was no wrong in those relations. Tucker was an old brother-in-arms. Your grace has been a soldier and knows what that means. It is true that he tempted me with proposals. I admit it, since that can no longer hurt him. But those proposals I incontinently refused.”
His grace smiled a little. “Do you imagine that the Justices will believe you when you come to tell them that?”
“Seeing that my name is Randal Holles, and that a vindictive government would be glad of any pretext to stretch the neck of my father’s son, I do not. That is why I describe my state as desperate. I am a man moving in the shadow of the gallows.”
“Sh! Sh!” the Duke reproved him gently. “You must not express yourself in such terms, Colonel. Your very tone savours of disloyalty. And you are unreasonable. If you were really loyal, there was a clear duty which you would not have neglected. When first this proposal was made to you, whatever your friendship for Tucker, you should have gone straight to the Justices and laid information of this plot.”
“Your grace advises something that in my own case you would not have performed. But even had I acted so, how should I have compelled belief? I knew no details of this plot. I was not in a position to prove anything. It would have been my bare word against Tucker’s, and my name alone would have discredited me. My action might have been regarded as an impudent attempt to earn the favour of the powers in being. It might even, in some tortuous legal manner, have been construed against me. Therefore I held my peace.”
“Your assurance is enough for me,” said his grace amiably. “And God knows I perceive your difficulty, and how you have been brought into your present danger. Our first care must be to deliver you from this. You must do at last what should have been done long since. You must go before the Justices, and frankly state the case as you have stated it to me.”