“No, my lord, I do not!” cried Dunne indignantly.
“Alackaday! Art precise in that,” sneered the judge. “But thou canst travel on Sundays to lead rogues into lurking-holes.”
Later, when to implicate the prisoner, it was sought to draw from Dunne a full account of the reception she had given his companions, his terror under the bullying to which he was subjected made him contradict himself more flagrantly than ever. Jeffreys addressed the jury.
“You see, gentlemen, what a precious fellow this is; a very pretty tool to be employed upon such an errand; a knave that nobody would trust for half a crown. A Turk has more title to an eternity of bliss than these pretenders to Christianity.”
And as there was no more to be got from Dunne just then, he was presently dismissed, and Barter's damning evidence was taken. Thereafter the wretched Dunne was recalled, to be bullied by Jeffreys in blasphemous terms that may not be printed here.
Barter had told the Court how my lady had come into the kitchen with Dunne, and how, when he had afterwards questioned Dunne as to why they had whispered and laughed together, Dunne told him she had asked “If he knew aught of the business.” Jeffreys sought now to wring from Dunne what was this business to which he had so mysteriously alluded—this with the object of establishing Lady Lisle's knowledge of Hicks's treason.
Dunne resisted more stubbornly than ever. Jeffreys, exasperated—since without the admission it would be difficult to convict her ladyship—invited the jury to take notice of the strange, horrible carriage of the fellow, and heaped abuse upon the snivelling, canting sect of which he was a member. Finally, he reminded Dunne of his oath to tell the truth, and addressed him with a sort of loving ferocity.
“What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” bellowed that terrible judge, his eyes aflame. “Is not this the voice of Scripture itself? And wilt thou hazard so dear and precious a thing as thy soul for a lie? Thou wretch! All the mountains and hills of the world heaped upon one another will not cover thee from the vengeance of the Great God for this transgression of false-witness bearing.”
“I cannot tell what to say, my lord,” gasped Dunne.
In his rage to see all efforts vain, the judge's language became that of the cockpit. Recovering at last, he tried gentleness again, and very elaborately invited Dunne, in my lady's own interest, to tell him what was the business to which he had referred to Barter.