But Dunne continued to evade.
“My lord, I heard a great noise in the house, and did not know what it meant. So I went and hid myself.”
“It is very strange thou shouldst hide thyself for a little noise, when thou knewest nothing of the business.”
Again the witness, with a candle still held close to his nose, complained that he was quite cluttered out of his senses, and did not know what he was saying.
“But to tell the truth would not rob thee of any of thy senses, if ever thou hadst any,” Jeffreys told him angrily. “But it would seem that neither thou nor thy mistress, the prisoner, had any; for she knew nothing of it either, though she had sent for them thither.”
“My lord,” cried her ladyship at that, “I hope I shall not be condemned without being heard.”
“No, God forbid, Mrs. Lisle,” he answered; and then viciously flashed forth a hint of the true forces of Nemesis at work against her. “That was a sort of practice in your late husband's time—you know very well what I mean—but God be thanked it is not so now.”
Came next the reluctant evidence of Carpenter and his wife, and after that there was yet a fourth equally futile attempt to drag from Dunne an admission that her ladyship was acquainted with Hicks's share in the rebellion. But if stupid, Dunne at least was staunch, and so, with a wealth of valedictory invective, Jeffreys dismissed him, and addressed at last the prisoner, inviting her to speak in her own defence.
She rose to do so, fearlessly yet gently.
“My lord, what I have to say is this. I knew of nobody's coming to my house but Mr. Hicks, and for him I was informed that he did abscond by reason of warrants that were out against him for preaching in private meetings; for that reason I sent to him to come by night. But I had never heard that Nelthorp was to come with him, nor what name Nelthorp had till after he had come to my house. I could die upon it. As for Mr. Hicks, I did not in the least suspect that he had been in the army, being a Presbyterian minister that used to preach and not to fight.”