Without a moment's hesitation the parson pledged his oath, that, to the best of his belief, he had answered accurately.
“That is well, sir. And now, though it grieve me to cause you some slight discomfort, I must ensure your silence, my friend.”
And, placing his sword upon the table, he passed behind the Puritan, and taking the man's own scarf, he effectively gagged him with it.
“Now, Kenneth,” said he, turning to the lad. Then he stopped abruptly as if smitten by a sudden thought. Presently—“Kenneth,” he continued in a different tone, “a while ago I mind me you said that were your liberty restored you, you would join hands with me in punishing the evildoers who wrecked my life.”
“I did, Sir Crispin.”
For a moment the knight paused. It was a vile thing that he was about to do, he told himself, and as he realized how vile, his impulse was to say no more; to abandon the suddenly formed project and to trust to his own unaided wits and hands. But as again he thought of the vast use this lad would be to him—this lad who was the betrothed of Cynthia Ashburn—he saw that the matter was not one hastily to be judged and dismissed. Carefully he weighed it in the balance of his mind. On the one hand was the knowledge that did they succeed in making good their escape, Kenneth would naturally fly for shelter to his friends the Ashburns—the usurpers of Castle Marleigh. What then more natural than his taking with him the man who had helped him to escape, and who shared his own danger of recapture? And with so plausible a motive for admission to Castle Marleigh, how easy would not his vengeance become? He might at first wean himself into their good graces, and afterwards—
Before his mental eyes there unfolded itself the vista of a great revenge; one that should be worthy of him, and commensurate with the foul deed that called for it.
In the other scale the treacherous flavour of this method weighed heavily. He proposed to bind the lad to a promise, the shape of whose fulfilment he would withhold—a promise the lad would readily give, and yet, one that he must sooner die than enter into, did he but know what manner of fulfilment would be exacted. It amounted to betraying the lad into a betrayal of his friends—the people of his future wife. Whatever the issue for Crispin, 'twas odds Kenneth's prospect of wedding this Cynthia would be blighted for all time by the action into which Galliard proposed to thrust him all unconscious.
So stood the case in Galliard's mind, and the scales fell now on one side, now on the other. But against his scruples rose the memory of the treatment which the lad had meted out to him that night; the harshness of the boy's judgment; the irrevocable contempt wherein he had clearly seen that he was held by this fatuous milksop. All this aroused his rancour now, and steeled his heart against the voice of honour. What was this boy to him, he asked himself, that he should forego for him the accomplishing of his designs? How had this lad earned any consideration from him? What did he owe him? Naught! Still, he would not decide in haste.
It was characteristic of the man whom Kenneth held to be destitute of all honourable principles, to stand thus in the midst of perils, when every second that sped lessened their chances of escape, turning over in his mind calmly and collectedly a point of conduct. It was in his passions only that Crispin was ungovernable, in violence only that he was swift—in all things else was he deliberate.