"'How!' said the Duke, 'You do not come dressed as an honest man, but like a spy. If you had been desirous to learn what was passing, your appearance should have been like that of a knight or a decent person.' 'My lord,' answered Tresilian, 'if I have done wrong, I hope you will excuse me, for I have only done what I was bid.' 'And where is your master, the Duke of Ireland?' 'My lord,' said Tresilian, 'he is with the King, my lord.' The Duke then added: 'We have been informed that he is collecting a large body of men, and that the King has issued his summons to that effect. Whither does he mean to lead them?' 'My lord, they are indeed for Ireland.' 'For Ireland!' said the Duke. 'Yes, indeed, as God may help me,' answered Tresilian.
"The Duke mused awhile, and then spoke: 'Tresilian, Tresilian, your actions are neither fair nor honest. You have committed a great piece of folly in coming to these parts, where you are far from being loved, as will shortly be shown to you. Yes, and others of your faction have done what has greatly displeased my brother and myself, and have ill-advised the King, whom you have stirred up to quarrel with his chief nobility. In addition, you have excited the principal towns against us. The day of retribution is therefore come, when you shall receive payment; for whoever acts unjustly receives his reward. Look to your affairs, for I will neither eat nor drink till you be no more.'
"This speech greatly terrified Sir Robert (for no one likes to hear of his end) by the manner in which it was uttered. He was desirous to obtain pardon, by various excuses, and the most abject humiliation, but in vain. The Duke had received information of what was going on at Bristol, and his excuses were frivolous. Why should I make a long story? Sir Robert was delivered to the hangman, who led him out to the place of execution, where he was beheaded, and then hung by the arms to a gibbet. Thus ended Sir Robert Tresilian."
PIRATE TRELAWNY
Edward John Trelawny, a younger son of Charles Brereton Trelawny, came into this world on the 2nd or 3rd of November, but in what year is not certain. It is said that he was born in 1792, but either this is a wrong date, or else Colonel Vivian, in his Visitations of Cornwall, errs, for he gives that year as the one in which Harry Brereton Trelawny, the eldest son, was born. Charles Brereton Trelawny was the son of Harry Trelawny, a lieutenant-general in the army and Governor of Landguard Fort.
Of his father, Edward John entertained no favourable opinion. "My father, notwithstanding his increased fortune, did not increase his expenditure; nay, he established, if possible, a stricter system of economy. The only symptom he ever showed of imagination was castle-building; but his fabrications were founded on a more solid basis than is usually to be met with among the visions of day-dreamers. No unreal mockery of fairy scenes of bliss found a resting-place in his bosom. Ingots, money, lands, houses, and tenements constituted his dreams. He became a mighty arithmetician by the aid of a ready reckoner, his pocket companion; he set down to a fraction the sterling value of all his and his wife's relations, the heirs at law, their nearest of kin, their ages, and the state of their constitutions. The insurance table was examined to calculate the value of their lives; to this he added the probable chances arising from diseases, hereditary and acquired, always forgetting his own gout. He then determined to regulate his conduct accordingly; to maintain the most friendly intercourse with his wealthy connexions, and to keep aloof from the poor ones. Having no occasion to borrow, his aversion to lending amounted to antipathy. The distrust and horror he expressed at the slightest allusion to loans, unbacked by security and interest, had the effect of making the most imprudent and adventurous desist from essaying him, and continue in their necessities, or beg, or rob, or starve, in preference to urging their wants to him.
"It was his custom to appropriate a room in the house to the conservation of those things he loved—choice wines, foreign preserves, cordials. This sanctum was a room on the ground floor, under a skylight. Our next-door neighbours' pastime happened to be a game of balls, when one of them lodged on the leaded roof of this consecrated room. Two of my sisters, of the ages of fourteen and sixteen, ran from the drawing-room back window to seek for the ball, and slipping on the leads, the younger fell through the skylight on to the bottles and jars upon the table below. She was dreadfully bruised, and her hands, legs and face were cut, so much so, that she still retains the scars. Her sister gave the alarm. My mother was called; she went to the door of the store-room; her child screamed out, for God's sake to open the door; she was bleeding to death. My mother dared not break the lock, as my father had prohibited any one from entering this, his blue chamber; and what was worse, he had the key. Other keys were tried, but none could open the door. Had I been there, my foot should have picked the lock. Will it be believed that, in that state, my sister was compelled to await my father's return from the House of Commons, of which he was a member? At last, when he returned, my mother informed him of the accident, and tried to allay the wrath which she saw gathering on his brow. He took no notice of her, but paced forward to the closet, when the delinquent, awed by his dreadful voice, hushed her sobs. He opened the door and found her there, scarcely able to stand, trembling and weeping. Without speaking a word, he kicked and cuffed her out of the room, and then gloomily decanted what wine remained in the broken bottles."