CHAPTER XXIX.
“I tell thee what, my friend,
He is a very serpent in my way.”
King John.
The reader will naturally desire to know what induced the milder counsel recommended by Alfred Bernard to the Governor. If we have been successful in impressing upon the mind of the reader a just estimate of the character of the young jesuit, he will readily conjecture that it was from no kindly feeling for his rival, and no inherent love of justice that he suggested such a policy; and if he be of a different opinion, he need only go back with us to the interview between Bernard and Berkenhead, to which allusion was made in the chapter immediately preceding the last.
We have said that Alfred Bernard followed the renegade rebel until they stood together beneath a large oak tree which stood at the corner of the house. Here they stopped as if by mutual, though tacit consent, and Berkenhead turning sharply around upon his companion, said in an offended tone—“What is your further will with me sir?”
“You seem not to like your comrade Major Hansford?”
“Oh well enough,” replied Berkenhead; “there are many better and many worse than him. But I don't see how the likes and the dislikes of a poor soldier can have any concernment with you.”
“I assure you,” said Bernard, “it is from no impertinent curiosity, but a real desire to befriend you, that I ask the question. The Governor strongly suspects your integrity, and that you are concealing from him more than it suits you to divulge. Now, I would do you a service and advise you how you may reinstate yourself in his favour.”
“Well, that seems kind on the outside,” said the soldier, “seeing as you seems to be one of the blooded gentry, and I am nothing but a plain Dunstable.[43] But rough iron is as soft as polished steel.”
“I believe you,” said Bernard. “Now you have not much reason to waste your love on this Major Hansford. He threatened to beat you, as you say, and a freeborn Englishman does not bear an insult like that with impunity.”