"In what troop?"
"Captain Rawlins's."
"Is it so?" his excellency answered, dropping his voice at once to a more genial note. "Well, friend, you had for commander a good man and serviceable. You could no better. And who are these with you?"
"Two are his brothers," the voice in the doorway explained. "They were very forward against Langdale's horse in the skirmish at Settle three days ago, your excellency."
"Good, good, all this is good," Cromwell answered briskly; for that redoubtable man, Lieutenant-General at this time of the armies of the Parliament, it was. "Then why were you backward to answer my questions, friend, being questions it lay in me to put, I being at the head of this poor army and in authority? But there, you were modest. Here, Pownall," he continued, "lay the maps on the table. We can examine them here in shelter. 'Twas a happy thought of yours. And let the prisoners be brought here also. Yet, stay," he added, feeing round once more, his brow dark. "Methinks there comes a strange whimpering from that cloak! Is't a dog? To it, Pownall, and see what it is."
The officer he addressed sprang zealously forward, and whipping up the cloak disclosed the child lying bound on the floor. Terror and the exertion of screaming had reduced the boy to the last stage of consciousness. He lay motionless, his face pale, and his eyes half closed; his little bound hands appealing powerfully to the feelings of the spectators. Even the presence of so many strangers failed to rouse him, or move him to a last appeal. He appeared to be unconscious of their entrance, or of any change in his surroundings.
The sight was one to awaken indignation in a man, and Cromwell was a man. "What!" he exclaimed roundly, and with something like an oath; "what is this? Why have you bound him? Who is he? Is he your son?"
"No," Simon answered, scowling.
"Who is he?"
"His name is Patten."