"Therefore it shall tell neither for nor against you," the King retorted. "Have you anything more to say."
"I throw myself on your Majesty's clemency."
"That will not do. Sir John," the King answered. "You must speak, or--the alternative does not lie with me. But you know it."
"And I choose it," Sir John cried, recovering his spirit and courage.
"So be it," said His Majesty slowly and solemnly. "I will not say that I expected anything less from you. My lords, let him be removed."
And with that the messengers came in and Sir John bowed and went with them. It may have been fancy, but I thought that as he turned from the table a haggard shade fell on his face, and a soul in mortal anguish looked an instant from his eyes. But the next moment he was gone.
I never saw him again. That night the news was everywhere that Goodman, one of the two witnesses against him, had fled the country; and for a time it was believed that Sir John would escape. How, in face of that difficulty those who were determined on his death, effected it; how he was attainted, and how he suffered on Tower Hill with all the forms and privileges of a peer--on the 28th of January of the succeeding year--is a story too trite and familiar to call for repetition.
On his departure the Council broke up. His Majesty retiring. Before he went, a word was said about me, and some who had greater regard for the post factum than the pœnitentia were for sending me to the Compter, and leaving the Law Officers to deal with me. But my lord, rousing himself, interposed roundly, spoke for me and would have given bail had they persisted. Seeing, however, how gravely he took it, and being inclined to please him, they desisted, and I was allowed to go, on the simple condition that the Duke kept me under his own eye. This he very gladly consented to do.
Nor was it the only kindness he did me, or the greatest; for having heard from me at length and in detail all the circumstances leading up to my timely intervention, he sent for me a few days later, and placing a paper in my hands bade me read the gist of it. I did so, and found it to be a free pardon passed under the Great Seal, and granted to Richard Price and Mary Price his wife for acts and things done by them jointly or separately against the King's Most Excellent Majesty, within or without the realm.
It was at Eyford he handed me this; in the oak parlour looking upon the bowling-green; where I had already begun to wait upon him on one morning in the week, to check the steward's accounts and tallies. The year was nearly spent, but that autumn was fine, and the sunlight which lay on the smooth turf blended with the russet splendour of the beech trees that rise beyond. I had been thinking of Mary and the quiet courtyard at the Hospital, which the bowling-green somewhat resembled, being open to the park on one side only; and when perusing the paper, my lord smiling at me, I came to her name--or rather to the name that was hers and yet mine--I felt such a flow of love and gratitude and remembrance overcome me as left me speechless; and this directed, not only to him but to her--seeing that it was her advice and her management that had brought me against my will to this haven and safety.