"You know your father's handwriting?"
"I do."
I knew it, not from any correspondence my father had held with me, but because I had more than once examined with natural curiosity the wrappers of the dispatches which at intervals of many months, sometimes of a year, came from him to Sir Anthony. I had never known anything of the contents of the letters, all that fell to my share being certain formal messages, which Sir Anthony would give me, generally with a clouded brow and a testy manner that grew genial again only with the lapse of time.
Gardiner handed me the letters, and I took them and read one. One was enough. That my father! Alas! alas! No wonder that I turned my face to the wall, shivering as with the ague, and that all about me--except the red glow of the fire, which burned into my brain--seemed darkness! I had lost the thing I valued most. I had lost at a blow everything of which I was proud. The treachery that could flush that worn face opposite to me, lined as it was with statecraft, and betray the wily tongue into passion, seemed to me, young and impulsive, a thing so vile as to brand a man's children through generations.
Therefore I hid my face in the corner of the settle, while the Chancellor gazed at me a while in silence, as one who had made an experiment might watch the result.
"You see now, my friend," he said at last, almost gently, "that you may be base-born in more ways than one. But be of good cheer; you are young, and what I have done you may do. Think of Thomas Cromwell--his father was naught. Think of the old Cardinal--my master. Think of the Duke of Suffolk--Charles Brandon, I mean. He was a plain gentleman, yet he married a queen. More, the door which they had to open for themselves I will open for you--only, when you are inside, play the man, and be faithful."
"What would you have me do?" I whispered hoarsely.
"I would have you do this," he answered. "There are great things brewing in the Netherlands, boy--great changes, unless I am mistaken. I have need of an agent there, a man, stout, trusty, and, in particular, unknown, who will keep me informed of events. If you will be that agent, I can procure for you--and not appear in the matter myself--a post of pay and honor in the Regent's Guards. What say you to that, Master Cludde? A few weeks and you will be making history, and Coton End will seem a mean place to you. Now, what do you say?"
I was longing to be away and alone with my misery, but I forced myself to reply patiently.
"With your leave I will give you my answer to-morrow, my lord," I said, as steadily as I could; and I rose, still keeping my face turned from him.