books as fast as possible into a sack. They made some noise in falling one upon the other, and I heard nothing else.”
“That is not possible!” said Audley. “The chamber is very small; you would have been very near Sir Thomas and Master Rich, who were conversing together, and you must have heard their conversation.”
“I have heard that Sir Thomas stooped down to pick up a book I let fall from my hands, and that it seemed to give him pain when they took his books away from him; so that when I saw the dismal little cell, the pallet they had given him for a bed, the broken earthen pitcher which was in one corner, with an old candle standing in the neck of a bottle, and that they had forbidden him for the future to light that candle—for fear, they said, that he might set fire to the prison—the tears came into my eyes, and I felt my heart ache with sorrow as I thought I had seen him lord chancellor such a little while ago. That is all, my lord.”
“But,” said Cromwell, provoked by this recital, “Sir Thomas spoke; you have declared that already.”
“Oh! he spoke, without doubt. I do not deny that he could speak; certainly he spoke. For instance, when he saw the sack of books carried away he said: ‘Now that the tools are removed, there is nothing more to do but close the shop.’ But we saw, in spite of this pleasantry, that it distressed him very much,” added Palmer after a moment’s silence.
“How prolix is this witness!” said the Abbot of Westminster in a contemptuous tone.
“Come, that’s enough,” said Cromwell. “You know nothing more?”
“No, my lord, nothing more—nothing
at all.” And he hastened to withdraw.
As he retired, Richard Southwell appeared.