“You are unjust!” replied Lord Percy. “God is my judge how deeply I have suffered in being
forced before you in my present capacity. But tell me, how am I to arrest the destroying tempest or turn aside the falling thunderbolt? Have they not crushed me also?”
* * * * *
After two long days had passed, during which the archbishop was entirely deprived of all communication with those around him, Northumberland came to inform him that everything was arranged for the journey and it was time to depart.
“Alas! where are you going to take me?” cried Wolsey, to whom this departure seemed the first step toward condemnation and death.
In that fatal moment he felt an attachment for every stone and every spot connected with the abode which, until this time, he had regarded as the most gloomy place of exile.
“Not to be able to die in peace!” he mournfully exclaimed. “Where are you going to take me, Lord Percy?”
“I cannot accompany you,” sadly replied Northumberland, who had endeavored during the preceding days to make him regard his condition with less terror; “but I know that Sir Walsh has orders to deliver you at Sheffield Park, and place you in the hands of my father-in-law, the Earl of Shrewsbury; and you need suffer no anxiety, nor doubt but that he will gladly exert himself to have you well treated as far as depends on him. To-night you will sleep at Pomfret.”
“At the castle?” demanded Wolsey.
“No, no,” replied Lord Percy: “at the abbey. I am certain of it. I swear it! I have myself sent the order for you to be received there. O my father!” continued Percy, who felt more and more deeply grieved, “I must now leave you.”