"Methinks we sometimes twist the Scriptures to our use," I answered, staring at him fixedly. "Even a murderer might find some text to serve him if he searched for it," I added in a lower voice.
"How now, friend?" put in Monmouth smilingly. "You come here fully armed, the very picture of the man we need, and yet you say you are for neither side! What, then, brings you hither?"
"Mere curiosity, my lord; a wish to see, that is," I answered.
"Or a wish to spy--which?" sneered Ferguson, stabbing his pen into the ink-horn.
I was hard put to it to keep my fingers off his throat, and, indeed, I only saved myself by locking them behind me. Bending over him I answered slowly:
"No, sir, I am no spy. I leave such dirty work for those whose nature suits them to it."
The chaplain strove to hide a start by dipping savagely into the horn again, then cast a swift, uneasy glance at me, and said:
"We are not here to deal in parables, but men, nor have we time to waste on empty words. If you be not for joining us, make way for those that are. Next! Next!"
He waved his quill as though dismissing me.
"Stay! one moment, friend!" cried Monmouth. "I pray you give your name, and say how 'tis that one so likely---- Aye, I would promise you a cornetcy--is that so, my lord?--(he turned to Grey, who nodded)--ah, yes, a cornetcy--if not a captaincy. How is it then, I say, that one so likely hesitates to join our righteous cause?"