'She may say what she pleases. My time will come. Listen then. They must all be hanged unless I can succeed in getting them pardoned.'
'Nay—but—forgive my rudeness, Benjamin; they are your own cousins—it is your own grandfather. What need of conditions? Oh! what does this mean? Are you a man of flesh and blood?'
'My conditions, Child'—why did he laugh?—'will assure you that such is truly the nature of my composition.'
'If money is wanted'—I thought of my bag of gold and of Mr. Penne's hints—'how much will suffice?'
'I know not. If it comes to buying them off, more thousands than could be raised on the Bradford Orcas estates. Put money out of mind.'
'Then, Benjamin, save them if thou canst.'
'His Lordship knows that I have near relations concerned in the Rebellion. Yet, he assured me if his own brothers were among the prisoners he would hang them all.'
'Nay, then, Benjamin; I say no more. Tell me what are these conditions, and, if we can grant or contrive them, we will comply.' I had no thought of what was meant by his conditions, nor did I even guess until the morning, when Madam told me. 'Oh! Madam, is there anything in the world—anything that we would not do to save them?'
Madam looked at me with so much pity in her eyes that I wondered. It was pity for me and not for her son that I read in that look. Why did she pity me?
I understood not.