“With an unhappy—boy, sir—and idle and truantly disposed, as your lordship said,” answered the lad, looking up, and showing a countenance in which paleness and blushes succeeded each other, as fear and shamefacedness alternately had influence. “I left my father's house without leave, to see the king hunt in the Park at Greenwich; there came a cry of treason, and all the gates were shut—I was frightened, and hid myself in a thicket, and I was found by some of the rangers and examined—and they said I gave no good account of myself—and so I was sent hither.”
“I am an unhappy, a most unhappy being,” said Lord Glenvarloch, rising and walking through the apartment; “nothing approaches me but shares my own bad fate! Death and imprisonment dog my steps, and involve all who are found near me. Yet this boy's story sounds strangely.—You say you were examined, my young friend—Let me pray you to say whether you told your name, and your means of gaining admission into the Park—if so, they surely would not have detained you?”
“O, my lord,” said the boy, “I took care not to tell them the name of the friend that let me in; and as to my father—I would not he knew where I now am for all the wealth in London!”
“But do you not expect,” said Nigel, “that they will dismiss you till you let them know who and what you are?”
“What good will it do them to keep so useless a creature as myself?” said the boy; “they must let me go, were it but out of shame.”
“Do not trust to that—tell me your name and station—I will communicate them to the Lieutenant—he is a man of quality and honour, and will not only be willing to procure your liberation, but also, I have no doubt, will intercede with your father. I am partly answerable for such poor aid as I can afford, to get you out of this embarrassment, since I occasioned the alarm owing to which you were arrested; so tell me your name, and your father's name.”
“My name to you? O never, never!” answered the boy, in a tone of deep emotion, the cause of which Nigel could not comprehend.
“Are you so much afraid of me, young man,” he replied, “because I am here accused and a prisoner? Consider, a man may be both, and deserve neither suspicion nor restraint. Why should you distrust me? You seem friendless, and I am myself so much in the same circumstances, that I cannot but pity your situation when I reflect on my own. Be wise; I have spoken kindly to you—I mean as kindly as I speak.”
“O, I doubt it not, I doubt it not, my lord,” said the boy, “and I could tell you all—that is, almost all.”
“Tell me nothing, my young friend, excepting what may assist me in being useful to you,” said Nigel.