“My business is soon told,” said the man. “I am a king's messenger, and this lady has treated me as if I was a baron-bailie's officer.”
“That is not the question, sir,” replied the Doctor. “If you are a king's messenger, where is your warrant, and what do you propose to do here?” At the same time he whispered the little wench to call Mr. Lawford, the town-clerk, to come thither as fast as he possibly could. The good-daughter of Peg Thomson started off with an activity worthy of her mother-in-law.
“There is my warrant,” said the official, “and you may satisfy yourself.”
“The shameless loon dare not tell the Doctor his errand,” said Mrs. Gray exultingly.
“A bonny errand it is,” said old Lucky Simson, “to carry away a lying-in woman as a gled [Footnote: Or Kite.] would do a clocking-hen.”
“A woman no a month delivered”—echoed the nurse Jamieson.
“Twenty-four days eight hours and seven minutes to a second,” said Mrs. Gray.
The Doctor having looked over the warrant, which was regular, began to be afraid that the females of his family, in their zeal for defending the character of their sex, might be stirred up into some sudden fit of mutiny, and therefore commanded them to be silent.
“This,” he said, “is a warrant for arresting the bodies of Richard Tresham, and of Zilia de Moncada on account of high treason. Sir, I have served his Majesty, and this is not a house in which traitors are harboured. I know nothing of any of these two persons, nor have I ever heard even their names.”
“But the lady whom you have received into your family,” said the messenger, “is Zilia de Moncada, and here stands her father, Matthias de Moncada, who will make oath to it.”