“What execution—what malignants?” said Cromwell, laying down his knife and fork.
“Those in the prison here at Woodstock,” answered Zerubbabel, “whom your Excellency commanded should be executed at noon, as taken in the fact of rebellion against the Commonwealth.”
“Wretch!” said Cromwell, starting up and addressing Pearson, “thou hast not touched Mark Everard, in whom there was no guilt, for he was deceived by him who passed between us—neither hast thou put forth thy hand on the pragmatic Presbyterian minister, to have all those of their classes cry sacrilege, and alienate them from us for ever?”
“If your Excellency wish them to live, they live—their life and death are in the power of a word,” said Pearson.
“Enfranchise them; I must gain the Presbyterian interest over to us if I can.”
“Rochecliffe, the arch-plotter,” said Pearson, “I thought to have executed, but”—
“Barbarous man,” said Cromwell, “alike ungrateful and impolitic—wouldst thou have destroyed our decoy-duck? This doctor is but like a well, a shallow one indeed, but something deeper than the springs which discharge their secret tribute into his keeping; then come I with a pump, and suck it all up to the open air. Enlarge him, and let him have money if he wants it. I know his haunts; he can go nowhere but our eye will be upon him.—But you look at each other darkly, as if you had more to say than you durst. I trust you have not done to death Sir Henry Lee?”
“No. Yet the man,” replied Pearson, “is a confirmed malignant, and”—
“Ay, but he is also a noble relic of the ancient English Gentleman,” said the General. “I would I knew how to win the favour of that race. But we, Pearson, whose royal robes are the armour which we wear on our bodies, and whose leading staves are our sceptres, are too newly set up to draw the respect of the proud malignants, who cannot brook to submit to less than royal lineage. Yet what can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe, save that it runs back to a successful soldier? I grudge that one man should be honoured and followed, because he is the descendant of a victorious commander, while less honour and allegiance is paid to another, who, in personal qualities, and in success, might emulate the founder of his rival’s dynasty. Well, Sir Henry Lee lives, and shall live for me. His son, indeed, hath deserved the death which he has doubtless sustained.”
“My lord,” stammered Pearson, “since your Excellency has found I am right in suspending your order in so many instances, I trust you will not blame me in this also—I thought it best to await more special orders.”