"You cannot injure one whose intentions are friendly to you as mine are. Listen to me, and let what I have to say sink deeply into your breast. Do anything rather than render yourself amenable to the accursed tribunal I have named. Abandon mistress, friend, relative—all who are near and dear to you—if they would bring you within its grasp."
"And do you venture to give me this shameful council? Do you think I will attend to it?" cried Sir Jocelyn.
"I am sure you will, if you hear me out—and you shall hear me," the promoter exclaimed with so much authority that the young man, however impatient, could not refuse attention, to him. "Look me in the face, Sir Jocelyn! Regard me well! Behold these ineffaceable marks made by the heated iron, and the sharpened knife! How came they there? From a sentence of the Star-Chamber. And as my offence was the same as yours, so your sentence will correspond with mine. Your punishment will be the same as mine—branding and mutilation. Ha! I perceive I have touched you now."
"What was your offence, unhappy man?" asked Sir Jocelyn, averting his gaze from the hideous aspect which, now lighted up with mingled emotions of rage and despair, had become absolutely appalling.
"The same as your own, as I have said," replied the other;—"a few hasty words impugning the justice of this vindictive court. Better had I have cut out my tongue than have given utterance to them. But my case more nearly resembled yours than I have yet explained, for, like you, I had incurred the displeasure of Sir Giles Mompesson, and was by him delivered to these hellish tormentors. Acting under cover of the Star-Chamber, and in pursuance of its iniquitous decrees, he nailed me to the pillory, and so fast, that the ears through which the spikes were driven were left behind. Think how you would like that, Sir Jocelyn? Think what you would feel, if you stood there on that infamous post, a spectacle to the base and shouting rabble, with a paper fastened to your breast, setting forth your crimes, and acquainting all that you were a Star-Chamber delinquent?"
"Enough, Sir," interrupted Sir Jocelyn.
"Ay, enough—more than enough," rejoined the other; "but I cannot spare you the whole of the recital, however painful it may be to you. My own sufferings will be yours, if you heed not. So I shall go on. In robbing me of my ears, the executioner had only half done his work. He had still further to deface the image of his Maker,—and he hesitated not in his task. No savage in the wilds could have treated his deadliest enemy worse than he treated me; and yet the vile concourse applauded him, and not a word of pity escaped them. My sentence was fully carried out; my features for ever disfigured; and the letters of shame indelibly stamped upon my cheek. You may read them there now if you will look at me."
"You thrill me with horror," said Sir Jocelyn.
"Ay, mine is not a mirthful history, though that fiend in human form, Sir Giles, hath often laughed at it," rejoined the promoter. "It might make you shudder, and perchance move you to tears, if you could hear it all; but for the present, I shall confine myself to such portions of it as bear upon your own perilous position—and I therefore hold myself out as a lesson to you. Again, I bid you look upon this ravaged countenance, and say, if by any stretch of fancy you can persuade yourself it was once as comely as your own. You find it difficult to believe my words—yet such was the fact. Ay," he continued, in a tone of profoundest melancholy, "I was once proud of the gifts nature had vouchsafed me; too proud, alas! and I was punished for my vanity and self-boasting. In those days I loved—and was beloved in return—by a damsel beautiful as Aveline. After my horrible punishment, I beheld her no more. Knowing she must regard me with aversion, I shunned her. I desired not to be an object of pity. Bring this home to your own breast, Sir Jocelyn, and think how direful would be your lot to be driven for ever from her you love. Yet, such has been my case."
"I cannot bear the contemplation—it were madness," cried the young man.