"I tell thee what, my friend,
He is a very serpent in my way."
_King John._
The reader will naturally desire to know what induced the milder counsel
recommended by Alfred Bernard to the Governor. If we have been
successful in impressing upon the mind of the reader a just estimate of
the character of the young jesuit, he will readily conjecture that it
was from no kindly feeling for his rival, and no inherent love of
justice that he suggested such a policy; and if he be of a different
opinion, he need only go back with us to the interview between Bernard
and Berkenhead, to which allusion was made in the chapter immediately
preceding the last.
We have said that Alfred Bernard followed the renegade rebel until they
stood together beneath a large oak tree which stood at the corner of the
house. Here they stopped as if by mutual, though tacit consent, and
Berkenhead turning sharply around upon his companion, said in an
offended tone--"What is your further will with me sir?"
"You seem not to like your comrade Major Hansford?"
"Oh well enough," replied Berkenhead; "there are many better and many
worse than him. But I don't see how the likes and the dislikes of a poor
soldier can have any concernment with you."
"I assure you," said Bernard, "it is from no impertinent curiosity, but
a real desire to befriend you, that I ask the question. The Governor
strongly suspects your integrity, and that you are concealing from him
more than it suits you to divulge. Now, I would do you a service and
advise you how you may reinstate yourself in his favour."
"Well, that seems kind on the outside," said the soldier, "seeing as you
seems to be one of the blooded gentry, and I am nothing but a plain
Dunstable.[43] But rough iron is as soft as polished steel."
"I believe you," said Bernard. "Now you have not much reason to waste
your love on this Major Hansford. He threatened to beat you, as you say,
and a freeborn Englishman does not bear an insult like that with
impunity."
"No, your honour," replied the man, "and I've known the day when a
Plymouth cloak[44] would protect me from insult as well as a frieze coat
from cold. But I am too old for that now, and so I had better swallow an
insult dry, than butter it with my own marrow."
"And are there not other modes of revenge than by a blow? Where are your
wits, man? What makes the man stronger than the horse that carries him?
I tell you, a keen wit is to physical force what your carbine is to the
tomahawk of these red-skins. It fires at a distance."
The old soldier looked up with a gleam of intelligence, and Bernard
continued--
"Bethink you, did you hear nothing from Hansford by which you might
infer that his ultimate design was to overturn the government?"
"Why I can't exactly say that I did," returned the fellow. "To be sure
they all prate about liberty and the like, but I reckon that is an
Englishman's privilege, providing he takes it out in talking. But there
may be fire in the bed-straw for all my ignorance."[45]
"Well, I am sorry for you," said Bernard, "for if you could only
remember any thing to convict this young rebel, I would warrant you a
free pardon and a sound neck."
"Well, now, as I come to think of it," said the unscrupulous renegade,
"there might be some few things he let drop, not much in themselves, but
taken together, as might weave a right strong tow; and zounds, I don't
think a man can be far wrong to untwist the rope about his own neck by
tying it to another. For concerning of life, your honour, while I have
no great care to risk it in battle, I don't crave to choke it out with
one of these hemp cravats. And so being as I have already done the state
some service, I feel it my duty to save her if I can."
"Now, thanks to that catch-word of the rogue," muttered Bernard, "I am
like to have easy work to-night. Hark ye, Mr. Berkenhead," he added,
aloud, "I think it is likely that the Governor may wish to ask you a
question or two touching this matter of which we have been speaking. In
the meantime here is something which may help you to get along with
these soldiers," and he placed a sovereign in the fellow's hand.
"Thank your honour," said Berkenhead, humbly, "and seeing its not in the
way of bribe, I suppose I may take it."
"Oh, no bribe," replied Bernard, smiling, "but mark me, tell a good
story. The stronger your evidence the safer is your head."
Bernard returned, as we have seen, to the Governor, for the further
development of his diabolical designs, and in a short time Berkenhead,
under a guard of soldiers, was conducted to his quarters for the night,
in a store-house which stood in the yard some distance from the house.
As the house to which the renegade insurgent was consigned was deemed
sufficiently secure, and the soldiers wearied with a long march, were
again to proceed on their journey on the morrow, it was not considered
necessary to place a guard before the door of this temporary cell--the
precaution, however, being taken to appoint a sentry at each side of the
mansion-house, and at the door of the apartment in which the unhappy
Hansford was confined.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] An old English expression for a rough, honest fellow.
[44] A bludgeon.
[45] There may be danger in the design.