Hereupon the Rabbi would have spoken, for he remembered how Sir Willmott
had told him that the picture was not his; but the Protector again
stayed him, seeking to entangle Burrell in a web of his own weaving.
"You visited the lady frequently?"
"Not very frequently. I told Manasseh Ben Israel, when first he injured
me by this most unjust suspicion, that I did not often see her, and when
I did, it was to ascertain if there were any letters she desired to
transmit to England."
"Not from the carnal desire of paying her homage?"
"How could your Highness suppose it was?"
"You but now confessed she might so have interpreted your civilities.
But--know you aught of one Hugh Dalton, a free-trader?"
"Know--know--know, your Highness? I know him for a most keen villain!"
replied the Master of Burrell warmly.
"Indeed!--But you scorned not to employ him."
Burrell was silent; for, though he had journeyed full fifty miles, he
had not been able to form any plan of defence, if Cromwell should really
be aware of the arrangements entered into in the cavern of the Gull's
Nest Crag. Such he now dreaded was the fact, not only from the
appearance of a paper the Protector drew forth, but from the fact that
the seeming calmness was fading from his brow. All that remained was
stoutly to deny its being in his hand-writing: it was a case that
finesse could in no way serve.
"Did your Highness mean that I employed this man?" he said at last, with
a clever mingling of astonishment and innocence in his voice and manner.
During a brief pause that followed, the eye of Cromwell was, as it were,
nailed upon his countenance.
"I do mean, Sir Willmott Burrell, that you scorned not to employ this
man. Know you this hand-writing?"
Sir Willmott's worst fears were confirmed.
"Permit me," he said, glancing over the document; then, looking from it
with most marvellous coolness, he raised his eyes, exclaiming, "Sir,
there is a plot for my destruction! This hand-writing is so well
feigned, that I could have sworn it my own, had I not known the total
impossibility that it could so be!"
"I have seen your hand-writing before:--write now, sir."
Burrell obeyed--took the pen in his hand, and Cromwell noted that it
trembled much.
"Sir Willmott, I believe you in general place your paper straight?"
"Please your Highness, I do; but I am not cool--not collected enough to
act as calmly as at my own table. The knowledge in whose presence I sit,
might agitate stronger nerves than mine. Behold, sir, the villain
counterfeited well; the W is exact, even in the small hair-stroke--the
tt's are crossed at the same distance, and the ll's are of the
height of mine:--a most villanous, but most excellent counterfeit!"