The Buccaneer - A Tale

With that smooth falsehood, whose appearance charms,

And reason of each wholesome doubt disarms;

Which to the lowest depths of guilt descends,

By vilest means pursues the vilest ends.

Wears friendship's mask for purposes of spite,

Fawns in the day and butchers in the night.

CHURCHILL

The dwelling of Sir Willmott Burrell was about eighteen or twenty miles

from the island of Shepey, on the Kentish border. The mysterious

companion of De Guerre had correctly stated, that at the period of his

introduction to the Cecil family the youth had little chance of meeting

with his treacherous antagonist of the evening on which the remains of

Lady Cecil were consigned to the tomb; the knight having been, for some

days previous, occupied upon certain weighty affairs within his own

house. A bad landlord can never succeed in convincing his tenantry that

he is a good man. The presence of Sir Willmott was by no means desirable

to his poorer neighbours and dependents, by whom he was at once dreaded

and disliked. Rarely, indeed, was it that a blessing ever followed the

mention of his name; and, although his influence and authority were such

as to render it dangerous to murmur against the one, or oppose the

other, Sir Willmott had ample reason to know that he was nowhere

surrounded by so many secret enemies as when residing upon his

hereditary estate. The domestics who had served his progenitors had long

been dismissed, and their places supplied by more subservient creatures,

and more willing panders to the vices that had increased with his

increasing years. Although he had taken especial care to surround

himself with knaves of great apparent devotion, in order that his

character might not suffer in the estimation of the few really religious

personages by whom he was occasionally visited, it required considerable

care to prevent their exposing, by their own depravity, the gross and

iniquitous life which their master led. It is seldom that a uniform

hypocrite is found among the uneducated; a more than ordinary degree of

talent and prudence being necessary to sustain a character that is but

assumed. Nature may be suppressed by habitual caution; but the meaner,

though not the baser, villain, finds appetite too strong for even

interest to control. The household of Sir Willmott Burrell was

ill-governed, and the lessons which the master sometimes taught, but

never practised, the servants neglected or--despised. The butler, the

housekeeper, the steward, and the numerous insubordinate subordinates

were evermore in a state of riot and debauchery: the evil had at length

grown to such a pitch, that Burrell saw its danger, and more than once

resolved to adopt the only remedy, and discharge them altogether; but

upon such occasions, he overlooked one very important circumstance,

namely, that he was in their power, and was consequently any thing but a

free agent in his own house. Burrell knew himself in their toils, and at

their mercy. Large sums of money might, perhaps, have purchased their

silence, but such a mode of procuring safety was now beyond his reach;

and although deeply desirous to rid himself of them before his marriage

with Constantia Cecil, he scarcely conceived it possible to escape from

their trammels, without subtracting from the fortune that was to

accompany her hand. He dreaded the danger of confiding his difficulties

to Sir Robert Cecil, by whom they were unsuspected; and his fine

property was so considerably mortgaged, as to render an appeal to his

ancient friends, the usurers, a matter of much difficulty, if not

totally useless. Manasseh Ben Israel, indeed, he knew had an

inexhaustible store, and a not unready hand, as he had upon more than

one occasion, experienced; but, villain as he was, he shrank from the

idea of applying to him for assistance, at the very moment when he was

thrusting the iron into his soul.