ears."

"I take it for granted that you know your own mother; but it is a wise
son who knows his own father. Impurities are, praised be the Lord! fast
fleeing from the land; but they were rife once, rife as blackberries
that grow by the roadside. Yet this is nought; what business brought you
here?"

"Your Highness knows: I came with the Rabbi Ben Israel."

"Parry not with me," exclaimed the readily-irritated Cromwell.--"I
repeat, why came ye here?"

"Your Highness is acquainted with the reason of my coming."

"I _do_ know; but I also choose to know it from yourself. Why came ye
here?"

"Just then to seek out one who has fallen into your Highness's clutches;
with favour, I would say, under your Highness's care," replied Robin,
who felt himself not over comfortably situated.

"His name sir--his name?"

"Walter De Guerre."

"And who advised you he was here?"

"I found it out; I and another of his friends."

"You mean Hugh Dalton?"

"I do, please your Highness."

"You have some secret communication for this Walter?"

"Your Highness, I have not; yet, if he is here, I humbly entreat
permission to see him; for, as it is your pleasure that we be detained,
I am sure it would be a comfort to him to meet some one who has his
interest firmly, humbly at heart."

"Why came he to England?"

"I believe, that is known only to Hugh Dalton."

"Where got ye that Spanish dagger?"

"Please your Highness, from a sailor at Greenwich, a pensioner."

"You had other business in London than seeking out this Walter?"

"Please your Highness, I had."

"What was its nature?"

"Your Highness must pardon me--I cannot say."

Cromwell, during this examination, had walked backward and forward on a
portion of the roof, bounded at either end by a double range of turreted
chimneys: at the last reply of Robin Hays he suddenly stopped and turned
short upon him, paused as if in anger, and then said,--

"Know you to whom you speak? Know you that the Lord hath made me a judge
and a ruler in Israel? and yet you dare refuse an answer to my
question!"

"Your Highness must judge for me in a righteous cause. From infancy I
have been cherished by Hugh Dalton: if my lowly mind has become at all
superior to the miserable and deformed tenement in which it dwells, I
owe it to Hugh Dalton--if I have grown familiar with deeds of blood,
still I owe it to Hugh Dalton that I saw deeds of bravery; and to Hugh
Dalton I owe the knowledge, that what