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!"

"Which?" inquired the Protector: "which mean ye is the counterfeit--the
writing or the writer?---- Without there!--Call in Robin Hays. Sir
Willmott Burrell, Sir Willmott Burrell! the Lord deliver me from such as
thou art!" he continued, swelling and chafing himself into anger,
'pricking the sides of his intent,' that so he might overwhelm the
dastard knight. "We doubted, sir, at first, but we doubt no longer. Sir,
you have robbed that old man of his daughter! You have, by so doing,
perjured your own soul, and brought most foul dishonour upon England. I
onc