I did. I kept Sir Herbert safe enough until
the act came out which gave Sir Robert right and dominion over his
brother's land, declaring the other to have been a malignant, and so
forth;--but the spirit was subdued within the banished man; he was
bowed and broken, and cared nothing for liberty, but took entirely to
religion, and became a monk; and his son, there, has seen him many a
time; and it comforted me to find that he died in the belief that God
would turn all things right again, and that his child would yet be
master of Cecil Place. He died like a good Christian, forgiving his
enemies, and saying that adversity had brought his soul to God--more
fond of blaming himself than others. As to Walter, he had a desire to
visit this country, and, to own the truth, I knew that if Sir Robert
failed to procure the pardon I wanted, the resurrection of this youth
would be an argument he could not withstand.

"Perhaps I was wrong in the means I adopted; but I longed for an
honest name, and it occurred to me that Sir Robert Cecil could be
frightened, if not persuaded, into procuring my pardon. God is my judge
that I was weary of my reckless habits, and panted for active but legal
employment. A blasted oak will tumble to the earth, if struck by a
thunderbolt,--like a withy. Then my child! I knew that Lady Cecil cared
for her, though, good lady, she little thought, when she first saw the
poor baby, that it was the child of a Buccaneer. She believed it the
offspring of a pains-taking trader, who had served her husband. She
guessed the truth in part afterwards, but had both piety and pity in her
bosom, and did not make the daughter suffer for the father's sin. I
loved the girl!--But your Highness is yourself a father, and would not
like to feel ashamed to look your own child in the face. I threatened
Sir Robert to make known all--and expose these documents----"

The Skipper drew from his vest the same bundle of papers which he had
used in that room, almost on that very spot, to terrify the stricken
Baronet, a few months before. Sir Robert Cecil had remained totally
unconscious of the explanations that had been made, and seemed neither
to know of, nor to heed, the presence of Dalton, nor the important
communication he had given--his eyes wandering from countenance to
countenance of the assembled group,--a weak, foolish smile resting
perpetually on his lip; yet the instant he caught a glimpse of the
packet the Buccaneer held in his h