“So please you, sir,” said Wildrake, “and with your most powerful warrant, I trust I might expel the commissioners, even without the aid of your most warlike and devout troopers.”
“That is what I am least anxious about,” replied the General; “I should like to see the best of them sit after I had nodded to them to begone— always excepting the worshipful House, in whose name our commissions run; but who, as some think, will be done with politics ere it be time to renew them. Therefore, what chiefly concerns me to know, is, whether thy master will embrace a traffic which hath such a fair promise of profit with it. I am well convinced that, with a scout like thee, who hast been in the cavaliers’ quarters, and canst, I should guess, resume thy drinking, ruffianly, health-quaffing manners whenever thou hast a mind, he must discover where this Stewart hath ensconced himself. Either the young Lee will visit the old one in person, or he will write to him, or hold communication with him by letter. At all events, Markham Everard and thou must have an eye in every hair of your head.” While he spoke, a flush passed over his brow, he rose from his chair, and paced the apartment in agitation. “Woe to you, if you suffer the young adventurer to escape me!—you had better be in the deepest dungeon in Europe, than breathe the air of England, should you but dream of playing me false. I have spoken freely to thee, fellow—more freely than is my wont—the time required it. But, to share my confidence is like keeping a watch over a powder-magazine, the least and most insignificant spark blows thee to ashes. Tell your master what I said—but not how I said it—Fie, that I should have been betrayed into this distemperature of passion!— begone, sirrah. Pearson shall bring thee sealed orders—Yet, stay—thou hast something to ask.”
“I would know,” said Wildrake, to whom the visible anxiety of the General gave some confidence, “what is the figure of this young gallant, in case I should find him?”
“A tall, rawboned, swarthy lad, they say he has shot up into. Here is his picture by a good hand, some time since.” He turned round one of the portraits which stood with its face against the wall; but it proved not to be that of Charles the Second, but of his unhappy father.