"
"Indeed, indeed, my lord, there is no harm about me," said the boy,
more moved it would seem to confession by the last words, by which he
seemed considerably alarmed, than by all the kind expostulations and
arguments which Nigel had previously used. "I am innocent--that is, I
have done wrong, but nothing to deserve being in this frightful
place."
"Tell me the truth, then," said Nigel, in a tone in which command
mingled with encouragement; "you have nothing to fear from me, and as
little to hope, perhaps--yet, placed as I am, I would know with whom I
speak."
"With an unhappy--boy, sir--and idle and truantly disposed, as your
lordship said," answered the lad, looking up, and showing a
countenance in which paleness and blushes succeeded each other, as
fear and shamefacedness alternately had influence. "I left my father's
house without leave, to see the king hunt in the Park at Greenwich;
there came a cry of treason, and all the gates were shut--I was
frightened, and hid myself in a thicket, and I was found by some of
the rangers and examined--and they said I gave no good account of
myself--and so I was sent hither."
"I am an unhappy, a most unhappy being," said Lord Glenvarloch, rising
and walking through the apartment; "nothing approaches me but shares
my own bad fate! Death and imprisonment dog my steps, and involve all
who are found near me.
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