in choosing your own fate--hasty as you have been in
all things connected with yourself--you would not, I am sure,
countenance a thing that is cruel as well as criminal."
Green laughed bitterly. "I am forced," he said, "to bear much that I
would not countenance. But look here--she goes on to say that it is
the daughter of the Duke. 'Young, and beautiful, and gentle,' she
says--that matches well, does it not, Wilton, ha?--I who has been
torn from her father, the Duke of Gaveston, in this daring and
shameful manner, and brought hither by water with the intention, as I
believe, of sending her over to France in the ship that we have
hired. I have seen her twice, and spoken with her for some time, and
I beseech you, if it be possible, find means of setting her
free.'--Ay, but how may that be?" continued Green. "If they have got
her, and risk their necks to have her, they will take care to keep
her sure. They have men enough for that purpose, and they have taken
care to render me nearly powerless."
"I should have thought," replied Wilton, whose joy at the discovery
of where Laura really was had instantly blown up the flame of hope so
brightly, that objects distant and difficult to be reached seemed by
that light to be close at hand--"I should have thought, from what I
have seen and what I suspect, that you could have commanded a
sufficient force at any moment to set all opposition at defiance,
especially when you were engaged in a lawful and generous cause."
"I should have thought so, too," replied Green, "two days ago. But
times have changed, Wilton, times have changed, and, like the wind of
a tropical climate, turned round in a single moment. On my soul," he
continued, vehemently, "one would think that men were absolutely
insane. Here a set of people, whose lives are all in my own hand,
dare to tamper with my friends and comrades, to bribe them, to hire
them away from me, ay, and to do it so openly that I cannot fail to
see it, and that too, at the very moment when they know that I hate
and abhor their proceedings, and when they have just reason to
suppose that I will take means to frustrate their base and cowardly
designs, and only waver between the propriety of doing so, and the
wish not to give them over to the death they well deserve."
"If they have so acted," replied Wilton--"if they have shown such
base ingratitude towards you, as well as designs dangerous to the
country--for I will not affect to doubt or misunderstand you--why not
boldly, and at o