“I thank you, sir,” says I, very polite. “Faith!” thinks I, “he is surely going to shoot me, or he would not be so attentive.” And I sat down and tried not to groan at the agony which every movement gave me. “Now, Master Coope,” says he, “we have had you brought here after much trouble and annoyance to question you of your late doings.” He paused and looked at me. “Sir,” I says, regarding him steadily, “I am prepared to answer any question you are pleased to put to me.” “Are you so?” says he. “Be assured, Master Coope, that we shall deal justly with you. And since we are sitting in court-martial upon you, you shall know what it is that you are charged with.” He took up a paper from the table. “You are charged,” he says, looking at it, “with a grave offence, namely, that you, being duly entrusted with the conveyance of a despatch from General Cromwell to me, Sir Thomas Fairfax, did desert your commission, and, attaching yourself to the enemies of the Parliament, did do, and cause to be done, many things hurtful to the cause which you had sworn to further. What say you to that, Master Coope?” he says, regarding me keenly. “Sir,” says I, “if you will listen to my defence I shall hope to make myself clear to you.” “You shall have all the consideration that is right,” says he. “So tell us your story, Master Coope, without fear.” “I am a poor hand at it,” says I, “but this is a plain tale and the truth,” and I pulled my wits together and put the matter plainly before them. I told them how I had lost my horse, how I had chanced to overhear Anthony Dacre’s plot, how I had gone to the Manor House to warn my uncle, and had been trapped there ere I could leave, and how I had contrived to forward the despatch by Merciful Wiggleskirk. “And that,” says I, coming to an end, “is the truth of this matter, wherein, if I have done wrong, it has been for the sake of folk that were dear to me. And, gentlemen,” says I, looking from one to the other, “if there were need I would do it again--and I have no more to say.” After I had finished none of them spoke for awhile, but at last Fairfax looked at Sands. “I wish,” says he, “that we knew more about this man Dacre and the plot which his kinsman Coope alleges against him.” But Sands shook his head. “’Tis neither here nor there, Sir Thomas,” says he. “What have we to do with plots about carrying off a young woman? Here is Richard Coope confessing, yea, and glorifying himself because of it, that he deserted his commission, and joined himself to his uncle in resisting our warrant. A clearer case,” says he, “I never heard.”