“Nay, but interrupt me not,” replied Bridgenorth, “till I show you the amount of what you offer me in exchange for a boon, which, whatever may be its intrinsic value, is earnestly desired by you, and comprehends all that is valuable on earth which I have it in my power to bestow. You may have heard that in the late times I was the antagonist of your father’s principles and his profane faction, but not the enemy of his person.” “I have ever heard,” replied Julian, “much the contrary; and it was but now that I reminded you that you had been his friend.” “Ay. When he was in affliction and I in prosperity, I was neither unwilling, nor altogether unable, to show myself such. Well, the tables are turned--the times are changed. A peaceful and unoffending man might have expected from a neighbour, now powerful in his turn, such protection, when walking in the paths of the law, as all men, subjects of the same realm, have a right to expect even from perfect strangers. What chances? I pursue, with the warrant of the King and law, a murderess, bearing on her hand the blood of my near connection, and I had, in such a case, a right to call on every liege subject to render assistance to the execution. My late friendly neighbour, bound, as a man and a magistrate, to give ready assistance to a legal action--bound, as a grateful and obliged friend, to respect my rights and my person--thrusts himself betwixt me--me, the avenger of blood--and my lawful captive; beats me to the earth, at once endangering my life, and, in mere human eyes, sullying mine honour; and under his protection, the Midianitish woman reaches, like a sea-eagle, the nest which she hath made in the wave-surrounded rocks, and remains there till gold, duly administered at Court, wipes out all memory of her crime, and baffles the vengeance due to the memory of the best and bravest of men.--But,” he added, apostrophising the portrait of Christian, “thou art not yet forgotten, my fair-haired William! The vengeance which dogs thy murderess is slow,--but it is sure!”