"I come to put my two nephews in Huntingdon Grammar school. I want them to sit where Cromwell sat," he answered. Then he drew his chair to the hearth, where the ash logs burned and blazed most cheerfully, and looked round upon the company—the genial Sir Thomas, and his placid, kindly lady, and the beautiful girl, who was really his hostess. Nor was he unmindful of Cymlin at her side, for in the moment that his eyes fell on the young man, he seemed to see, as in letters of light, an old description of Englishmen, and to find in Cymlin its expression—"_a strong kind of people, audacious, bold, puissant and heroical; of great magnanimity, valiancy and prowess_." As he was thinking these things, Sir Thomas said, "You must make us wise about events. We have had only the outlines of them, and we are going into the midst of we know not what. As to the great plot, was it as black as it was painted?" "Like all the works of the devil, it grew blacker as it was pulled into the light. It was soon an indisputable fact, that de Baas, Mazarin’s envoy extraordinary in London, was head over heels in the shameful business. I can tell you, de Baas had a most unpleasant hour with the Protector; under Cromwell’s eyes and questions, he wilted away like a snail under salt." "What did Cromwell do to him?" "Sent him back to King Louis and to Mazarin with a letter. _They_ have done the punishing, I have no doubt. He would better have thrown himself on Cromwell’s mercy than face Mazarin with his tale of being found out. More like than not he is at this hour in the Bastile. No one will hear any more of M. de Baas." "Then you think Mazarin was really in the plot to assassinate?" "No doubt of it; de Baas was only his creature. Both of them should be rolled into their graves, with their faces downward." "And King Louis the Fourteenth?" "He knew all about the affair. Kings and Priests! Kings and Priests! they would trick the world away, were it not that now and then some brave yeoman were a match for them." "And Prince Rupert?" "Neck deep. That was fortunate, for he is a luckless blackguard, and dooms all he touches." "If a man is unfortunate, he is not therefore wicked, Doctor. These men were plotting for what they believed a good end," said Matilda with some temper. "Good ends never need assassination, my lady; if evil is done, evil will come from it." "I think we ought to pity the men." "Pity them, indeed! Not I! The scaffold and the halter is their just reward." "Forty, I heard, were arrested." "Cromwell had only three brought to trial. Gerard was beheaded, Vowell hung, Fox threw himself on Cromwell’s mercy and was pardoned." "Was not that too much leniency?"