He said to the Lord
St. John--
"Searched you well?--but it boots not to ask that. It doth seem passing
strange. Little things, trifles, slip out of one's ken, and one does not
think it matter for surprise; but how so bulky a thing as the Seal of
England can vanish away and no man be able to get track of it again--a
massy golden disk--"
Tom Canty, with beaming eyes, sprang forward and shouted--
"Hold, that is enough! Was it round?--and thick?--and had it letters and
devices graved upon it?--yes? Oh, NOW I know what this Great Seal is
that there's been such worry and pother about. An' ye had described it to
me, ye could have had it three weeks ago. Right well I know where it
lies; but it was not I that put it there--first."
"Who, then, my liege?" asked the Lord Protector.
"He that stands there--the rightful King of England. And he shall tell
you himself where it lies--then you will believe he knew it of his own
knowledge. Bethink thee, my King--spur thy memory--it was the last, the
very LAST thing thou didst that day before thou didst rush forth from the
palace, clothed in my rags, to punish the soldier that insulted me."
A silence ensued, undisturbed by a movement or a whisper, and all eyes
were fixed upon the new-comer, who stood, with bent head and corrugated
brow, groping in his memory among a thronging multitude of valueless
recollections for one single little elusive fact, which, found, would
seat him upon a throne--unfound, would leave him as he was, for good and
all--a pauper and an outcast.
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