“O Sir!” exclaimed Jocelyn, rising and throwing, his arms round the Puritan’s neck; “you, then, were the friend who tended my poor father in his last moments.  Heaven bless you for it!”

“Yes, Jocelyn, it was I who heard your father’s latest sigh,” the Puritan replied, returning his embrace, “and your own name was breathed with it.  His thoughts were of his son far away—­too young to share his distresses, or to comprehend them.”

“Alas! alas!” cried Jocelyn mournfully.

“Lament not for your father, Jocelyn,” said the Puritan, solemnly; “he is reaping the reward of his earthly troubles in heaven!  Be comforted, I say.  The tyrant can no longer oppress him.  He is beyond the reach of his malice.  He can be arraigned at no more unjust tribunals.  He is where no cruel and perfidious princes, no iniquitous judges, no griping extortioners shall ever enter.”

Jocelyn endeavoured to speak, but his emotion overpowered him.

“I have already told you that your father rendered me a service impossible to be adequately requited,” pursued the Puritan.  “What that service was I will one day inform you.  Suffice it now, that it bound me to him in chains firmer than brass.  Willingly would I have laid down my life for him, if he had desired it.  Gladly would I have taken his place in the Fleet prison, if that could have procured him liberation.  Unable to do either, I watched over him while he lived—­and buried him when dead.”

“O Sir, you have bound me to you as strongly as you were bound to my father,” cried Jocelyn.  “For the devotion shown to him, I hold myself eternally your debtor.”

The Puritan regarded him steadfastly for a moment.

“What if I were to put these professions to the test?” he asked.

“Do so,” Jocelyn replied earnestly.  “My life is yours!”

“Your life!” exclaimed Hugh Calveley, grasping his arm almost fiercely, while his eye blazed.  “Consider what you offer.”

“I need not consider,” Jocelyn rejoined.  “I repeat my life is yours, if you demand it.”

“Perhaps I shall demand it,” cried Hugh Calveley.  “Ere long, perhaps.”

“Demand it when you will,” Jocelyn said.

“Father!” Aveline interposed, “do not let the young man bind himself by this promise.  Release him, I pray of you.”

“The promise cannot be recalled, my child,” the Puritan replied.  “But I shall never claim its fulfilment save for some high and holy purpose.”

“Are you sure your purpose is holy, father?” Aveline said in a low tone.

“What mean you, child?” cried Hugh Calveley, knitting his brows.  “I am but an instrument in the hands of Heaven, appointed to do its work; and as directed, so I must act.  Heaven may make me the scourge of the oppressor and evil-doer, or the sword to slay the tyrant.  I may die a martyr for my faith, or do battle for it with carnal weapons.  For all these I am ready; resigning myself to the will of God.  Is it for nothing, think’st thou, that this young man—­the son of my dear departed friend—­has been brought hither at this particular conjuncture?  Is it for nothing that, wholly unsolicited, he has placed his life at my disposal, and in doing so has devoted himself to a great cause?  Like myself he hath wrongs to avenge, and the Lord of Hosts will give him satisfaction.”