“I do perceive, William Shakspeare, thy compunction and contrition.”

William Shakspeare.

“I was thinking, may it please your worship, of the game-cock and the goose, having but small notion of herons.  This doctrine of abduction, please your worship, hath been alway inculcated by the soundest of our judges.  Would they had spoken on other points with the same clearness.  How many unfortunates might thereby have been saved from crossing the Cordilleras!” {72a}

Sir Thomas.

“Ay, ay! they have been fain to fly the country at last, thither or elsewhere.”

And then did Sir Thomas call unto him Master Silas, and say, —

“Walk we into the bay-window.  And thou mayest come, Ephraim.”

And when we were there together, I, Master Silas, and his worship, did his worship say unto the chaplain, but oftener looking toward me, —

“I am not ashamed to avouch that it goeth against me to hang this young fellow, richly as the offence in its own nature doth deserve it, he talketh so reasonably; not indeed so reasonably, but so like unto what a reasonable man may listen to and reflect on.  There is so much, too, of compassion for others in hard cases, and something so very near in semblance to innocence itself in that airy swing of lightheartedness about him.  I cannot fix my eyes (as one would say) on the shifting and sudden shade-and-Shine, which cometh back to me, do what I will, and mazes me in a manner, and blinks me.”

At this juncture I was ready to fall upon the ground before his worship, and clasp his knees for Willy’s pardon.  But he had so many points about him, that I feared to discompose ’em, and thus make bad worse.  Besides which, Master Silas left me but scanty space for good resolutions, crying, —

“He may be committed, to save time.  Afterward he may be sentenced to death, or he may not.”

Sir Thomas.

“’T were shame upon me were he not; ’t were indication that I acted unadvisedly in the commitment.”

Sir Silas.

“The penalty of the law may be commuted, if expedient, on application to the fountain of mercy in London.”

Sir Thomas.

“Maybe, Silas, those shall be standing round the fount of mercy who play in idleness and wantonness with its waters, and let them not flow widely, nor take their natural course.  Dutiful gallants may encompass it, and it may linger among the flowers they throw into it, and never reach the parched lip on the wayside.

“These are homely thoughts—­thoughts from a-field, thoughts for the study and housekeeper’s room.  But whenever I have given utterance unto them, as my heart hath often prompted me with beatings at the breast, my hearers seemed to bear toward me more true and kindly affection than my richest fancies and choicest phraseologies could purchase.