With that smooth falsehood, whose appearance charms,
And reason of each wholesome doubt disarms;
Which to the lowest depths of guilt descends,
By vilest means pursues the vilest ends.
Wears friendship's mask for purposes of spite,
Fawns in the day and butchers in the night.
CHURCHILL
The dwelling of Sir Willmott Burrell was about eighteen or twenty miles
from the island of Shepey, on the Kentish border. The mysterious
companion of De Guerre had correctly stated, that at the period of his
introduction to the Cecil family the youth had little chance of meeting
with his treacherous antagonist of the evening on which the remains of
Lady Cecil were consigned to the tomb; the knight having been, for some
days previous, occupied upon certain weighty affairs within his own
house. A bad landlord can never succeed in convincing his tenantry that
he is a good man. The presence of Sir Willmott was by no means desirable
to his poorer neighbours and dependents, by whom he was at once dreaded
and disliked. Rarely, indeed, was it that a blessing ever followed the
mention of his name; and, although his influence and authority were such
as to render it dangerous to murmur against the one, or oppose the
other, Sir Willmott had ample reason to know that he was nowhere
surrounded by so many secret enemies as when residing upon his
hereditary estate. The domestics who had served his progenitors had long
been dismissed, and their places supplied by more subservient creatures,
and more willing panders to the vices that had increased with his
increasing years. Although he had taken especial care to surround
himself with knaves of great apparent devotion, in order that his
character might not suffer in the estimation of the few really religious
personages by whom he was occasionally visited, it required considerable
care to prevent their exposing, by their own depravity, the gross and
iniquitous life which their master led. It is seldom that a uniform
hypocrite is found among the uneducated; a more than ordinary degree of
talent and prudence being necessary to sustain a character that is but
assumed. Nature may be suppressed by habitual caution; but the meaner,
though not the baser, villain, finds appetite too strong for even
interest to control. The household of Sir Willmott Burrell was
ill-governed, and the lessons which the master sometimes taught, but
never practised, the servants neglected or--despised. The butler, the
housekeeper, the steward, and the numerous insubordinate subordinates
were evermore in a state of riot and debauchery: the evil had at length
grown to such a pitch, that Burrell saw its danger, and more than once
resolved to adopt the only remedy, and discharge them altogether; but
upon such occasions, he overlooked one very important circumstance,
namely, that he was in their power, and was consequently any thing but a
free agent in his own house. Burrell knew himself in their toils, and at
their mercy. Large sums of money might, perhaps, have purchased their
silence, but such a mode of procuring safety was now beyond his reach;
and although deeply desirous to rid himself of them before his marriage
with Constantia Cecil, he scarcely conceived it possible to escape from
their trammels, without subtracting from the fortune that was to
accompany her hand. He dreaded the danger of confiding his difficulties
to Sir Robert Cecil, by whom they were unsuspected; and his fine
property was so considerably mortgaged, as to render an appeal to his
ancient friends, the usurers, a matter of much difficulty, if not
totally useless. Manasseh Ben Israel, indeed, he knew had an
inexhaustible store, and a not unready hand, as he had upon more than
one occasion, experienced; but, villain as he was, he shrank from the
idea of applying to him for assistance, at the very moment when he was
thrusting the iron into his soul.