beseech you give me leave to speak a few words: I do give your
Lordships hearty thanks for all your favours to me. I do here, in the
presence of God Almighty, declare I have no malice in my heart to them
that have condemned me. I know not who they are, nor desire to know: I
forgive them all, and beseech your Lordships all to pray for me--" (His
voice shook a little, and he was silent. Then he went on again. All else
were as still as death.)

"My Lords, I have one humble request to make to your Lordships, and that
is, my Lords, that the little short time I have to live a prisoner, I
may not be a close prisoner as I have been of late; but that Mr.
Lieutenant may have an order that my wife and children and friends may
come at me. I do humbly beg this favour of your Lordships, which I hope
you will be pleased to give me."

His voice grew very low as he ended; and I saw his lips shake a little.

The Lord High Steward answered him with great feeling.

"My Lord Stafford," he said--(and that was an unusual thing to say,
for he had said before that since he was to be attainted he could not be
called My Lord again)--"I believe I may, with my Lords' leave, tell you
one thing further; that my Lords, as they proceed with rigour of
justice, so they proceed with all the mercy and compassion that may be;
and therefore my Lords will be humble suitors to the King, that he will
remit all the punishment but the taking off of your head."

And at that my Lord Stafford broke down altogether, and sobbed upon the
rail; and it is a terrible thing to see an old man weep like that. When
he could command his voice, he said:

"My Lords, your justice does not make me cry, but your goodness."

Then my Lord Nottingham stood up, and taking the staff of office that
lay across his desk, he broke it in two halves. When I looked again, the
prisoner was going out between his guards, and the axe before, with its
edge turned towards him in token of death.

I was at Mr. Chiffinch's again that night to hear the news; but he was
not there. When he came in at last, he appeared very excited. Then he
told me the news.

"They are at His Majesty already," he said, "that he cannot remit the
penalty of High Treason. But the King swears that he will, law or no
law, judges or no judges. I have never seen him so determined. He does
not believe one word of the evidence."

"Yet he will sign the warrant for the beheading?" I asked.

"Why," said Mr. Chiffinch, "His Majesty does not wish to go upon his
travels again."

CHAPTER VII

The night before I went down to Hare Street,--for I went on Christmas
Eve--I was present for the first time at the high supper in Whitehall,
which His Majesty gave to the Spanish Ambassador. I had never been at
such a ceremony before; and went out of curiosity only, being given
admission to one of the stands by the door, whence I might see it all.
It would have appeared very strange to me that the King could be so
merry, as he was that night, when so much innocent blood had been shed
upon his own warrant, and when such a man, as my Lord Stafford was, lay
in the Tower, expecting his death six days later;--had I not known the
nature of His Majesty pretty well by now. For, beneath all the
merriment, I think he was not very happy, though he never shewed a sign
of it.

I stood, as I said, upon a little scaffold to the right of the entrance;
and I was glad of it; for there was a great pack of people crowded in,
as the custom was, also to see the spectacle; and they were all about me
and in front, as well as in the gallery where the music was.

The Banqueting Hall had its walls all hung over with very rich tapestry,
representing all kinds of merry scenes of hunting and fighting and the
like, and there were great presses along the walls, piled with plate of
gold and silver. The music was all on the balusters above--wind-music,
trumpets and kettledrums, that played as Their Majesties came in, after
the heralds and Black Rod. I had not had before an opportunity of seeing
the Queen so well as I saw her now; and I watched her closely, for I was
sorry for the poor woman. She was very gloriously dressed in a pale
brocade, with quantities of Flanders lace upon her shoulders and at her
elbows, that set off her little figure very well. She was very handsome,
I thought, though so little; and her complexion and her face were both
very good, except that her teeth shewed too much as she smiled. She
had, however, nothing of that witty or brilliant air about her that
pleased the King so much in women; and she sat very quietly throughout
supper, beside the King, not speaking a great deal. But I thought I saw
in her at first a very piteous desire to please him; and he listened,
smiling, as a man might listen to a dull child; and, indeed, I think
that that was all that he thought of her. His Majesty himself appeared
very noble and gallant, in His Order of the Garter, and with the Golden
Fleece too, over his rich suit. Both Their Majesties wore a good number
of jewels.

Their Majesties sat at a little high table, under a state, with their
gentlemen and ladies standing behind them; and the Spaniards, with the
King's other guests at a table that ran down the middle of the hall, yet
close enough at the upper end for the Ambassador and the King to speak
together. My Lord Shaftesbury was there; and it was strange to see him,
I knowing how much he was privately under His Majesty's displeasure, and
Prince Rupert, very fat and pale and stupid; and Sir Thomas Killigrew
and a score of others. His Majesty was served by the Lords and
pensioners; and the rest by pages and the like, and gentlemen. About the
middle of the dinner toasts were drunk--and first of all His Majesty's,
and the trumpets sounded and the music played, all standing, and when
they were sat down again I heard the guns shot off at the Tower; and I
thought of him who lay there, and how he heard them near at hand, and
how he might have been here, supping with the Spaniards, had he not
fallen under the popular displeasure on account of his religion. It was
a wonderful thing to see the toast drunk, all that company standing upon
its feet, and shouting.

When the banquet came in, and the French wines, a very curious scene of
disorder presently began--these gentlemen flinging the dessert about
and at one another, for they were beginning to be a little drunk: and I
saw Killigrew fling a bunch of raisins at one of the Spaniards, in
sport. His Majesty sat smiling throughout, not at all displeased; but
not drunk at all himself; and indeed he seldom or never drank to excess
nor gamed to excess, though he loved to see others do so.

At the end, when all was finished, a choir under the direction of the
King's Master of Music sang a piece very sweetly from the gallery, with
the wind music sounding softly; but no one paid the least attention; and
then we all stood up again, such as had seats on the scaffolds, to see
Their Majesties go out. But such a scene as it all was, when the fruit
and sweetmeats were flung about would not have been tolerated in Rome,
nor, I think in any Court in Europe.

The next morning, very early, James and I set out for Hare Street.

Now the determination had been forming in my mind for some weeks past,
that I would delay no longer in that which lay nearer to my heart by
now, I think, than all politics or missions or anything else; and that
was to ask my Cousin Dolly if she would have me or no; and all the way
down to Hare Street I was considering this and rehearsing what I should
say. I still had some hesitation upon the point, for I remembered how
strange and shy she had been when I had last been there, and had thought
it to be because perhaps she believed that she was being flung at me by
her father. But the memory of my jealousy had worked upon me very much
--that jealousy, I mean, that I had had when His Grace of Monmouth had
come and made his pretty speeches; and I was all but resolved to put all
to the test, one way or the other. I had thought of her continually: in
all that I had seen--in even the sorrowful affair in Westminster Hall
and the merry business a fortnight after at the supper--I had seen it,
so to say, all through her eyes and wondered how she would judge of it
all, and wished her there. The sting of my jealousy indeed was gone: I
reproached myself for having thought ill of her even for a moment; yet
the warmth was still there; and so it was in this mood that I came at
last to the house, at supper-time.

It was extraordinary merry and pretty within. Neither was below stairs
when I came; for my Cousin Tom was in the cellar, and my Cousin Dolly in
the kitchen; and when I went into the Great Chamber it was all
untenanted. But the walls were hung all over with wreaths and holly: and
there were wax candles in the sconces all ready for lighting the next
day. But the parlour, where were the hangings of the Knights of the
Grail was even more pretty; for there were hung streamers across the
ceiling, from corner to corner, and a great bunch of mistletoe united
them at the centre.

As I was looking at this my Cousin Dolly ran in, her hands all over
flour; and as I saw her--"Here," I said to myself, "is the place where
it shall be done."

She could not touch me or kiss me, because of the flour; but she
permitted me to kiss her, my cold lips against her warm cheek; and her
eyes were as stars for merriment. There is something very strange and
mystical about Christmas, to me--(which I think is why the Puritans were
so savage against it)--for I suppose that the time in which our Lord was
born as a little Child, makes children of us all, that we may understand
Him better.

"Well, you are come then!" said Dolly to me--"and we not ready for you."

"I am ready enough for home," said I. And she smiled very friendly at me
for that word.

"I am glad you call it that," said she.

There was but a little dried fish and rice for supper that night, as it
was a fast day; but the supper of Christmas Eve is always a kind of
sacramental for me, when midnight mass is to follow. There was no
midnight mass for us that Christmas, nor any mass at all; though I
suppose it was celebrated as usual in the Ambassadors' chapels, and the
Queen's: yet the supper had yet that air of mystery and expectancy about
it.

"We are all to dance to-morrow night," said Dolly.

"So that is why the floor is cleared in the Great Chamber," I said.

She nodded at me. She looked more of a child than I had ever seen her.

"Will you dance with me, Dolly?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "but my first is with my father."

I told them presently, though it was but a melancholy tale for Christmas
Eve, of my Lord Stafford's trial, and all that I had seen there; and of
the supper last night in Whitehall.

"My Lord is to be beheaded in five days," I said. "We must pray for his
soul. He will die as bravely as he has lived; I make no doubt."

"And you have no doubt of his innocence?" asked Cousin Tom.

I stared on him.

"Why no," I said, "nor any man, except those paid to believe his guilt."

He pressed me to tell him more of what I had seen in London; and whether
I had seen the Duke of Monmouth again.

"He is in Holland," I said, "under His Majesty's displeasure. But I saw
Her Grace of Portsmouth."

"Why, that is his friend, is it not?" asked Tom.

"Yes," I said, "and a poor friend to his father and the Duke of York."

The next night was a very merry one.

We had dined at noon as usual: and that was pretty merry too; for all
the servants dined with us, and the men from the farm and their wives.
It was sad to have had no mass at all; and all that we had instead of it
was the sound of the bells from Hormead, from the church that had been
our own a hundred and fifty years ago--which was worse than nothing. At
dinner we observed the usual ceremonial, with the drinking of healths
and the burning of candles; and Dolly and her father and her maid sang a
grace at the beginning and end--with a carol or two afterwards that was
a surprise to me. It was very homely and friendly and Christian; and I
saw my man James with his arm around one of the dairymaids--which is
pretty Christian too, I think. We kept it up till it was near time to
get supper ready, telling of stories all the while about the fire in the
old way. Some of them were poor enough; but some were good. Dick, the
cow-man, whom we had long suspected of poaching, exposed himself very
sadly, when the ale was in him, by relating a number of poaching tricks
I had never heard before. One was of how to catch stares, or shepsters,
when they fly up and down, as they do before lodging in a thicket. Then
you must turn out, said Dick, a quick stare with a limed thread of three
yards long, when she will fly straight to the rest, and, flocking among
them, will infallibly bring down at least one or two, and perhaps five
or six, all entangled in her thread. And another was how to take wild
ducks. Go into the water, said he, up to the neck, with a pumpkin put
over your head, and whilst the ducks come up to eat the seeds, you may
take them by the legs and pull them under quietly, one by one, till they
be drowned. But I would not like to do that in cold weather; and indeed
it seems to me altogether like that other method by which you take larks
by a-putting of salt upon their tails. I asked Dick, very serious,
whether he had tried that plan; and he said he had not, but that a
friend had told him of it; and the company became very merry.

There were other tales too, more grave than these, of sacrilege, and
suchlike. One, which my man James told, was of a man who took an altar
stone from an old church, to press cheeses with; but the cheeses ran
blood; so they took it from that and put it in the laundry to bat the
linen on. But at night, such a sound of batting was heard continually
from the laundry--and no one there--that the man took it back again to
the church, and buried it in the churchyard. And another was of two men
who had thrown down a village-cross upon a bowling-green; and when one
of them next day tried to move it from there, for the playing--he being
a very strong man, and lifting it on end--it fell upon him, backwards,
and crushed his breast, so that he never spoke again. And there were
many tales told of church-lands; and how my Lord Strafford, that was
beheaded, before his death told his son to get rid of them all, for that
they brought a curse always upon them that held them. And there was
another story told at the end by a man from the farm who had been in
London at the time, and had seen it for himself--how my Lords
Castlehaven and Arran, in St. James' Park, did, for a wager, kill a
strong buck in His Majesty's presence, by running on foot, and each with
a knife only. They took nearly three hours to do it in, but the wager
was for six, so they won that. They killed him at last in Rosamund's
Pond, having driven him in there with stones. I could well believe this
latter tale, and that the thing had been done in the king's presence,
having seen what I had at supper two nights before.

When we came into the Great Chamber after supper all was ready for the
dancing; and Mr. Thompson, who was the Hormead schoolmaster, and a
concealed Catholic--though he went to the church with the children and
did teach them their religion, for his living--was at the spinet to
which we were to dance. There was a fellow also to play the fiddle, and
another for a horn.

The dancing was very pretty to see; and we did a great number, beginning
as the custom is, with country dances; and it was in the first of these
that my Cousin Dolly did dance with her father, and I with Dolly's maid.
We were all dressed too, not indeed in our best, but in our second
best--with silk stockings, and the farm men and the maids were in
their Sunday clothes. But each one had put on something for the
occasion; one had a pair of buckled shoes of a hundred years old, and
another an old ring. My Cousin Tom and I wore our own hair, and no
periwigs. My Cousin Dolly was very pretty in her grey sarcenet, with her
little pearls, and her hair dressed in a new fashion.

It was all very sweet to me, for it was so natural and without
affectation; and it all might have been a hundred years ago before the
old customs went out and the new came in from France, in which men pay
dancers to dance, instead of doing it for themselves. The room was very
well decked, and the candles lighted all round the walls; and when some
of the greenery fell down and was trodden underfoot, the smell of it was
very pleasant. A little fire was on the hearth--not great, lest we
should be too hot.

We danced country dances first, as I have said; and then my Cousin Dolly
shewed us one or two town dances, and I danced a sarabande in her
company; but then as the rest of the folk liked the country dances the
best, we went back to these.

Presently I saw my Cousin Dolly go out, and went after her to ask if she
needed anything.

"No," said she, "only to get cool again."

"Come into the parlour," said I; and made her come with me. This too had
a couple of candles burning over the hearth, and a little fire, for any
who wished to come in; but it was empty, for even my Cousin Tom was
disporting himself next door in a round dance that had but just begun.

Then it was that all my resolution came to a point; for all
circumstances looked that way--my determination to speak, the blessed
time of Christmas, the extraordinary kindness of Dolly to me all day,
and the very place empty, yet lighted and waiting, as if by design.

For a moment after she had sat down on one side of the hearth, and I on
the other, I could not speak; for I seemed to myself all shaking, and
again she looked such a child, with her pale cheeks flushed with the
exercise, and her eyes alight with merriment. All went before me in that
moment--my old thought that I was to be a monk, my leaving the
novitiate, my mission from Rome, such as it was, and the work I had been
able to do for the King. To all this I must say good-bye; and yet this
price I should pay seemed to me scarcely to be considered as weighed
against this little maid. So it went by me like a picture, and was gone,
and I looked up.

There was that in my air, I suppose, and the way I looked at her, that
told her what my meaning was; for before I had spoken even a syllable
she was on her feet again, and the flush was stricken from her face.

"Oh! no! Cousin Roger," she cried. "No, no, Cousin Roger!

"It is Yes, Yes, Cousin Dolly," said I. "Or at least I hope so." (I said
this with more assurance than I shewed, for if I was sure of anything it
was that she loved me in return. And I stood up and leaned on the
chimney-breast.)

She stood there, staring on me; and the flush crept back.

"What have I said?" she whispered.

"You need say nothing more, my dear, except what I bid you. My dear
love, you have guessed just what it was that I had to say. Sit down
again, if you please, Cousin, while I tell you."

As I looked at her, a very curious change came across her face. I saw it
at once, but I did not think upon it till afterwards. She had been a
very child just now, in her terror that I should speak--just that
terror, I should suppose, that every maid must have when a man first
speaks to her of love. Yet, as I looked, that terror went from her face,
and her wide eyes narrowed a little as she brought down her brows, and
her parted lips closed. It was, I thought, just that she had conquered
herself, and set herself to hear what I had to say, before answering me
as I wished. She moved very slowly back to her chair, and sat down,
crossing her hands on her lap. That was all that I thought it was, so
little did I know women's hearts, and least of all hers.

I remained yet a moment longer, leaning my forehead on my hand, and my
hand flat upon the tapestry, staring into the red logs, and considering
how to say what I had to say with the least alarm to her. I felt--though
I am ashamed to say it--as it were something of condescension towards
her. I knew that it was a good match for her, for had not her father
drilled that into me by a hundred looks and hints? I knew that I was
something considerable, and like to be more so, and that I was
sacrificing a good deal for her sake. And then a kind of tenderness
came over me as I thought how courageous she was, and good and simple,
and I put these other thoughts away, and turned to her where she sat
with the firelight on her chin and brows and hair, very rigid and still.

"Dolly, my dear," I said, "I think you know what I have to say to you.
It is that I love you very dearly, as you must have seen--"

She made a little quick movement as if to speak.

"Wait, cousin," I said, "till I have done. I tell you that I love you
very dearly, and honor you, and can never forget what you did for me.
And I am a man of a very considerable estate and a Catholic; so there is
nothing to think of in that respect. And your father too will be
pleased, I know; and we are--"

Again she made that little quick movement; and I stopped.

"Well, my dear?"

She looked up at me very quietly.

"Well, Cousin Roger; and what then?"

That confused me a little; for I had thought that she had understood.
And then I thought that perhaps she too was confused.

"Why, my dear," I said very patiently as I thought, as one would speak
to a child, "I am asking you if you will be my wife."

I turned away from the fire altogether, and faced her, thinking I should
have her in my arms. But at first she said nothing at all, but sat
immovable, scrutinizing me, I thought, as if to read all that was in my
head and heart. But it was all new to me, for what did I know of love
except that it was very strange and sweet? So I waited for her answer.
That answer came.

"Cousin Roger," she said in a very low voice, "I am very sorry you have
spoken as you have--"

I straightened myself suddenly and looked at her more closely. She had
not moved at all, except her face. A kind of roaring murmur began to
fill my ears.

"Because," said she--and every word of hers now was pain to
me--"because there is but one answer that I can give, which is No."

"Why--" cried I.

"You have spoken very kindly and generously. But--" and at this her
voice began to ring a little--"but I am not what you think me--a maid to
be flung at the head of any man who will choose to take her."

"Cousin!" cried I; and then she was on her feet too, her face all
ablaze.

"Yes, Cousin!" cried she; "and never any more than that. You have acted
very well, Cousin Roger; and I thank you for that compliment--that you
thought it worth while to play the part--and for your great kindness to
a poor country maid. I had thought it to be all over long ago--before
you went away; or I would not have behaved as I have. But since you have
considered it again carefully, and chosen to--to insult me after all; I
have no answer at all to give, except No, a thousand times over."

"Why, Cousin--" I began again.

She stamped her foot. I could not have imagined she could be so angry.

"Wait till I have done," she said--"I do not know what my father thinks
of me; but I suppose that you and he have designed all this; and led me
on to make a fool of myself--Oh! Let me go! let me go!"

Oh! the triple fool that I was! Yet who had ever taught me the ways of
love, or what women mean, or what their hearts are like? If I had been
one half the man that I thought myself, I would have seized her there,
and forced back her foolishness with kisses, and vowed that, conspirator
or not, she must have me; that we knew one another too well to play
false coin like this. Or I should have blazed at her in return; and told
her that she lied in thinking I was as base as that. Why, I should have
just borne myself like a lover to whom love is all, and dignity and
wounded pride nothing; for what else is there but love, sacred or
profane, in the whole world that God has made? If I had done that! If
only I had done that then! But I suppose that I was no lover then.

So I drew back, smarting and wounded; and let her go by; and a minute
later I heard the door of her chamber slam behind her, and the key turn.

For myself I went out very slowly, five minutes after, and upstairs to
my own chamber, and began to consider what things I must take with me on
the morrow; for I would not stay another day in the house where I had
been so insulted and denied.

CHAPTER VIII

Pride is a very good salve, when one has no humility; and it was Pride
that I applied to myself to heal the wounds I had.

I came down again to the Great Chamber, half an hour later, very cold
and dignified, and danced again, like the solemn fool that I was, first
with one and then with another; and all the while I told myself, like
the prophet that "I did well to be angry"; and that I would shew her
that no man, of my ability, could depend upon any mere woman for his
content. Yet the pain at my heart was miserable.

It is very near incredible to me now how I, who truly knew something of
the world, and of men and of affairs, could be so childish and ignorant
in a matter of this sort. In truth this was what I was; I knew nothing
of true love at all; how therefore should I be a proper lover? I saw my
Cousin Tom, who mopped himself a great deal, eyeing me now and again;
and he presently came up and asked me where Dolly was.

"In her chamber, I think," said I, with my nose in the air; and with
such a manner that he said no more.

It was enough to break my heart to continue dancing; but it was the task
I had set myself upstairs; and till near ten o'clock we continued to
dance--but no Dolly to help us. I had even determined how I should bear
myself if she came--and how superb should be my dignity; but she did not
come to see it. We ended with singing "Here's a health unto His
Majesty"; and I took care that my voice should be loud so that she
should hear it. (I had even, poor fool that I was! walked heavily past
her chamber-door just now, that she might hear me go.)

When all were gone away at last, I waited for my Cousin Tom, and then
went with him into the parlour; where I told him very briefly all that
had passed, with the same dignity that I had set myself to preserve. I
even spoke in a high sort of voice, to shew my self-command and
detachment. My Cousin Tom appeared as if thunderstruck.

"Good God!" said he. "The minx! to behave like that!"

"It is no longer any concern of mine," I said. "For myself I shall go
back to town to-morrow."

"But--" began he.

"My dear Cousin," I said, "it is the only thing that I can do--to set to
work again. Mistress Dorothy must recover herself alone. I could not
expect her to tolerate such a personage as I must appear in her eyes."

"But you will came back again," said Tom. "And I'll talk to the chit as
she deserves."

I preserved my lofty attitude.

"That again," said I, "is no concern of mine. And as for coming back,
when Mistress Dorothy has found her a husband whom she can respect--we
may perhaps consider it."

He sat very silent for a while after that; and I know now, though I did
not know then, what was the design he was considering--at least I
suppose it was then that he saw it clear before him. At the time I
thought he was giving his attention to myself; and I wondered a little
that he did not press me again to stay, though I would not have done so.

It was a very desolate morning when I awakened next day, and knew what
had happened, and that I must go away again from the house I had learned
so much to love; but there was no help for it; and, as I put on my
clothes, I put on my pride with them; and came down very cold and
haughty to get my "morning" as we called it, in the dining-room before
riding; and there in the dining-room was my Cousin Dolly, whom I had
thought to be in her chamber, as the door was shut when I came past it.

We bade one another good morning very courteously indeed; but we gave no
other salute to one another. She knew last night that I was going, as my
Cousin Tom had told her maid to tell her; and I was surprised that she
was there. Presently I had an explanation of it.

"Cousin Roger," said she, "I was very angry last night; and I wished to
tell you I was sorry for that, and for the hard words I used, before you
went away."

I bowed my head very dignifiedly.

"And I, too," I said, "must ask your pardon for so taking you by
surprise. I thought--" and then I ceased.

She had looked a little white and tired, I thought; but she flushed
again with anger when I said that.

"You thought it would be no surprise," she said.

"I did not say so, Cousin," said I. "You have no right to interpret--"

"But you thought it."

I drank my ale.

"Oh! what you must think of me!" she cried in a sudden passion; and ran
out of the room.

I think that was the most disconsolate journey I have ever taken. It was
a cold morning, with a fine rain falling: my man James was disconsolate
too (and I remembered the dairy-maid, when I saw it), and I was leaving
the one place I had begun to think of as my home, and her who had so
much made it home to me. I had not even seen her again before I went;
and our last words had been of anger; and of that chopping kind of
argument that satisfies no one.

I tried to distract myself with other thoughts--of what I was going
to; for I had determined to go straight to Whitehall and ask for some
employment; yet back and back again came the memories, and little scenes
of the house, and the appearance of the Great Chamber when it was all
lit up, and of the figure of that little maid who had so angered me, and
the way she carried her head, and the turns of her hand--and how happy
we all were yesterday about this time. However, I need not enlarge upon
that. Those that have ever so suffered will know what I thought, without
more words; and those who have not suffered would not understand, though
I used ten thousand. And every step of all the way to London, which we
reached about six o'clock, spoke to me of her with whom I had once
ridden along it. As we came up into Covent Garden I turned to my man
James and gave him more confidence than I had ever given to him
before--for I think that he knew what had happened.

"James," said I, "this is a very poor home-coming; but it is not my
fault."

Though fortune so far had been against me, I must confess that it
favoured me a little better afterwards, for when I went in to Mr.
Chiffinch's on the next morning, he gave me the very news that I wished
to hear.

"Mr. Mallock," he said, "you are the very man I most wished to see.
There is a great pother in France again. I do not know all the ins and
outs of the affair; but His Majesty is very anxious. He spoke of you
only this morning, Mr. Mallock."

My heart quickened a little. In spite of my pain it was a pleasure to
hear that His Majesty had spoken of me; for I think my love to him was
very much more deep, in one way, though not in another, than even to
Dolly herself.

"Mr. Chiffinch," said I, "I will be very plain with you. I have had a
disappointment; and I came back to town--"

He whistled, with a witty look.

"The pretty cousin?" he said.

I could not afford to quarrel with him, but I could keep my dignity.

"That is my affair, Mr. Chiffinch. However--there is the fact. I am come
to town for this very purpose--to beg for something to do. Will His
Majesty see me?"

He looked at me for an instant; then he thought better, I think, of any
further rallying.

"Why I am sure he will. But it will not be for a few days, yet. There is
a hundred businesses at Christmas. Can you employ yourself till then?"

"I can kick my heels, I suppose," said I, "as well as any man."

"That will do very well," said Mr. Chiffinch. "But I warn you, that I
think it will be a long affair. His Majesty hath entangled himself
terribly, and Monsieur Barillon is furious."

"The longer the better," said I.

On the twenty-ninth I went down to see my Lord Stafford die. I was in so
distracted a mood that I must see something, or go mad; for I had heard
that it would not be until the evening of that day that His Majesty
would see me, and that I must be ready to ride for Dover on the next
morning. Mr. Chiffinch had told me enough to shew that the business
would be yet more subtle and delicate than the last; and that I might
expect some very considerable recognition if I carried it through
rightly. I longed to be at it. One half of my longing came from the
desire to occupy my mind with something better than my poor bungled
love-affairs; and the other half from a frantic kind of determination to
shew my Mistress Dolly that I was better than she thought me; and that I
was man enough to attend to my affairs and carry them out competently,
even if I were not man enough to marry her. It must be understood that I
shewed no signs of this to anyone, and scarcely allowed it even to
myself; but speaking with that honesty which I have endeavoured to
preserve throughout all these memoirs, I am bound to say that my mind
was in very much that condition of childish anger and resentment. I had
a name as a strong man: God only knew how weak I was; for I did not even
know it myself.

There was a great crowd on Tower Hill to see my Lord Stafford's
execution; for not only was he well known, although, as I have said, not
greatly beloved; but the rumours were got about--and that they were true
enough I knew from Mr. Chiffinch--that he had said very strange things
about my Lord Shaftesbury, and how he could save his own life if he
willed, not by confessing anything of which he himself had been accused,
but by relating certain matters in which my Lord Shaftesbury was
concerned. However, he did not; yet the tale had gone about that perhaps
he would; and that a reprieve might come even upon the scaffold itself.

When I came to Tower Hill on horseback, about nine o'clock, the crowd
covered the most of it; but I drove my horse through a little, so that
I could have a fair sight both of the scaffold, and of the way, kept
clear by soldiers, along which the prisoner must come.

I had not been there above a few minutes, when a company went by, and in
the midst the two sheriffs, on horseback, whose business it was to carry
through the execution; and they drew up outside the gate, to preserve
the liberties of the Tower. While they were waiting, I watched those
that were upon the scaffold--two writers to take down all that was said;
and the headsman with his axe in a cloth--but this he presently
uncovered--and the block which he laid down upon the black baize put
ready for it, and for the prisoner to lie down upon. Then the coffin was
put up behind, with but the two letters W.S. as I heard afterwards: and
the year 1680.

Then, as a murmur broke out in the crowd, I turned; and there was my
Lord coming along, walking with a staff, between his guards, with the
sheriffs--of whom Mr. Cornish was one and Mr. Bethell the other--and the
rest following after.

When my Lord was come up on the scaffold, the headsman had gone again;
but he asked for him and gave him some money at which the man seemed
very discontented, whereupon he gave him some more. It is a very curious
custom this--but I think it is that the headsman may strike straight,
and not make a botch of it.

When my Lord turned again I could see his face very plainly. He wore a
peruke, and his hat upon that. He was in a dark suit, plain but rich;
and had rings upon his fingers, which I could see as he spoke. He was
wonderfully upright for a man of his age; and his face shewed no
perturbation at all, though it was more fallen than I had thought.

He read all his speech, very clearly, from a paper he took out of his
pocket; but as he delivered copies of it to the Sheriffs and the
writers--(and it was put in print, too, on the very same day by two
o'clock)--I need not give it here. He declared his innocence most
emphatically; calling God to witness; and he thanked God that his death
was come on him in such a way that he could prepare himself well for
eternity; but he did not thank the King for remitting the penalties of
treason, as he might have done. He made no great references, as was
expected that he would, to disclosures that he might have made; but only
in general terms. He denied most strongly that it was any part of the
Catholic Religion to give or receive indulgences for murder or for any
other sin; and he ended by committing his soul into the hands of Jesus
Christ, by whose merits and passion he hoped to be saved. His voice was
thin, but very clear for so old a man; and the crowd listened to him
with respect and attention. I think all those Catholic deaths and the
speeches that the prisoners make will by and by begin to affect public
opinion, and lead men to reflect that those who stand in the immediate
presence of God, are not likely, one after another, to go before Him
with lies upon their lips.

When he was done he distributed the copies of his speech, and then
presently kneeled down, and read a prayer or two. They were in Latin,
but I could not hear the words distinctly.

When he rose up again, all observing him, he went to the rail and spoke
aloud.

"God bless you, gentlemen!" he said. "God preserve His Majesty; he is as
good a prince as ever governed you; obey him as faithfully as I have
done, and God bless you all, gentlemen!"

It was very affecting to hear him speak so, for he did it very
emphatically; but even then one of their ministers that was on the
scaffold would not let him be.

"Sir," he asked, speaking loud all across the scaffold, "do you disown
the indulgences of the Romish Church?"

My Lord turned round suddenly in a great passion.

"Sir!" he cried. "What have you to do with my religion? However, I do
say that the Church of Rome allows no indulgences for murder, lying and
the like; and whatever I have said is true."

"What!" cried the minister. "Have you received no absolution?"

"I have received none at all," said my Lord, more quietly; meaning of
the kind that the minister meant, for I have no doubt at all that he
made his confession in the Tower.

"You said that you never saw those witnesses?" asked the minister, who,
I think, must have been a little uneasy.

"I never saw any of them," said my Lord, "but Dugdale; and that was at a
time when I spoke to him about a foot-boy." (This was at Tixall, when
Dugdale was bailiff there to my Lord Aston.)

They let him alone after that; and he immediately began to prepare
himself for death. First he took off his watch and his rings, and gave
them to two or three of his friends who were on the scaffold with him.
Then he took his staff which was against the rail, and gave that too;
and last his crucifix, which he took, with its chain, from around his
neck.

His man then came up to him, and very respectfully helped him off with
his peruke first, and then his coat, laying them one on the other in a
corner. My Lord's head looked very thin and shrunken when that was done,
as it were a bird's head. Then his man came up again with a black silk
cap to put his hair under, which was rather long and very grey and thin;
and he did it. And then his man disposed his waistcoat and shirt,
pulling them down and turning them back a little.

Then my Lord looked this way and that for an instant; and then went
forward to the black baize, and kneeled on it, with his man's help, and
then laid himself down flat, putting his chin over the block which was
not above five or six inches high.

Yet no one moved--and the headsman stood waiting in a corner, with his
axe. One of the sheriffs--Mr. Cornish, I think it was--said something to
the headsman; but I could not hear what it was; and then I saw my Lord
kneel upright again, and then stand up. I think he was a little deaf,
and had not heard what was said.

"Why, what do you want?" he said.

"What sign will you give?" asked Mr. Cornish.

"No sign at all. Take your own time. God's will be done," said my Lord;
and again applied himself to the block, his man helping him as before,
and then standing back.

"I hope you forgive me," said the headsman, before he was down.

"I do," said my Lord; and that was the last word that he spoke; for the
headsman immediately stepped up, so soon as he was down, and with one
blow cut his head all off, except a bit of skin, which he cut through
with his knife.

Then he lifted up the head, and carried it to the four sides of the
scaffold by the hair, crying:

"Here is the head of a traitor," as the custom was. My Lord's face
looked very peaceful.

I rode home again alone, thinking of what I had seen, and the innocent
blood that was being shed, and wondering whether this might not be the
last shed for that miserable falsehood. But even after that sight, the
thought of my Cousin Dorothy was never very far away; and before I was
home again I was once more thinking of her more than of that from which
I was just come, or of that to which I was going, for I was to see His
Majesty that evening and so to France next day.

PART III

CHAPTER I

It was on a very stormy evening, ten months later, that I rode again
into London, on my way from Rome and Paris.

Now, here again, I must omit altogether, except on one or two very
general points, all that had passed since I had gone away on the day
after my Lord Stafford's execution on Tower Hill. It is enough to say
that I had done my business in Paris very much to His Majesty's
satisfaction, as well as to that of others; and that M. Barillon himself
had urged me to stay there altogether, saying that I could make a career
for myself there (as the Romans say), such as I could never make in
England. But I would not, though I must confess that I was very much
tempted to it; and I know now, though I did not know it altogether then,
that there were just two things that prevented me--and these were that
His Majesty and my Cousin Dorothy were in England and not France.

Of my Cousin Dorothy I had heard scarcely anything at all; for the last
letter I had had from Hare Street was at Eastertide; and Tom said not
very much about his daughter, except that she was pretty well; and that
he thought of taking her to town in the summer for a little. The rest of
his letter was, two-thirds of it all about Hare Street and the lambs and
how the fruit promised; and one-third of the affairs of the kingdom.

These affairs, of which I learned from other sources besides my Cousin
Tom, were, in brief, as follows.

His Majesty, for the first time, since he had come to the throne, had
shewn an extraordinary open courage in dealing with the country-party.
(I must confess that my success in France was not wholly without
connection with this. He was so much strengthened in French affairs that
he felt, I suppose, that he could act more strongly at home.)

First, in January, he had dissolved the Parliament that had threatened
the exclusion of the Duke of York, and that would vote him no money till
he would yield. First he prorogued it, though there was a great clamour
in his very presence; and then he dissolved it, coming in so early in
the morning that none suspected his design.

Then he summoned a new Parliament to meet at Oxford: for at Oxford he
knew he would have the support of the city, whereas at London he had
not. That Parliament at Oxford will never be forgotten, I think; for it
was more like an armed camp than a Parliament. Both parties went armed.
My Lord Shaftesbury, in order to rouse the feeling on his side, went
there in a borrowed coach without his liveries, as if he feared arrest
or even death. But His Majesty answered that by himself going with all
his guards about him, as if for the same reason. There were continual
brawls in the city, and duels too. The parties went about like companies
of cats and dogs, snarling and spitting at one another continually; and
so fierce was the feeling that nothing could be done. My Lord
Shaftesbury's creatures were still strong enough to hold their own; and
at last His Majesty did the bravest thing he had ever done. He caused a
sedan-chair to be brought privately to his lodgings, and his crown and
robes to be put in there. Then he went in himself, and away to where the
House of Lords was sitting, and before anyone could utter a word, he
dissolved the Parliament once more, and altogether, and never again
summoned another.

But that was not all.

First, it appeared as if even His Majesty himself was frightened at what
he had done, for he allowed my Lord Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. Oliver
Plunket, to be convicted and executed in London, clean contrary to all
evidence or right or justice--just because he was a Papist, and the
popular cry had been raised against him that he was conspiring to bring
the French over to Ireland, whereas he was a good and kindly old man,
who lived in the greatest simplicity and neither did nor designed harm
to any living creature. (I do not know whether it was the name _France_
that frightened the King; but certainly at that time I was engaged on
his behalf in some transactions with that country which would have
ruined him had they ever been known.) But then he recovered himself,
after the sacrifice of one more Catholic, and did what he should have
done a great while ago, and caused my Lord Shaftesbury to be arrested
and sent to the Tower on a charge of fomenting insurrection, which was
precisely what my Lord had been doing for the last two years at least.

But His Majesty's scheme fell through; for the sheriffs, who were Whigs,
and on my Lord's side, therefore, packed the grand jury of the City and
acquitted him.

Then there was another affair of which I, in my business in France, saw
something of the other side. My negotiations were coming to a successful
end, when news came over to Paris that the Prince William of Orange was
in England, and made much of by His Majesty. This last was a lie; but I
wrote across to His Majesty of what a bad impression such a rumour made;
and urged him to make amends--which he did very handsomely. The Duke of
Monmouth too was back again in London, and so was the Duke of York; so
the chess-pieces were all again for the present on the squares on which
the game had begun. It was also a little satisfaction to me to hear that
Her Grace of Portsmouth had urged the Duke of York's return; for I
thought myself not a little responsible for her change of face. Once
again, however, the Duke returned to finish affairs in Scotland, and
then came back to Court; and it was on his journey there that the
_Gloucester_ was wrecked, and His Royal Highness so nearly drowned.

The Duke of Monmouth however saw that affairs were moving against him;
so he determined on a very bold stroke; and, after returning to England
once more without His Majesty's leave, went through all the country as
if on a royal progress; and it was astonishing how well he was received.
It was then that Mr. Chiffinch wrote to me at length, telling me of the
spies he had sent to follow the Duke everywhere, and asking whether I
would not come over myself to help in it. But I was just considering
whether I would not go to Rome; and, indeed, before I could make up my
mind, another letter came saying that the Duke was to be arrested, and
then let out on bail, and that he could do no more harm for the present.
So I went to Rome, and there I stayed a good while, reporting myself and
all that I had done, and being received very graciously by those who had
sent me.

Since then, not very much of public import had happened, until in the
first week in November I received in Paris a very urgent letter from Mr.
Chiffinch telling me to return at once; but no more in it than that.

It was a very stormy night, as I have said, when I rode in over London
Bridge to where the lights of the City shone over the water.

I was very content at my coming; for in spite of all my resolutions, it
was a terrible kind of happiness to me to be in the same country (and so
near to her, too) as was my Cousin Dorothy. I had striven to put her out
of my head, I had occupied myself with that which is the greatest of all
sports--and that is the game that Kings play in secret--I had become
something of a personage, and rode now with four servants, instead of
one. Yet never could I forget her. But I was resolved to play no more
with such nonsense; to live altogether in London, and to send my men in
a day or two to get my things from Hare Street. It often appears to me
very strange, when I see some great man go by whose name is in all men's
mouths for some office he holds or for his great wealth or power, to
reflect that he has his secret interests as much as any, and is moved by
them far more deeply than by those public matters for which men think
that he cares. I was not yet a great personage, though I meant to be so;
and my name was in no men's mouths, for it was of the very essence of
what I did that it should not be; yet I was held in high consideration
by two kings. But for all that, as I turned westwards from London
Bridge, I looked northwards up Gracechurch Street, and longed to be
riding to Hare Street, rather than to Whitehall.

It was strange, and yet very familiar too, to go up those stairs again,
all alone--(for I had sent my men on to Covent Garden, where I had taken
two sets of lodgings now, instead of one)--to tell the servant that Mr.
Chiffinch looked for me, and to be conducted by him straight through to
the private closet where he awaited me over his papers. I was in my
boots, all splashed, and very weary indeed. Yet I had learned, ever
since the day when His Majesty had found fault with me so long ago,
never to delay even by five minutes, when kings call.

"Well?" I said; as I came in.

"Well!" said he; and took me by the hands.

Now it may seem surprising that I could tolerate such a man as was Mr.
Chiffinch, still more that I should have become on such terms with him.
The truth is, that I regarded him as two men, and not one. On the one
side he was the spy, the servant, the panderer to the King's more
disgraceful secrets; on the other he was a man of an extraordinary
shrewdness, utterly devoted to His Majesty, and very competent indeed in
very considerable affairs. If ever the secret memoirs of Charles II. see
the light of day, Mr. Chiffinch will be honoured and admired, as well as
contemned.

"First sup;" he said. "I have all ready: and not one word till you are
done."

He took me through into a little dining-room that was opposite the
closet; and here was all that a hungry man might desire of cold meats
and wine. He had had it set out, he told me ever since five o'clock (for
I had sent to tell him I would be there that night).

While I ate he would say nothing at all of the business on hand; but
talked only of France and what I had done there. He told me the King was
very greatly pleased; and there were rewards if I wished them--or even a
title, though he was not sure of what kind, for I was a very young man.

"He vows you have done a thousand times more than the Duchess of
Portsmouth in all her time. But I would recommend you to take nothing.
It will not be forgotten, you may be sure. If you took anything now, it
would make you known, and ruin half your work. If you will take my
advice, Mr. Mallock, you will tell the King, Bye and bye; and have a
peerage when the time comes."

Now of course these thoughts had crossed my mind too: but it was more to
hear them from a man like this. I nodded at him but said nothing,
feigning that my mouth was full; for indeed I did not quite know what to
say. I need not say that the thought of my Cousin Dorothy came to me
again very forcibly. At least I should have shewn her what I could do.

When I was quite done, Mr. Chiffinch carried me back to the parlour; and
there, having locked the door, he told me what was wanted of me.

When he had done, I looked at him in astonishment. "You are as sure as
that?" I said.

"We are sure, beyond the very leastest doubt, that at last there is a
plot to kill the King. There are rumours and rumours. Well, these are of
the right kind. And we are convinced that my Lord Shaftesbury is behind
it, and my Lord Essex, and Mr. Sidney; and who else we do not know. My
men whom I sent to spy out how Monmouth was received in the country,
tell me the same. But the trouble is that we have no proof at all; and
cannot lay a finger on them. And there is only that way, that I told you
of, to find it out."

"That I should mix with them--feign to be one of them!" said I.

The man threw out his hands.

"Mr. Mallock," he said, "I told the King you were too nice for it. He
said on the contrary that he was sure you would do it; that it was not a
matter of niceness, but of plot against counterplot."

"A pretty simile!" I said with some irony; for I confess I did not like
the idea; though I was far from sure I would not do it in the end.

"'If one army is besieging a castle or town,' said he, 'and mines
beneath the ground after nightfall secretly, is it underhand action to
do the same, and to countermine them?' But I said I was not sure what
you would think of it. You see, Mr. Mallock, I scarcely know a single
person who unites the qualities that you do. We must have a gentleman,
or he would never be accepted by them; and he must be a shrewd man too.
Well, I will not say we have no shrewd gentlemen: but what shrewd
gentlemen have we, think you, who are not perfectly known--and their
politics?"

"The Duchess of Portsmouth knows me," said I, beginning to hesitate.

"But she does not know one word of this affair; nor will they tell her.
She is far too loyal for that."

"But she will have told others what I am."

"It is not likely, Mr. Mallock. We must take our chance of it. Truly I
see no one for it but yourself. I would not have sent for you, if I had,
for you were very useful in France. But the difficulty is, you see, that
we can take no observable precautions. We have doubled the guards inside
the palace at night; but we dare not in the day; for if that were known,
they would suspect that we knew all, and would be on their guard. As it
is, they have no idea that we know anything."

"How do they mean to do it?"

"That again we do not know. If they can find a fanatic--and there are
plenty of the old Covenanting blood left--they might shoot His Majesty
as he sits at supper. Or they may drag him out of his coach one day, as
they did with Archbishop Sharpe. Or they might poison him. I have the
cook always to taste the dishes before they come into Hall; but who can
guard against so many avenues?"

I sat considering; but I was so weary that I knew I could decide nothing
rightly. On the one side the thing appealed to me; for there was danger
in it, and what does a young man love like that? And there was a great
compliment in it for me--that I should be the one man they had for the
affair. Yet it did not sound to me very like work for a gentleman--to
feign to be a conspirator--to win confidence and then to betray it, in
however a good cause.

What astonished me most however was the thought that the country-party
had waxed as desperate as this. Certainly their tide was going down--as
I had heard in France; but I did not know it was gone so low as this.
And that they who had lied and perjured themselves over the Oates
falsehoods, and had used them, and had kept the people's suspicions
alive, and had professed such loyalty, and had been the cause of so much
bloodshedding--that these men should now, upon their side, enter upon
the very design that they had accused the Catholics of--this was very
nearly enough to decide me.

"Well," said I, "you must give me twenty-four hours to determine in. I
am drawn two ways. I do not know what to do."

"I can assure you," said the page eagerly, "that His Majesty would give
you almost anything you asked for--if you did this, and were
successful."

I pursed my lips up.

"Perhaps he would," I said. "But I do not know that I want very much."

"Then he would give you all the more."

I stood up to take my leave.

"Well, sir," I said, "I must go home again and to bed. I am tired out. I
will be with you again to-morrow at the same time."

He rose to take me to the outer door.

"You will not want to go to Hare Street this time," he said, smiling.

"To Hare Street!" I said. "Why should I go there?"

"Well--the pretty cousin!" said he.

I set my teeth. I did not like Mr. Chiffinch's familiarities.

"Well, then, why should I not go?" I asked.

"Why: she is here! Did you not know?"

"Here!--in London."

"Aye: in Whitehall. I saw her only yesterday."

"In Whitehall! What do you mean, Mr. Chiffinch?"

I suppose my face went white. I knew that my heart beat like a hammer.

"Why, what I say!" said he. "Why do you look like that, Mr. Mallock?"

"Tell me!" I cried. "Tell me this instant!"

"Why: she is Maid of Honour to Her Majesty. The Duchess of Portsmouth is
protecting her."

"Where is she?"

"Why--"

"_Where is she?_"

"She is with the rest, I suppose.... Mr. Mallock! Mr. Mallock! Where are
you going?"

But I was gone.

CHAPTER II

When I was out in the air I stopped short; and then remembering that Mr.
Chiffinch would be after me perhaps, and would try to prevent me, I went
on as quick as I could, turned a corner or two in that maze of passages,
and stopped again. As yet I had no idea as to what to do; my brain
burned with horror and fury; and I stood there in the dark, clenching my
hands again and again, with my whip in one of them. It was enough for me
that my Cousin Dolly was in that den of tigers and serpents that was
called the Court, and under the protection of the woman once called
Carwell. There was not one thought in my brain but this--all others were
gone, or were but as phantoms--the King, the Duke, Monmouth, the
Queen--they would be so many wicked ghosts, and no more--before me--and
I would go through them as through smoke, to tear her out of it.

I suppose that some species of sanity returned to me after a while, for
I found myself presently pacing up and down the terrace by the river,
and considering that this was a strange hour--eight o'clock at night, to
be searching out one of Her Majesty's ladies; and, after that, little by
little, persons and matters began to take their right proportions on
them again. I could not, I perceived, merely demand where Mistress
Jermyn lodged, beat down her door and carry her away with me safe to
Hare Street. Their Majesties of England still stood for something in
Whitehall, and so did reason and commonsense, and Dolly's own good name.
I began to perceive that matters were not so simple.

I do not think I reasoned at all as to her dangers there; but I was as
one who sees a flower on a dunghill. One does not argue about the
matter, or question whether it be smirched or not, nor how it got there.
Neither did I consider at all how my cousin came to be at Court, nor
whether any evil had yet come to her. I did not even consider that I did
not know whether she were but just come, or had been there a great
while. I considered only that she must be got out of it--and how to set
about it.

I might have stood and paced there till midnight, had not one of the
sentinels at the water-gate--placed there I suppose, as Mr. Chiffinch
had told me just now, as an additional security, after nightfall--stepped
out from his place and challenged me. I had had the word, of course, as I
came in; and I gave it him, and he was contented. But I was not. Here,
thought I, is my opportunity.

"Here," said I, "can you tell me where Mistress Dorothy Jermyn is
lodged?"

He was a young fellow, plainly from the country, as I saw, by his look
in the light of the lantern he had.

"No, sir," he said.

"Think again," I said. "She is under the protection of Her Grace of
Portsmouth. She is one of the Queen's ladies."

"Is she a little lady, sir--from the country--that came last month?"

"Yes," I said, feigning that I knew all about it, and trying to control
my voice. "That is she."

"Why, she is with the others, sir," he said.

"She is not with the Duchess then?"

"No, sir; I know she is not. There is no lady with the Duchess beside
her own. I was on my duty there last week."

This was something of a relief. At least she was not with that woman.

Now I knew where the Queen's Maids lodged. It was not an hundred yards
away, divided by a little passage-way from Her Majesty's apartment, and
adjoining the King's, with a wall between. There were five of these;
besides those who lodged with their families--but they changed so
continually that I could not be sure whether I knew any of them or not.
I had had a word or two once with Mademoiselle de la Garde; but she was
the only one I had ever spoken with; and besides, she might no longer be
there; and she was a great busybody too; and beyond her I knew only that
there was an old lady, whose name I had forgot, that was called
Governess to them all and played the part of duenna, except when she
could be bribed by green oysters and Spanish wine, not to play it. Such
fragments of gossip as that was all that I could remember; as well as
certain other gossip too, as to the life of these ladies, which I strove
to forget.

However, I could do nothing at that instant, but bid the man good-night,
and go up into the palace again with a brisk assured air, as if I knew
what I was about. A bell beat eight from the clock-tower, as I went.
Then when I had turned the corner to the left, I stopped again to reckon
up what I knew.

This did not come to very much. Her Majesty, I knew, was attended always
by two Maids of Honour at the least; and at this hour would be, very
likely, at cards with them, if there were no reception or entertainment.
If there were, then all would be there, and Dolly with them; and even in
that humour I did not think of forcing my way into Her Majesty's
presence and demanding my cousin. These receptions or parties or some
such thing, were at least twice or three times a week, if Her Majesty
were well. The reasonable thing to do, I confess, was to go home to
Covent Garden, quietly; and come again the next day and find out a
little; but there was very little reason in me. I was set but upon one
thing; and that was to see Dolly that night with my own eyes; and assure
myself that matters were, so far, well with her.

At the last I set out bravely, my legs carrying me along--as it appears
to me now--of their own accord: for I cannot say that I had formed any
design at all of what I should do; and there I found myself after a
minute or two of walking in the rain, at the door of the lodgings where
all the ladies that had not their families at Court lived together.
There were three steps up to the heavy oaken door that was studded over
with nails; and in the little window by the door a light was burning. I
had come by the sentinel that stood before the way up to the King's
lodgings, and had given him the word; but I saw that he was watching me,
and that I must shew no hesitation. I went therefore up the steps, as
bold as a lion, and knocked upon the oaken door.

I waited a full minute; but there was no answer; so I knocked again,
louder; and presently heard movements within, and the sound of the bolts
being drawn. Then the door opened, but only a little; and I saw an old
woman's face looking at me.

She said something; but I could not hear what it was.

"Is Mistress Jermyn within doors?" I asked.

The old face mumbled at me; but I could not hear a word. "Is Mistress
Jermyn within?" I asked again.

Once again the face mumbled at me; and then the door began to close.

This would never do; so I set my foot against it, suddenly all overcome
with impatience--(for I was in no mood to chop words)--and with the same
kind of fury that had seized me in Mr. Chiffinch's rooms. I saw red, as
the saying is; and it was not likely that a deaf old woman would stop
me. She fluttered the door passionately; and then, as I pushed on it,
she cried out. There was a great rattle of footsteps, and as I came into
the little paved entrance, a heavy bald fellow ran out of the room where
I had seen the light--(which was the porter's parlour)--in his
shirt-sleeves, very angry and hot-looking.

He looked at me, like a bull, with lowered head; and I saw that he
carried some weapon in his hand.

"Is Mistress Jermyn within doors?" I asked, putting on a high kind of
air.

"Who the devil are you?" said he.

I was not going to argue that point, for it was the weakest spot in my
assault. So I sat down on the stairs that rose straight up to the first
floor. (It was a little oak-panelled entrance that I was in, with a
single lamp burning in a socket on the wall.)

"You will first answer my question," I said. "Is Mistress Jermyn within
doors?"

Then he came at me, thinking, I suppose that my sitting down gave him
an advantage, and he lifted his weapon as he came. I had no time to draw
my own sword--which was besides, somewhere between my legs; but I rose
up, and, as I rose, struck out at his chin with all my force, with my
whole weight behind.

He staggered back against the doorway he had come out by; and the same
moment two things happened. The old woman screamed aloud; and Dolly
sprang suddenly out on to the head of the stairs, from a door that
opened there, full into the light of the lamp.

"Why-" cried she.

"Oh! there you are," I said bitterly. "Then Mistress Jermyn is within
doors."

Then I turned and went straight upstairs after her; and, as I went heard
the ring of running footsteps in the paved passage out of doors, and
knew that the guard was coming up. The fellow still leaned, dazed,
against the doorpost; and the old woman was pouring out scream after
scream.

I went after Dolly straight into the room from which she had come. It
was a little parlour, very richly furnished, with candles burning, and
curtains across the windows. It looked out towards the river, I suppose.
Dolly was standing, as pale as paper; but I could not tell--nor did I
greatly care--whether it were anger or terror. I think I must have
looked pretty frightening--(but then, she had spirit enough for
anything!)--for I was still in my splashed boots and disordered dress,
and as angry as I have ever been in my life. I could see she was not
dressed for Her Majesty; so I supposed--(and I proved to be right)--that
she was not in attendance this evening. It was better fortune than I
deserved, to find her so.

"Now," said I, "what are you doing here?"

(I spoke sharply and fiercely, as to a bad child. I was far too angry to
do otherwise. As I spoke, I heard the guard come in below; and a clamour
of voices break out. I knew that they would be up directly.)

"Now," I said again, "you have your choice! Will you give me up to the
guard; or will you hear what I have to say? You can send them away if
you will. You can say I am your cousin?"

She looked at me; but said nothing.

"Oh! I am not drunk," I said. "Now, you can--"

Then came a thunder of footsteps on the stairs; and I stopped. I knew I
had broken every law of the Court; I had behaved unpardonably. It would
mean the end of everything for me. But I would not, even now, have asked
pardon from God Almighty for what I had done.

Then Dolly, with a gesture, waved me aside; and confronted the serjeant
on the threshold.

"You can go," she said. "This is my cousin. I will arrange with them
below."

The man hesitated. Over his shoulder I could see a couple more faces,
glaring in at me.

Dolly stamped her foot.

"I tell you to go. Do you not hear me?"

"Mistress--" began the man.

"How dare you disobey me!" cried Dolly, all aflame with some emotion.
"This is my own parlour, is it not?"

He still looked doubtfully; and his eyes wandered from her to me, and
back again. He was yet just without the room. Then Dolly slammed to the
door, in a passion, in his very face.

Then she wheeled on me, like lightning. (I heard the men's footsteps
begin to go downstairs.)

"Now you will explain, if you please--" she began, with a furious kind
of bitterness.

"My maid," said I, "that kind of talk will not do with me"--(for at
her tone my anger blazed up higher even than hers). "It is I who have to
ask Why and How?"

"How dare you--" she began.

I went up without more ado, and took her by the shoulders. Never in all
the time I had known her, had the thought ever come to me, that one day
I might treat her so. She struggled violently, and seemed on the point
of crying out. Then she bit her lip; but there was no yielding in me;
and I compelled her backwards to a chair.

"You will sit there," I said. "And I shall stand. I will have no
nonsense at all."

She looked at me, I thought, with more hate than I had ever seen in
human eyes; glaring up at me with scorn and anger and resentment all
mingled.

"Yes--you can bully maids finely--" she said. "You can come and
cringe for their protection first--"

I laughed, very short and harsh.

"That manner is of no good at all--" I said. "You will answer my
questions. How did you come here? How long have you been here?"

She said nothing; but continued to look at me. Then again my anger rose
like a wave.

"Do you think to stare me down?" I said. "If you will not answer me,
I'll begone to those who will."

"You dare not!"

"Dare not! Do you think to frighten me?--Dolly, my dear, I am not in
the mood to argue. Will you tell me how you came here, and how long ago?
I must have an answer before I go."

For an instant she was silent.

"Will you go straight home again if I tell you?"

"Yes--I will promise that," said I--for now that I had seen her with
my own eyes most of what I desired was done. The rest could wait twelve
hours.

"Well, then," she said, "I have been here a month; and my father put me
here."

"Your father!"

"Yes, my father. Have you anything to say against him?"

"No: I will say it to him."

I wheeled about to go to the door.

"You have done enough mischief then, you think!" sneered Dolly.

I turned about again.

"Mischief!"

"Why, you have ruined my name," said Dolly, with the savage look in her
eyes still there. "But you did not think of that! You thought only of
yourself. The whole palace will know to-morrow that you beat down the
porter to force your way in. And it will not lose in the telling."

I had nothing to say to that. It was true enough, and the very kind of
talk with which the Court continually diverted itself. But I would not
show my dismay. Indeed the very thought of any trouble to her had no
more occurred to my mind than the consequences to a charging bull.

"We will see about that," I said, "when I speak with His Majesty."

Dolly laughed again, but without merriment.

"Oh! you will do this and that, no doubt," she said. "And when shall you
see His Majesty?"

I took out my watch.

"It is nearly nine," I said. "I shall see His Majesty in thirteen hours.
You had best be packing your valises. We shall ride at noon."

I waited no more to hear her laugh, as she did again; but went out and
down the staircase. The porter's chamber had its door half open: I
pushed the door and went in. The fellow started up.

"Here is a guinea," said I, throwing one upon the table; "and my
apologies. But 'twas you that began it!"

Then I turned and went out.

As I came down the steps into the little lamplit way, a man was coming
swiftly up it from the direction of the court, with one of the guards
behind him. I stopped short, thinking I was to be arrested. But it was
the page.

"Good God!" he said. "You have done finely indeed!"

I was still all shaking; and I simulated anger without any difficulty.

"And whose fault is that?" said I, as if in a fury. "Do you think--"

"And His Majesty may come by at any instant!" he said.

"Why; that is what I wish. In any case I must see him at ten o'clock
to-morrow."

"You are mad!" he said. "You had best begone to the country before dawn:
and even that will not save you." He looked over his shoulder at the
young man who had fetched him, and who now stood waiting.

"Save me! What have I done? I have but been to visit my cousin." (I said
this very loud, that the guard might hear.)

Again Mr. Chiffinch looked over his shoulder, and back again. I could
see the shine of lanterns where others waited behind. We were just
outside the King's lodging.

"Well, sir," he said. "But you will go now, will you not?"

"Why, yes," I said. "And I will be with you at half-past nine
to-morrow."

He beckoned the young soldier up.

"See this gentleman to the gate," he said. "He will find his way home,
after that."

I spent a very heavy evening before I went to bed; and when I was there
I could not sleep; for it appeared to me that I had made a great fool of
myself, having injured my own prospects and done no good to anyone. I
understood perfectly that I had acted in an unpardonable manner; for Her
Majesty's Maids of Honour were kept, or were supposed to be kept, in
very great seclusion at home, as if they were Vestal virgins--which was
indeed a very great supposition. Tale after tale came back to my mind of
those Maids in the past--of Mademoiselle de la Garde herself, of Miss
Stewart, Miss Hyde, Miss Hamilton, and others like them--some of whom
were indeed good, but had the greatest difficulty in remaining so; for
the Court of Charles was a terrible place for virtue. It was astonishing
to me that the horror of the place had not before this affected me; but
it is always so. We are very philosophical, always, over the wrongs that
do not touch ourselves.

As to how my Cousin Dolly came to be in such a place, I began to think
that I understood. It must all have dated from that unhappy visit of the
Duke of Monmouth to Hare Street; my Cousin Tom must have followed up
that strange introduction, and the affair must have been worked through
Her Grace of Portsmouth. I think I could have taken my Cousin Tom by the
throat, and choked him, as I thought of this.

Meantime I had no idea as to what I should do the next day--except,
indeed, see His Majesty, and say, perhaps, one tenth of what I felt. I
had told Dolly we should ride at noon next day; I was beginning to
wonder whether this prediction would be fulfilled. Yet, though I had
begun to consider myself more than in the first flush, I still felt my
anger rise in me like a tide whenever I regarded the bare facts. But
mere anger would never do; and I set myself to drive it down. Besides,
it would be there, I knew, and ready, if I should need it on the next
day.

When I arrived at Mr. Chiffinch's the next morning, I found him in a
very grave mood. He did not rise as I came in, but nodded to me, only.

"Sit down, Mr. Mallock," said he. "This is a very serious affair."

"So I think," I said.

He waved that away.

"His Majesty hath heard every word of it, with embellishments. He is
very angry indeed. Nothing but what you have done for him lately could
have saved you; and even now I do not know--"

"Man," I said, "do not let us leave such talk as this. It is not I who
am in question--"

"I think you will find that it is," he answered me, with a quick look.

I strove to be patient, and, even more, to appear so.

"Well," I said, "what have I done? I am come back from France: I hear my
cousin is here; I go to see her; a fellow at the door is impertinent,
and I chastise him for it. Then I go upstairs to my cousin's parlour--"

"That is the point," he interrupted. "It is not your cousin's. It is the
lodging of the Maids of Honour."

Yes: he had me there. That was my weak point. But I would not let him
see that.

"How was I to understand that distinction? I knocked at the door as
peaceably as any man could."

"And after that," he said, smiling a little grimly, "after that, your
cousinly affection blinded you."

"Well, that will do," I said.

He smiled again.

"Well; that is your case," he observed. "We will see how His Majesty
regards it. For I must tell you, Mr. Mallock, that for five minutes last
night it was touch and go whether you were not to be arrested. And I
will tell you this too, that if you had not come this morning, you
would have been brought."

"As bad as that?" I said, laughing. (But I must confess that his gravity
dismayed me a little.)

"As bad as that," he said. "You must go to His Majesty at ten."

"As I arranged," I said.

"As His Majesty arranged," said Mr. Chiffinch, rising: "and it is close
upon the time."

And then he added, with the utmost gravity.

"If there is one thing His Sacred Majesty is touchy upon, it is the
reputation of the ladies of the Court. I would remember that, sir, if I
were you."

I observed a while ago that Pride is a good weapon if one has not
Humility. So is Anger a good weapon, if one has not Patience; and I do
not mean simulated Anger, but the passion itself, held in a leash, like
a dog, and loosed when the time comes. Now, so great was my feeling for
His Majesty, and that not only of an honest loyalty, but of a real kind
of respect that I had for his person and his parts--a real fear of
the very great strength of will that lay beneath his weakness--that I
understood that, unless my anger was fairly near the surface, I should
be beaten down when I came into his presence. So, as we went together
towards his lodgings, I looked to see that my anger was there, patted it
on the head so to say, and called it Good Dog: and was relieved to hear
it growl softly in answer.

Plainly we were expected; because the two guards at the door stood aside
as soon as they saw us, and one of them called out something to a man
above. There were two more at the door itself; and we went in.

As we came in at the door of the private closet, having had no answer to
our knock, His Majesty came in at the other with two dogs at his heels.
He paid no attention to me at all, and barely nodded at my companion.
Then he sat down to his table, and began to write; leaving us standing
there like a pair of schoolboys.

Again I stroked the head of my anger. I could see the King was very
seriously displeased; and that unless I could keep myself determined, he
would have the best of the interview; and that I was resolved he should
not have.

Suddenly he spoke, still writing.

"You can go, Chiffinch," said he. "Come back in half an hour."

He looked up for a flash and nodded; and I thought, God knows why, that
he had in mind the guards outside, and that they should be within call.
I knew precisely what my legal offence would be--that of brawling within
the precincts of the palace; and the penalties of this I did not care to
think about; for I was not sure enough what they were.

When the door closed behind Mr. Chiffinch I felt more alone than ever. I
regarded the King's dark face, turned down upon his paper; his dusky
ringed hand with the lace turned back; the blue-gemmed quill that he
used, his great plumed hat. I looked now and again, discreetly, round
the room, at the gorgeous carvings, the tall presses, the innumerable
clocks, the brightly polished windows with the river flowing beneath. I
felt very little and lonely. Then, in a flash, the memory came back that
not fifty yards away was Dolly's little parlour, and Dolly herself; and
my determination surged up once more.

Suddenly His Majesty threw down his pen.

"Mr. Mallock," he said very sternly, "there is only one excuse for
you--that you were drunk last night. Do you plead that?"

He was looking straight at me with savage melancholy eyes. I dropped my
own.

"No, Sir."

"You dare to say you were not drunk?"

"Yes, Sir."

His Majesty caught up an ivory knife and sat drawing it through his
fingers, still looking at me, I perceived; though I kept my eyes down. I
could see that he was violently impatient.

"Mr. Mallock," said he, "this is intolerable. You come back from France
where you have done me good service--I will never deny that--and you
win my gratitude; and then you fling it all away by a piece of
unpardonable behaviour. Are you aware of the penalties for such
behaviour as yours?--brawling in the Palace itself, knocking my men
down, forcing your way into the lodgings of Her Majesty's Ladies? Have
you anything to say as to why you should not go before the Green Cloth?"

A great surge of contradiction and defiance rose within me; but I choked
it down again. It was there if I should need it. The effort held me
steady and balanced.

"Do you hear me, sir?"

"Yes, Sir," said I.

"Well--what have you to say?"

He glanced past me towards the door; and I thought again that the guards
were in his mind.

"Sir; I have a very great deal to say. But I fear I should offend Your
Majesty."

The King jerked his head impatiently.

"It is of the nature of a defence?"

"Certainly, Sir."

"Say it then. You need one."

I raised my eyes and looked him in the face. He was frowning; and his
lips were moving. Evidently he was very angry; and yet he was perplexed,
too.

"Sir, this is precisely what took place. I returned from France last
night, where, as Your Majesty was good enough to remark, I was able to
be of some little service. Upon my return I heard from Mr. Chiffinch
that my 'pretty cousin' as he was kind enough to call her, was in
Whitehall, as one of Her Majesty's ladies. I went to see my cousin,
perhaps a little precipitately, but I went peaceably, first inquiring of
one of Your Majesty's guards where her lodgings were. I knocked,
peaceably, upon the door. An old woman opened to me, and would give me
no intelligible answer to my--peaceable--inquiry as to whether my
cousin were there. I prevented her closing the door in my face, but
peaceably; then a fellow ran out, and asked me who the devil I was.
Again, peaceably, I inquired for my cousin. I even sat down upon the
stairs. Then he made at me; and in self-defence I struck him once, with
my hand. My cousin looked out of a door, and I went up into what I
understood was her parlour. When the guard came, she sent them away,
telling them I was her cousin. The serjeant was impertinent to her; and
she shut the door in his face. I remained five minutes, or six, with my
cousin, and then went peaceably away, and to my lodgings. That is the
entire truth, Sir, from beginning to end."

The King laughed, very short and harsh.

"You put it admirably," he said. "You are a diplomat, indeed."

"That is my defence to Your Majesty; and it is perfectly true--neither
less nor more than the truth. But I am not only a diplomat."

He did not fully understand me, I think, for he looked at me sharply.

"Well?" he said. "What else?"

"I have another defence for the public--Sir--not so courteous to Your
Majesty."

He remained rigid an instant.

"Then for the public," he said, "you do not think the truth enough?"

"No, Sir; it is for Your Majesty that I think the truth too much."

"I will have it!" cried the King. "This moment!"

Interiorly I licked my lips, as a dog when he sees a bone. His Majesty
should have the truth now, with a vengeance. All was falling out exactly
as I had designed. He should not have kept me waiting so long; or I
might not have thought of it.

"Well, Sir," said I, "you will remember I should not have dared to say
it to Your Majesty, had I not been commanded."

He said nothing. Then, once more, I ruffled my growling dog's ears, so
that he snarled.

"First, Sir; to the public I should say: If this is counted brawling,
what of other scenes in Whitehall on which no charge was made? What of
the sun-dial, smashed all to fragments one night, in the Privy Garden,
by certain of the King's Gentlemen whom I could name? What of the broken
door-knockers--not only in the City, but upon certain doors in Whitehall
itself--broken, again by certain of the King's Gentlemen whom I could
name? What of a scene I viewed myself in the Banqueting Hall last
Christmastide in Your Majesty's presence, when a Spanish gentleman
received full in his face a bunch of raisins, from--"

"Ah!" snarled the King. "And you would say that to the public?"

"Sir--that is only the exordium "--(my voice was raised a little, I
think, for indeed I was raging again by now). "Next, I would observe
that Mistress Jermyn is my own cousin, and that the hour was eight
o'clock in the evening--not nine, if I may so far correct Your Majesty;
whereas very different hours are kept by some members of the Court, and
the ladies are not their cousins at all."

I had never seen the King so angry. He was unable to speak for fury. His
face paled to parchment-colour under his sallow skin, and his eyes
burned like coals. This time I lashed my anger, deliberately, instead of
tickling it merely.

"Sir; that is not nearly all; but I will miss out a few points, and come
to my peroration. My peroration would be after this fashion. Such, I
would say, is the charge against one who has been of service to His
Majesty; and such is the Court (as I have described) of that same King.
There is not a Court in Europe that has a Prince so noble as our own can
be, of better parts, or of higher ambitions, or of so pure a blood. And
there is no Prince who is served so poorly; no Court that so stinks in
the nostrils of God and man, as does his. He is capable," I cried (for
by now I was lost to all consideration for myself; my loyalty and love
for him had come to the aid of my anger; and I saw that never again
should I have such an opportunity of speaking my mind), "He is capable
of as great achievements, as any Prince that has gone before him; for he
has already won back the throne which his fathers lost. Would it be of
service, I would say, to such a Prince as this, to punish a man who
would lay down his life for him to give him even a moment's pleasure;
and to let go scot-free men and women who have never done anything but
injure him?"

I ceased; breathless, yet triumphing; for I knew that I had held His
Majesty with my words. How he would take it, when he recovered, I did
not know: nor did I greatly care. I had spoken my mind to him at last;
and what I had said was no more than my conviction. That blessed gift of
anger had done the rest: and, having done its work, retired again to
chaos; and left me clear-headed and master of myself.

When I looked at him he was motionless. He was still very pale, but the
terrible brightness of his eyes was gone.

Then he roused himself to sneer; but I did not care for that; for there
was no other way for him just then, consonant with his own dignity.

"Very admirably preached!" said he; "even if a trifle treasonous."

"I am pleased Your Majesty is satisfied," I said, with a little bow.

Then he broke down altogether, in the only way that he could; he gave a
great spirt of laughter; then he leaned back and laughed till the tears
ran down. Presently he was quieter.

"Oddsfish!" he cried, "this is a turning of tables indeed! I sent for
you, Mr. Mallock--"

The door opened softly behind me; and a man put his head in.

"Go away! go away!" cried the King. "Cannot you see I am being preached
to?"

The door closed again.

"I sent for you, Mr. Mallock, to reprimand you very severely. And
instead of that it is you who have held the whip. Little Ken is nothing
to it: you should have been a Bishop, Mr. Mallock."

Again he spirted with laughter. Then he drew himself up in his chair a
little; and became more grave.

"This is all very well," he said. "But I think I must get in my
reprimand, for all that. You will not be sent to the guard-room, or the
Green Cloth--(or whatever it is that would meet your case)--this time,
Mr. Mallock; I will deal with you myself. But it is a very serious
business, and your distinctions would not serve you in law. A sundial is
not so important as a Christian lady; and a bunch of raisins is not,
legally, a blow in the face. Still less are all the sundials and
Spaniards in the world, equal to one of Her Majesty's Maids of Honour.
You understand that?"

I bowed again; reminding myself that I was not done with him, even yet.

"Yes, Sir."

"Consider yourself reprimanded severely, Mr. Mallock."

I bowed; but I stood still.

"You have my leave--Oh! by the way, Mr. Mallock; there are just ten
words I must have with you on the French affairs."

He motioned to a seat.

"I may kiss the hand that has beaten me?" said I.

He laughed again. He was a very merry prince when he was in the mood.

"It should be the other way about, I should think," he said. But he gave
me his hand; and I sat down.

All the while we were talking, still, with one-half of my mind I was
considering what was to be done next. It was a part, only, of my
business that had been done; yet how to accomplish the rest without
spoiling all? Presently His Majesty himself repeated that which Mr.
Chiffinch had already said to me; and spoke of some kind of recognition
that was due to me. That gave me my cue.

"Your Majesty is exceedingly kind," I said. "But I trust I am not to be
dismissed from the King's service? Mr. Chiffinch appeared to think--"

"Why, no," said he; "not even after all your crimes. Besides we have
something for you. Did he not tell you?"

"Any public recognition, Sir," I said, "would effectually do so. The
very small value that my services may have would wholly be lost, if they
were known in any way."

"Chiffinch said the same," observed the King meditatively. "But--"

"Sir," I said, "might I not have some private recognition instead? There
is a very particular favour I have in mind, which would be private
altogether; and which I would take as a complete discharge of that which
Your Majesty has been good enough to call a debt of the King's."

"Not money, man! Surely!" exclaimed the King in alarm.

"Not in the least, Sir; it will not cost the exchequer a farthing."

"Well, you shall have it then. You may be sure of that."

"Well, Sir," said I, "it is a serious matter. Your Majesty will dislike
it exceedingly."

He pursed his lips and looked at me sharply.

"Wait!" he said. "It will not affect my honour or--or my religion in
any way?"

I assumed an air of slight offence.

"Sir; I should not be likely to ask it, if it affected Your Majesty's
honour. And as for religion--" I stopped: for one more opening
presented itself which I dared not neglect. From both his manner and his
words I saw that religion was not very far from his thoughts.

"Well--sir," he said. "And what of religion?"

"Sir, I pray every day for Your Majesty's conversion--"

"Conversion, eh?"

"Conversion to the Holy Catholic Church, Sir. I would give my life for
that, ten times over."

"There! there! have done," said His Majesty, with a touch of uneasiness.

"But I would not ask a pledge, blindfold, Sir; even to save all those
ten lives of mine."

"One more than a cat, eh? Do you know, Mr. Mallock, you remind me
sometimes of a cat. You are so demure, and yet you can pounce and
scratch when the occasion comes."

"I would sooner it had been a little dog, Sir," I said, glancing at the
spaniels that were curled up together before the fire.

"Well--well; we are wandering," smiled the King. "Now what is this
favour?"

I supposed I must have looked very grave and serious; for before I could
speak he leaned forward.

"It is to count as a complete discharge, I understood you to say, Mr.
Mallock, for all obligations on my part. And there is no money in it?"

"Yes, Sir," said I. "And there is no money in it."

He must have seen I was serious.

"Well; I take you at your word, sir. I will grant it. Tell me what it
is."

He leaned back, looking at me curiously.

"Sir," I said, "it is now about half-past ten o'clock. What I ask is
that my cousin, Mistress Dorothy Jermyn, receives an immediate dismissal
from Her Majesty's service; and is ordered to leave London with me, for
her father's house, at noon."

His Majesty looked at me amazed. I think he did not know whether to be
angry, or to laugh.

"Well, sir," he said at last. "That is the maddest request I have ever
had. You mean what you say?"

"Certainly, Sir."

"Well: you must have it then. It is the queerest kindness I have ever
done. Why do you ask it? Eh?"

"Sir; you do not want my peroration over again!"

His face darkened.

"That is very like impudence, Mr. Mallock."

"I do not mean it for such, Sir. It is the naked truth."

"You think this is not a fitting place for her?"

"I am sure it is not, Sir," I said very earnestly, "nor for any
country-maid. Would Your Majesty think--"

He jerked his head impatiently.

"What my Majesty thinks is one thing; what I, Charles Stuart, do, is
another. Well: you must have it. There is no more to be said."

I think he expected me to stand up and take my leave. But I remained
still in my chair.

"Well; what else, sir?" he asked.

"Sir; it is near a quarter to eleven. I have not the order, yet."

"Bah! well--am I to write it then?"

"If Your Majesty will condescend."

"And what shall I say to the Queen? It is not very courteous to dismiss
a lady of hers so abruptly."

"Sir; tell Her Majesty it is a debt of honour."

He wheeled back to his table, took up a sheet and began to write. When
he had done he scattered the sand on it, and held it out to me, his
mouth twitching a little.

"Will that serve?" he said.

I have that paper still. It is written with five lines only, and a
signature. It runs as follows:

  "This is to command Mistress Dorothy Jermyn, late Maid
   of Honour to Her Majesty, now dismissed by the King,
   though through no fault of her own, to leave the Court at
   Whitehall at noon to-day, in company with her cousin Mr.
   Roger Mallock, and never to return thither without his consent.

"CHARLES R."

Then followed the date.

I had a criticism or two; but I dared not make them.

"That is more than I could have asked, Sir. I am under an eternal
obligation to Your Majesty."

"I daresay: but all mine are discharged to you, until you earn some
more. It might have meant a peerage, Mr. Mallock."

"I do not regret it, Sir," I said.

As I rose after kissing his hand, he said one more word to me.

"You are either a very wise man, or a fool, Mr. Mallock. And by God I
do not know which. But I do know you are a very brave one."

"I was a very angry one, Sir," said I.

"But you are appeased?"

"A thousand times, Sir."

CHAPTER IV

I knew I could never carry the matter through alone; so, upon leaving
the King's presence, I sought out Mr. Chiffinch immediately and told him
what had passed.

He whistled, loud.

"You are pretty fortunate," he said. "Many a man--"

"I have no time for compliments," said I. "You must come with me to my
cousin at once. We must ride at noon; and it is close upon eleven."

"You want me to plead for you, eh?"

"Not at all," said I. "There will be no pleading. It is to certify only
that this is the King's writing, and that he means what he says."

"Well, well," said Mr. Chiffinch. "And what of the matter I spoke to you
of last night? Have you decided? There is not much time to lose."

"You must give me a day or two," I said.

It was he who knocked this time; and it was not until the old woman had
opened, and was curtseying to the King's page, that he called me up.

"Come, Mr. Mallock. Your cousin is within."

We went straight upstairs after the old lady; and upon her knock being
answered, she threw the door open.

My Cousin Dolly was sitting over her needle, all alone. She looked, I
thought, unusually pale; but she flushed scarlet, and sprang up, so soon
as she saw me.

"Good-day, Mistress Jermyn," said the page very courteously. "We are
come on a very sad errand--sad, that is, to those whom you will leave
behind."

"What do you mean, sir?" asked Dolly, very fiercely. She did not give me
one look, after the first.

He held out the paper to her. She took it, with fingers that shook a
little, and read it through at least twice.

"Is this an insult, sir; or a very poor pleasantry?" (Her face was gone
pale again.)

"It is neither, mistress. It is a very sober fact."

"This is the King's hand?" she snapped.

"It is," said Mr. Chiffinch.

"Dolly," said I, "I told you to be ready by noon; but you would not
believe me. I suppose your packing is not done?"

She paid me no more attention than if I had been a chair.

"Mr. Chiffinch," said she, "you tell me, upon your honour, that this is
the King's hand, and that he means what is written here?"

"I give you my honour, mistress," he said.

She tossed the paper upon the table; she went swiftly across to the
further door, and opened it.

"Anne!" she said.

A voice answered her from within.

"Put out my riding-dress. Pack all that you can, that I shall need in
the country. We have to ride at noon." She shut the door again, and
turned on us--or rather, upon Mr. Chiffinch.

"Sir," she said, "you have done your errand. Perhaps you will now
relieve me of your company. I shall be awaiting my cousin, Mr. Roger
Mallock, as the King requires, at noon."

"Dolly--" said I.

She continued, looking through me, as through glass.

"At noon: and I trust he will not keep me waiting."

There was no more to be done. We turned and went out.

"Lord! what a termagant is your pretty cousin, Mr. Mallock!" said my
companion when we were out of doors again. "You could have trusted her
well enough, I think."

I was not in the mood to discuss her with him; I had other things to
think of.

"Mr. Chiffinch," I said, "I am very much obliged to you; but I must be
off for my own packing." And I bade him good-day.

When I rode into the court, five minutes before noon, a very piteous
little group awaited me by the inner gate. Dolly, very white and angry,
stood by the mounting-block, striving to preserve her dignity. Her maid
was behind her, arguing how the bags should be disposed on the
pack-horse, with the fellow who was to lead it. Dolly's own horse was
not yet come; but as I rode up to salute her, he came out of an archway
led by a groom.

I leapt off, and stood by the mounting-block to help her. Again it was
as if I were not there. She jerked her head to the man.

"Help me," she said.

He was in a quandary, for he could not leave the horse's head.

"I am very sorry, Dolly," said I, "but you will have to put up for me
for once. Come."

She gave a look of despair round about; but there was no help.

"It is on the stroke of noon," I said.

She submitted; but it was with the worst grace I have ever seen. She
accepted my ministrations; but it was as if I were a machine: not one
word did she speak, good or bad.

By the time that she was mounted, her maid was up too, and the bags
disposed.

"Come," I said again; and mounted my own horse.

As we rode out through the great gate, the Clock Tower beat the hour of
noon.

I am weary of saying that my journeys were strange; but, certainly, this
was another of them.

Through the narrow streets I made no attempt to ride beside her. In the
van went three of my men; then rode I; then, about ten yards behind,
came Dolly and her maid. Then came two pack-horses, led by a fellow who
controlled them both; and my fourth man closed the dismal cavalcade. So
we went through the streets--all the way down the Strand and into the
City, wheeled to the left, and so out by Bishopsgate. It was a clear
kind of day, without rain: but the clouds hung low, and I thought it
would rain before nightfall. I intended to do the whole journey in a
day; so as to be at Hare Street before midnight at least. A night on the
way, and Dolly's company at supper, all alone with me, or even with her
maid, appeared to me too formidable to face.

When we were out in the country, I reined my horse in. I saw a change
pass over Dolly's face; then it became like stone.

"We have a long ride, for one day," said I.

She made no answer. My anger rose a little.

"My Cousin," I said, "I had the honour to speak to you."

"I do not wish to have the dishonour of answering you," said Dolly.

It was a weakness on her part to answer at all; but I suppose she could
not resist the repartee.

"A very neat hit," I said. "Must all our conversation run upon these
lines?"

She made no answer at all.

"Anne," I said, "rein your horse back ten yards."

"Anne," said Dolly, "ride precisely where you are."

"Very good," said I. "I have no objection to your maid hearing what I
have to say. I thought it would be you that would object."

"Anne," said Dolly, "did you pack the sarcenet?"

"Yes, mistress."

"Then tell me again the tale that you were--"

I broke in with such fury that even Dolly ceased.

"My Cousin," I said, "I have a louder voice than either of you; and I
shall use it, if you do not listen, so that the whole countryside shall
hear. I have to say this--that some time or another to-day I have to
have a private conversation with you. It is for you to choose the time
and place. If you give me no opportunity now, I shall make it myself,
later. Will you hear what I have to say now?"

There was a very short silence.

"Anne," said Dolly, "now that we can hear ourselves speak, will you tell
me again the tale that you began last night?"

She said it, not at all lightly, but with a coldness and a distilled
kind of anger that gave me no choice. I lifted my hat a little; shook my
reins; and once more took up my position ten yards ahead. There was a
low murmur of voices behind; and then silence. It appeared that the tale
was not to be told after all.

We dined, very late, at a little inn, called the _Cross-Keys_, between
Edmonton and Ware. I remember nothing at all, either of the inn or the
host or the food--nothing but the name of the inn, for the name struck
me, with a dreary kind of wit, as reflective of the cross-purposes which
we were at. We three dined together, in profound silence, except when
Dolly addressed a word or two to her maid. As for me, she took the food
which I carved, all as if I were a servant, without even such a
thank-you as a man gives to a servant.

We took the road again, about three o'clock; and even then the day was
beginning to draw in a little, very bleak and dismal; and that, too, I
took as a symbol of my heart within, and of my circumstances and
prospects. Certainly I had gained my desire in one way; I had got Dolly
away from Court; yet that was the single point I had to congratulate
myself upon. All else, it appeared, was ruined. I had lost all the
advantage, or very nearly all, that I had ever won from the King--(for I
knew, that although he had been merry at the end of the time, he would
not forget how I had worsted him)--and as for Dolly, I supposed she
would never speak to me again. It had been bad enough when I had left
Hare Street nearly a twelvemonth ago: my return to it now was a hundred
times worse.

Although Dolly, however, would not speak to me, I was entirely
determined to speak to Dolly. I proposed to rehearse to her what I had
done, and why; and when that was over, I would leave it in her hands
whether I remained at Hare Street a day or two, or left again next
morning. More than a day or two, I did not even hope for. I had insulted
her--it seemed--beyond forgiveness. Yet, besides my miserableness, there
was something very like pleasure as well, though of a grim sort. I had
spoken my mind to her, pretty well, and would do so more explicitly;
and I was to speak my mind very well indeed to her father. There was a
real satisfaction to me in that prospect. Then, once more, I would shut
the door for ever on Hare Street, and go back again to town, and begin
all over again at the beginning, and try to retrieve a little of what I
had lost. Such then were my thoughts.

We supped, at Ware--at the _Saracen's Head_, and the same wretched
performance was gone through as at the _Cross-Keys_. Night was fallen
completely; and we had candles that guttered not a little. Dolly was
silent, however, this time, even to her maid. She did not give me one
look, all through supper.

When I came out afterwards to the horses, the yard was all in a mist: I
could see no more than a spot of light where the lamp should be by the
stable-door. The host came with me.

"It has fallen very foggy, sir," he said. "Would it not be best to stay
the night?"

I was considering the point before answering; but my cousin answered for
me, from behind.

"Nonsense," said she. "I know every step of the way. Where are the
horses?"

(Even that, I observed, she said to the host and not to me.)

"The lady is impatient to get home," I said. "Is the fog likely to
spread far?"

"It may be from here to Cambridge, sir," he said--"at this time of the
year."

"Where are the horses?" said Dolly again.

There was no help for it. Once more we mounted; Dolly, again, assisted
by the host, and not by me: but Anne was gracious enough to accept my
ministrations.

For a few miles all went well: but the roads hereabouts were very soft
and boggy; it was next to impossible sometimes to know whether we were
right or not; and after a while one of my men waited for me--he that
carried the lantern to guide the rest of us. The first I saw of him was
his horse's ears, very black, like a pair of horns, against the lighted
mist. "Sir," he said, "I do not know the road. I can see not five yards,
light or no light."

I called out to James.

"James," said I, "do you know where we are?"

"No, sir," said he, "at least not very well."

"Cousin," I said--(for Dolly had reined up her horse close behind, not
knowing, I suppose, that I was so near). "Cousin, I am sorry to trouble
you; but unless you can lead us--"

"Give me the lantern," she said sharply to my man.

She took it from him, and pushed forwards. I wheeled my horse after her
and followed. The rest fell in behind somewhere. I did not say one word,
good or bad; for a certain thought had come to me of what might happen.
She thought, I suppose, that Anne was behind her.

So impatient was my Cousin Dolly, that, certain of her road, as she
supposed, she urged her horse presently into a kind of amble. I urged
mine to the same; and so, for perhaps ten minutes, we rode in silence. I
could hear the horses behind--or rather the sucking noise of their
feet,--fall behind a little, and then a little more. The men were
talking, too; and so was Anne, to them--for she liked men's company, and
did not get very much of it in Dolly's service--and this I suppose was
the reason why they did not notice how the distance grew between us.
After about ten minutes I heard a man shout; but the fog deadened his
voice, so that it sounded a great way off; and Dolly, I suppose, thought
he was not of our party at all; for she never turned her head; and
besides, she was intent on hating me, and that, I think, absorbed her
more than she knew. I said nothing; I rode on in silence, seeing her
like an outline only in the dark, now and again--and, more commonly
nothing but a kind of lighted mist, now and then obscured. It appeared
to me that we were very far away to the right; but then I never
professed to know the way; and it was no business of mine. Truly the
very courses of nature fought against my cousin and her passionate ways.
Presently I turned at a sound; and there was James' mare at my heels. I
knew her even in the dark, by the white blaze on her forehead. I had
been listening for the voices; and had not noticed he was there. I
reined up, instantly; and as he came level I plucked his sleeve.

"James," I whispered in Italian, lest Dolly should catch even a phrase
of what I said--"not a word. Go back and find the others. Leave us. We
will find our way."

James was an exceedingly discreet and sensible fellow--as I knew. He
reined back upon the instant, and was gone in the black mist; and I
could hear his horse's footsteps passing into the distance. What he
thought, God and he alone knew; for he never told me.

The soft sound of the hoofs was scarcely died away, before I too had to
pull in suddenly; for there were the haunches of Dolly's horse before
the very nose of my poor grey. She had halted; and was listening. I held
my breath.

"Anne," she said suddenly. "Anne, where are you?"

As in the Scripture--there was no voice nor any that answered. There was
no sound at all but the creaking of the harness, and the soft breathing
of the horses, for we had been coming over heavy ground. The world was
as if buried in wool.

"Anne," she said again; and I caught a note of fear in her voice.

"Cousin," said I softly, "I fear Anne is lost, and so are the rest. You
see you would not speak to me; and it was none of my business--"

"Who is that?" said she sharply. But she knew well enough.

I resolved to spare her nothing; for I was beginning to understand her a
little better.

"It is Cousin Roger," I said. "You see you said you knew the road, and
so--"

Then she lashed her horse suddenly; and I heard him plunge. But he could
not go fast, from the heaviness of the ground; and he was very weary
too, as were we all. Besides, she forgot that she carried the lantern, I
think; and I was able to follow her easily enough; as the light moved up
and down. Then the light halted once more; and I saw a great whiteness
beyond it which I could not at first understand.

I came up quietly; and spoke again.

"Dolly, my dear; we had best have a little truce--an armed truce, if you
will--but a truce. You can be angry with me again afterwards."

"You coward!" she said, with a sob in her voice, "to lead me away like
this--"

"My dear, it was you who did the leading. Do me bare justice. I have
followed very humbly."

She made no answer.

"Cousin; be reasonable," I said. "Let us find the way out of this; and
when we are clear you can say what you will--or say nothing once more."

She took me at my word, and preserved her deadly silence.

I slipped off my horse; she was within an arm's length, and, not
trusting her, I passed my arm with scarcely a noticeable movement
through her bridle. It was well that I did so; for an instant after she
tore at the bridle, not knowing I had hold of it, and lashed her horse
again, thinking to escape whilst I was on the ground. I was very near
knocked down by the horse's shoulder, but I slipped up my hand and
caught him close to the bit--holding my own with my other hand.

"You termagant!" I said, as soon as I had them both quiet; for I was
very angry indeed to be treated so after all my gentleness. "No more
trust for me. It would serve you right if I left you here."

"Leave me," she wailed, "leave me, you coward!"

I set my teeth.

"I shall not," I said. "I shall punish you by remaining. I know you hate
my company. Well, you will submit to it, then, because I choose so. Now
then, let us see--"

Then she burst out suddenly into a passion of weeping. I set my teeth
harder than ever. There was only one way, after all, to get the better
of Dolly; and I had pitched on it.

"Yes: it is very well to cry," I said. "You nearly had me killed just
now. Well: you will have to listen to me presently, whether you like it
or not. Give me the lantern."

She made no movement. She had fought down the tears a little; but I
could hear her breath still sobbing. I reached up and took the lantern
from her right hand.

"Now; where in God's name are we?" said I.

We had ridden into some kind of blind alley, I presently saw; and that
was why Dolly's horse had halted. Even that I had not owed to her
goodwill. For we had ridden, I saw presently, lifting the lantern up and
down, into a great chalk pit; and must have turned off along the track
that led to it, from one of those sunken ways that drovers use to bring
their flocks up to the high road. That we were to the right of the high
road I was certain, of my own observation. _Ergo_; if we could get back
into the sunken way and turn to the right, we might find ourselves on
familiar ground again. However, I said nothing of this to Dolly. I was
resolved that she should suffer a little more first. I took the bridles
of the two horses more securely, slipping my hand with the lantern
through the bridle of my own, turned their heads round and walked
between them, looking very closely on this side and that, and turning my
lantern every way. After twenty yards I saw that I was right. The bank
on my left proved to be no bank, but the cliff-edge of the chalk pit
only, by which the sunken way passed very near. I led the horses round
to the right; and there were we, in the very situation I had surmised.
Still holding Dolly's bridle, I mounted my own horse; and when I had
done so, to secure myself and her the better, I pulled the reins
suddenly over her horse's head, and brought them into my left hand.

"That is safer," I observed. "Now we can pretend to be friends again;
and hold that conversation of which I spoke after we left London."

There was no answer, as we set out along the way. It was a little
clearer by now; and I could see the bank on my right. I glanced at her;
and in the light of the lantern I could see that she was sitting very
upright and motionless like a shadow. I lowered the lantern to the right
side, so that she was altogether in the dark and the bank illuminated. I
felt a little compassion for her indeed; but I dared not shew it.

"Now, Cousin," I said, "I preached to His Majesty yesterday; and he
told me I should be a Bishop at least. Now it is you that must hear a
sermon."

Again she said nothing.

I had rehearsed pretty well by now all that I meant to say to her; and
it was good for me that I had, else I might have fallen weak again when
I saw her so unhappy. As it was I kept back some of the biting sentences
I had prepared. My address was somewhat as follows. We jogged forward
very gingerly as I spoke.

"Cousin," I began, "you have treated me very ill. The first of your
offences to me was that, though I had earned, I think, the right to call
myself your friend, neither you nor your father gave me any hint
whatever of your going to Court. I know very well why you did not; and I
shall have a little discourse to make to your father upon the matter, at
the proper time. But for all that I had a right to be told. If you were
to go, I might at least have got you better protection in the beginning
than that of the--the--well--of Her Grace of Portsmouth.

"Now all that was the cause of the very small offence that I committed
against you myself--that of forcing my way into your lodgings. For that
I offer my apologies--not for the fact, but for the manner of it. And
even that apology is not very deep: I shall presently tell you why.

"The next of your offences to me was that open defiance which you
shewed, and some of the words you addressed to me, both then and
afterwards. You have told me I was a coward, several times, under
various phrases, and twice, I think, _sans phrase_. Cousin; I am a great
many things I should not be; but I do not think I am a coward; at least
I have never been a coward in your presence. Again, you have told me
that I was very good at bullying. For that I thank God, and gladly plead
guilty. If a maid is bent on her own destruction, if nothing else will
serve she must be bullied out of it. Again, I thank God that I was there
to do it."

I looked at her out of the tail of my eye. Her head seemed to me to be a
little hung down; but she said nothing at all.

"The third offence of yours is the intolerable discourtesy you have
shewn to me all to-day--and before servants, too. I put myself to great
pains to get you out of that stinking hole called Whitehall; I risked
His Majesty's displeasure for the same purpose: I have been at your
disposal ever since noon; and you have treated me like a dog. You will
continue to treat me so, no doubt, until we get to Hare Street; and you
will do your best no doubt to provoke a quarrel between your father and
myself. Well; I have no great objection to that; but I have not deserved
that you should behave so. I have done nothing, ever since I have known
you, but try to serve you--" (my voice rose a little; for I was truly
moved, and far more than my words shewed)--"You first treated me like a
friend; then, when you would not have me as a lover, I went away, and I
stayed away. Then, when you would not have me as a lover, and I would
not have you as my friend, I became, I think I may fairly say, your
defender; and all that you do in return--"

Then, without any mistake at all, I caught the sound of a sob; and all
my pompous eloquence dropped from me like a cloak. My anger was long
since gone, though I had feigned it had not. To be alone with her there,
enclosed in the darkness as in a little room--her horse and mine nodding
their heads together, and myself holding her bridle--all this, and the
silence round us, and my own heart, very near bursting, broke me down.

"Oh! Dolly," I cried. "Why are you so bitter with me? You know that I
have never thought ill of you for an instant. You know I have done
nothing but try to serve you--I have bullied you? Yes: I have; and I
would do the same a thousand times again in the same cause. You are
wilful and obstinate; but I thank God I am more wilful and obstinate
than you. I am sick of this fencing and diplomacy and irony. You know
what I am--I am not at all the fine gentleman that leaned his head on
the chimney-breast--that was make-believe and foolishness. I am a bully
and a brute--you have told me so--"

"Oh!" wailed Dolly suddenly--no longer pretending; and I caught the
note in her voice for which I had been waiting. I dropped the lantern;
the horses plunged violently at the flare and the crash; but I cared
nothing for that. I dragged furiously on the bridle; and as the horses
swung together, I caught her round the shoulders, and kissed her
fiercely on the cheek. She clung to me, weeping.

CHAPTER V

Well; I had beaten her at last; and in the only way in which she would
yield. Weakness was of no use with her, nor gentleness, nor even that
lofty patronage which, poor fool! I had shewn her in the parlour at Hare
Street. She must be man's mate--which is certainly a rather savage
relation at bottom--not merely his pretty and grateful wife. This I
learned from her, as we rode onwards and up into the high road--(where,
I may say in passing, there was no sign of our party)--though she did
not know she was telling it me.

"Oh! Roger," she said. "And I thought you were a--a pussy-cat."

"That is the second time I have been told so in two days," I said.

"Who told you so?"

"His Majesty."

"I thought His Majesty was wiser," said she.

"He has been pretty wise, though," I said. "If it were not for him, we
should not be riding here together."

"I suppose you made him do that too," she said.

But it was not only of Dolly that I had learned my lessons; it was of
myself also. I was astonished how inevitable it appeared to me now that
we should be riding together on such terms; and I understood that never,
for one instant, all through this miserable year away from her, had I
ever, interiorly, loosed my hold upon her. Beneath all my resolutions
and wilful distractions the intention had persevered. All the while I
was saying to myself in my own mind that I should never see Dolly again,
something that was not my mind--(I suppose my heart)--was telling me the
precise opposite. Well; the heart had been right, after all.

She asked me presently what I should say to her father.

"I shall forgive him a great deal now, that I thought I never should,"
I said with wonderful magnanimity. "A few sharp words only, and no more.
You see, my dear, it was through his sending you to Court--"

"Yes: yes," she said.

"He has behaved abominably, however," I said, "and I shall tell him so.
Dolly, my love."

"Yes," said she.

"I must go back very soon to town. I have been offered a piece of work;
and even if I do not accept it, I must speak of it to them."

"Them?"

"Yes, my dear. I must say no more than that. It is _secretum commissum_
as we say in Rome."

"And to think that you were a Benedictine novice!" exclaimed Dolly.

We talked awhile of that then; she asked me a number of questions that
may be imagined under such circumstances: and my answers also can be
imagined; and we spoke of a great number of things, she and I riding
side by side in the dark, our very horses friendly one with another--she
telling me all of how she went to Court, and why she went, and I telling
her my side of the affair--until at last in Puckeridge a man ran out
from the inn yard to say that our party was within and waiting for us.
They had met, it appeared, a rustic fellow who had set them right, soon
after they had lost us.

I do not know what they thought at first; but I know what they thought
in the end; for I rated them very soundly for not keeping nearer to us;
and bade James ride ahead with the lantern with all the rest between,
and Dolly and I in the rear to keep them from straying again. In this
manner then did she and I contrive to have a great deal more
conversation before we came a little before midnight to Hare Street.

The village was all dark as we came through it; and all dark was the
House when we pushed open the yard gates and rode in. We went through
and beat upon the door, and presently heard a window thrown up.

"Who is there?" cried my Cousin Tom's voice.

I bade Dolly's maid answer. (She was all perplexed, poor wench, at the
change of relations between her mistress and me.)

"It is Mistress Jermyn, sir," she said.

"Yes, father; I have come back," cried Dolly.

There was an exclamation from poor Tom; and in two or three minutes we
saw a light beneath the door, and heard him drawing the bolts. I pushed
Dolly and her maid forward as the door opened, and then myself strode
suddenly forward into the light.

"Why--God bless--" cried Tom; who was in his coat and shoes. I could see
how his face fell when he saw me. I looked at him very grimly: but I
said nothing to him at once (for I was sorely tempted to laugh at his
apparition), but turned to James and bade him see to the rest and find
beds somewhere. Then I went after Dolly and her father into the Great
Chamber, still with my hat on my head and looking very stern. He was
talking very swiftly in a low voice to Dolly; but he stopped when I came
in.

"Yes, Cousin Tom," I said, "I am come back again--all unlooked for, as I
see."

"But, good God!" he cried. "What is the matter; and why is Dolly here? I
was but just asking--"

I pulled out the King's paper which I had all ready, and thrust it down
before the lantern that he had put on the table: and I waited till he
had read it through.

"There, Cousin!" I said when he was staring on me again, "that is enough
warrant for both you and me, I think. Have you anything to say?"

He began to bluster.

"Cousin," I said, "if I have any patience it is because Dolly has given
it back to me. You had best not say too much. You have done all the harm
you could; and it is only by God's mercy that it has not been greater."

He said that he was Dolly's father and could do as he pleased. Besides,
she herself had consented.

"I know that," I said, "because she has told me so; and that it was in
despair that she went, because we two fools bungled our business. Well,
you may be her father; but the Scripture tells us that a woman must
leave her father and cleave to her husband; and that is what I am to be
to her."

Well; when I said that, there was the Devil to pay--we three standing
there in the cold chamber, with the draughts playing upon poor Tom's
legs. He looked a very piteous object, very much fallen from that fine
figure that he had presented when I had first set eyes on him; but he
strove to compensate by emphasis what he lacked in dignity. He said that
he had changed his mind; that even third cousins once removed should not
marry; that he had now other designs for his daughter; that I had no
right to dictate to him in his own house. He waxed wonderfully warm; but
even then, in the first flush of his resistance I thought I saw a kind
of wavering. I sat with one leg across the corner of the great table
until he was done; while Dolly sat in a chair, turning her merry eyes
from the one to the other of us. For myself, I felt no lack of
confidence. I had beaten the daughter; now I was to beat the father.

When he had finished, and drew breath, I stood up.

"Very bravely said, Cousin, bare legs and all," I said. "We will speak
of it all again to-morrow. But now for a bite; we have been riding since
noon."

It was very strange to go upstairs again after a mouthful or two, and a
glass of warm ale, and see my chamber again from which I had departed in
such unhappiness near a twelvemonth ago. James had made a little fire
for me, before which I drew off my boots and undressed myself. For it
was from this very chamber that I had gone forth in such despair, when
Dolly had said that she would not have me: and now, here I was in it
again, all glowing with my ride and my drink and my great content,
having kissed Dolly just now in her father's presence as a symbol of
our troth. And so I went to bed and dreamed and woke and dreamed again.

We had our talk out next morning, Tom pacing up and down the Great
Chamber, until I entreated him for God's sake to sit down and save my
stiff neck. He was very high at first; but I was astonished how quickly
he came down.

"That is very well," I said, "to speak now of better prospects for
Dolly. But you will do me the honour of remembering, my dear Cousin,
that in this very room once you spoke to me very differently. If you
have changed your mind, you might at least have told me so; for I have
not changed mine at all; and Dolly, it seems, is come round to my way of
thinking at last."

"But how did you do it?" asked he, stopping in his walk.

"I lost my temper altogether," said I; "and that is a very good way if
you have tried all the rest."

"But the King, man, the King! How did you get that paper out of him? Why
His Majesty himself, I am told, took particular notice--"

"Eh?" said I.

"That is no matter now," he said. "What were you going to say?"

"I must have that first," said I.

Tom began to pace the floor again.

"It is nothing at all, Cousin. It is that His Majesty spoke very kindly
to my daughter upon her first coming to Court."

"I am glad I did not know that," I said, "or I might have said more to
him."

"Well; but what did you say?"

Now I was in half a dozen minds as to what I should tell him. He knew
for certain nothing at all of my comings and goings and of what I did
for the King; yet I thought that he must have guessed a good deal. I
judged it safer, therefore, to tell him a little, to stop his month; but
not too much.

"Why," I said very carefully, "I have been of a little service to the
King; and His Majesty was good enough to ask me if there were any
little favour he could do me. So that is what I asked him."

Tom stopped in his pacing again: and it was then that I entreated him to
sit down and talk like a Christian. He did so, without a word.

"In France, I suppose?" he said immediately after.

"Why, yes."

Tom looked at me again.

"And you travel with four men now, instead of one."

"I find it more convenient," I said.

"And more expensive too," he observed.

"Why, yes: a little more expensive, too," I answered. But I was a shade
uneasy; because this increase of servants was at His Majesty's desire
and cost. I made haste to turn the conversation back once more. I did
not wish Tom to think that I was of any importance at all.

"Well; but what of Dolly?" I said.

It was then that my Cousin suddenly came down from his loftiness. He
seemed to awake out of a little reverie.

"You come into the enjoyment of your property," he said, "in four years
from now?"

"In less than that," I said. "It is three years and a half. My birthday
is in June."

He asked me one or two more questions then as to its amount, and what
arrangements I would make in the event of my marriage. When I had
satisfied him upon these matters, he fell again into a reverie.

"Well?" said I, a little sharply.

"Cousin," he said, "I do not wish to stand in your way. But there must
be no talk of marriage till '85. Will that content you?"

It did not in the least; but it was what I had expected. I was scarcely
rich enough yet to support a wife, and knew that, well enough; for if I
married and left the King's service there would be no more travelling