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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Parson Kelly, by
+A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason and Andrew Lang
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Parson Kelly
+
+Author: A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason
+ Andrew Lang
+
+Release Date: January 27, 2012 [EBook #38684]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARSON KELLY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+ 1. Page scan source:
+ http://books.google.com/books?id=dNMjAAAAMAAJ
+
+ 2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: "BUT I AM GRIEVED I HAVE NO VIRGIL." P. 160]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ PARSON KELLY
+
+
+ BY
+
+ A. E. W. MASON
+
+ AND
+
+ ANDREW LANG
+
+
+
+
+
+ NEW YORK
+ LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
+ LONDON AND BOMBAY
+ 1899
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ _Copyright, 1899_,
+ By Longmans, Green, And Co.
+ * * *
+ _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+ First Edition, September, 1899
+ Reprinted October, 1899
+
+
+
+
+ University Press
+ John Wilson And Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ TO THE
+ BARON TANNEGUY DE WOGAN
+
+ _The Representative of a House illustrious for its Antiquity:_
+ _In Prosperity splendid: in Exile and Poverty gay_
+ _and constant: of Loyalty unshaken;_
+
+
+ Is Dedicated
+
+ _This Narrative, founded on the deeds of his Ancestor_,
+
+ The Chevalier Nicholas De Wogan.
+
+ A. E. W. M.
+ A. L.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ PREFACE
+
+
+The authors wish to say that the proceedings of Lady Oxford are
+unhistorical. Swift mentions a rumour that there was such a lady, but
+leaves her anonymous.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ Chapter
+
+ I. The Parson expresses Irreproachable Sentiments at the
+ Mazarin Palace.
+
+ II. Mr. Wogan refuses to Acknowledge an Undesirable
+ Acquaintance in St. James's Street.
+
+ III. Mr. Wogan instructs the Ignorant Parson in the Ways of
+ Women.
+
+ IV. Shows the Extreme Danger of knowing Latin.
+
+ V. A Literary Discussion in which a Critic, not for the
+ first time, turns the tables upon an Author.
+
+ VI. Mr. Nicholas Wogan reminds the Parson of a Night at the
+ Mazarin Palace.
+
+ VII. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has a word to say about
+ Smilinda.
+
+ VIII. Mr. Kelly has an Adventure at a Masquerade Ball.
+
+ IX. Wherein the Chivalrous Mr. Kelly behaves with Deplorable
+ Folly.
+
+ X. What came of Mr. Kelly's Winnings from the South Sea.
+
+ XI. The Parson departs from Smilinda and learns a number of
+ Unpalatable Truths.
+
+ XII. The Parson meets Scrope for the Third Time, and what came
+ of the Meeting.
+
+ XIII. Of the Rose and the Rose-Garden in Avignon.
+
+ XIV. Of the Great Confusion produced by a Ballad and a Drunken
+ Crow.
+
+ XV. At the Deanery of Westminster.
+
+ XVI. Mr. Wogan acts as Lightning Conductor at Lady Oxford's
+ Rout.
+
+ XVII. Lady Oxford's 'Coup De Théâtre'.
+
+ XVIII. Wherein a New Fly discourses on the innocence of the
+ Spider's Web.
+
+ XIX. Stroke and Counter-stroke.
+
+ XX. Mr. Scrope bathes by Moonlight and in his Peruke.
+
+ XXI. In which Mr. Kelly surprises Smilinda.
+
+ XXII. An Eclogue which demonstrates the Pastoral Simplicity of
+ Corydon and Strephon.
+
+ XXIII. How the Messengers captured the wrong Gentleman; and of
+ what Letters the Colonel burned.
+
+ XXIV. Mr. Wogan wears Lady Oxford's Livery, but does not remain
+ in her Service.
+
+ XXV. How the Miniature of Lady Oxford came by a Mischance.
+
+ XXVI. Mr. Wogan Traduces his Friend, with the Happiest
+ Consequences.
+
+ XXVII. How, by keeping Parole, Mr. Kelly broke Prison.
+
+ XXVIII. Mr. Wogan again invades England, meets the elect Lady,
+ and bears witness to her Perfections.
+
+
+
+
+
+ PARSON KELLY
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER I
+
+ THE PARSON EXPRESSES IRREPROACHABLE SENTIMENTS
+ AT THE MAZARIN PALACE
+
+ "What mighty quarrels rise from trivial things!"
+
+
+So wrote Mr. Alexander Pope, whom Nicholas Wogan remembers as a
+bookish boy in the little Catholic colony of Windsor Forest. The line
+might serve as a motto for the story which Mr. Wogan (now a one-armed
+retired colonel of Dillon's Irish Brigade in French Service) is about
+to tell. The beginnings of our whole mischancy business were trivial
+in themselves, and in all appearance unrelated to the future. They
+were nothing more important than the purchase of a couple of small
+strong-boxes and the placing of Parson Kelly's patrimony in Mr. Law's
+company of the West. Both of these events happened upon the same day.
+
+It was early in February of the year 1719, and the streets of Paris
+were deep in snow. Wogan, then plotting for King James's cause, rode
+into Paris from St. Omer at ten o'clock of the forenoon, and just
+about the same hour Parson Kelly, plotting too in his way, drove
+through the Orleans gate.
+
+A few hours later the two men met in the Marais, or rather Nicholas
+Wogan saw the skirts of Kelly's coat vanishing into an ironmonger's
+shop, and ran in after him. Kelly was standing by the counter with a
+lady on either side of him, as was the dear man's wont; though their
+neighbourhood on this occasion was the merest accident, for the Parson
+knew neither of them.
+
+'Sure it's my little friend the lace merchant,' said Wogan, and
+clapped his hand pretty hard on the small of his friend's back, whom
+he had not seen for a twelvemonth and more. Kelly stumbled a trifle,
+maybe, and no doubt he coughed and spluttered. One of the ladies
+dropped her purse and shuddered into a corner.
+
+'_Quelle bête sauvage!_' murmured the second with one indignant eye
+upon Nicholas Wogan, and the other swimming with pity for Mr. Kelly.
+
+'Madame,' said Wogan, picking up the purse and restoring it with his
+most elegant bow, 'it was pure affection.'
+
+'No doubt,' said Kelly, as he rubbed his shoulder; 'but, Nick, did you
+never hear of the bear that smashed his master's skull in the
+endeavour to stroke off a fly that had settled on his nose? That was
+pure affection too.'
+
+He turned back to the counter, on which the shopman was setting out a
+number of small strong-boxes, and began to examine them.
+
+'Well, you must e'en blame yourself, George,' said Nick, 'for the mere
+sight of you brings the smell of the peat to my nostrils and lends
+vigour to my hand.'
+
+This he said with all sincerity, for the pair had been friends in
+county Kildare long before Kelly went to Dublin University, and took
+deacon's orders, and was kicked out of the pulpit for preaching
+Jacobitism in his homilies. As boys they had raced bare-legged over
+the heather, and spent many an afternoon in fighting over again that
+siege of Rathcoffey Castle which an earlier Nicholas Wogan had held so
+stoutly for King Charles. The recollection of those days always played
+upon Wogan's foolish heartstrings with a touch soft as a woman's
+fingers, and very likely it now set George Kelly's twanging to the
+same tune; for at Wogan's words he turned himself about with a face
+suddenly illumined.
+
+'Here, Nick, lay your hand there,' said he and stretched out his hand.
+'You will be long in Paris?'
+
+'No more than a night. And you?'
+
+'Just the same time.'
+
+He turned again to the counter, and busied himself with his boxes in
+something of a hurry, as though he would avoid further questioning.
+Wogan blew a low whistle.
+
+Maybe we are on the same business, eh?' he asked. 'The King's
+business?'
+
+'Whisht, man,' whispered Kelly quickly, and he glanced about the shop.
+'Have you no sense at all?'
+
+The shop was empty at the moment, and there was no reason that Wogan
+could see for his immoderate secrecy. But the Parson was much like the
+rest of the happy-go-lucky conspirators who were intriguing to
+dislodge the Elector from the English throne--cautious by fits and
+moods, and the more often when there was the less need. But let a
+scheme get ripe for completion, and sure they imagined it completed
+already, and at once there would be letters left about here, for all
+the world to read, and a wink and a sly word there, so that it was
+little short of a miracle when a plot was launched before it had been
+discovered by those it was launched against. Not that you are to
+attribute to Mr. Wogan any superior measure of reticence. On the
+contrary, it is very probable that it was precisely Mr. Wogan's tongue
+which George Kelly distrusted, and if so, small blame to him. At any
+rate, he pursed up his lips and stiffened his back. Consequence turned
+him into a ramrod, and with a voice pitched towards the shopman:
+
+'I am still in the muslin trade,' said he, meaning that he collected
+money for the Cause. 'I shall cross to England to-morrow.'
+
+'Indeed and will you now?' said Wogan, who was perhaps a little
+contraried by his friend's reserve. 'Then I'll ask you to explain what
+these pretty boxes have to do with the muslin trade?'
+
+'They are to carry my samples in,' replied Kelly readily enough; and
+then, as if to put Wogan's questions aside, 'Are you for England,
+too?'
+
+'No,' said Wogan, imitating Mr. Kelly's importance; 'I am going to
+visit my Aunt Anne at Cadiz; so make the most of that, my little
+friend.'
+
+Wogan was no great dab at the cyphers and the jargon of the plots, but
+he knew that the Duke of Ormond, being then in Spain, figured in the
+correspondence as my Aunt Anne. It was now Kelly's turn to whistle,
+and that he did, and then laughed besides.
+
+'I might have guessed,' said he, 'for there's a likely prospect of
+broken heads at all events, and to that magnet you were never better
+than a steel filing.'
+
+'Whisht, man,' exclaimed Wogan, frowning and wagging his head
+preposterously. 'Is it yourself that's the one person in the world to
+practise mysteries? Broken heads, indeed!' and he shrugged his
+shoulder as though he had a far greater business on hand. Kelly's
+curiosity rose to the bait, and he put a question or two which Wogan
+waived aside. The Parson indeed had hit the truth. Wogan had no
+business whatsoever except the mere fighting, but since the Parson was
+for practising so much dignified secrecy, Wogan would do no less.
+
+To carry the joke a step further, he turned to the counter, even as
+Kelly had done, and examined the despatch-boxes. He would buy one, to
+convince Kelly that he, too, was trusted with secret papers. The boxes
+were as like to one another as peas, but Wogan discovered a great
+dissimilitude of defects.
+
+'There's not one of them fit to keep a mouldy cheese in,' said he,
+tapping and sounding them with his knuckles, 'let alone--' and then he
+caught himself up with a glance at Kelly. 'However, this perhaps may
+serve--but wait a little.' He felt in his pockets and by chance
+discovered a piece of string. This string he drew out and carefully
+measured the despatch-box, depth and width and length. Then he put the
+tip of his thumb between his teeth and bit it in deep thought. 'Well,
+and it must serve, since there's no better; but for heaven's sake, my
+man, clap a stouter lock on it! I could smash this with my fist. A
+good stout lock; and send it--wait a moment!' He glanced towards Kelly
+and turned back to the shopman. 'I'll just write down where you are to
+send it to.'
+
+To Kelly's more complete mystification he scribbled a name and an
+address on a sheet of paper, and folded it up with an infinity of
+precautions.
+
+'Send it there, key and all, by nine o'clock tomorrow morning.'
+
+The name was Mr. Kelly's, the address the inn at which Mr. Kelly was
+in the habit of putting up. Wogan bought the box merely to gull Kelly
+into the belief that he, also, was a Royal messenger. Then he paid for
+the box, and forthwith forgot all about it over a bottle of wine.
+Kelly, for his part, held his despatch-box in his hand.
+
+'Nick, I have business,' said he as soon as the bottle was empty, 'and
+it appears you have too. Shall we meet to-night? Mr. Law expects me at
+the Mazarin Palace.'
+
+'Faith, then I'll make bold to intrude upon him,' said Nicholas, who,
+though Mr. Law kept open house for those who favoured the White Rose,
+was but a rare visitor to the Mazarin Palace, holding the financier in
+so much awe that no amount of affability could extinguish it.
+
+However, that night he went, and so learned in greater particular the
+secret of the Parson's journey. It was nine o'clock at night when
+Wogan turned the corner of the Rue Vivienne and saw the windows of the
+Mazarin Palace blazing out upon the snow. A little crowd shivered and
+gaped beneath them, making, poor devils! a vicarious supper off the
+noise of Mr. Law's entertainment. And it was a noisy party that Mr.
+Law entertained. Before he was half-way down the street Wogan could
+hear the peal of women's laughter and a snatch of a song, and after
+that maybe a sound of breaking glass, as though a tumbler had been
+edged off the table by an elbow. He was shown up the great staircase
+to a room on the first floor.
+
+'Monsieur Nicholas de Wogan,' said the footman, throwing open the
+door. Wogan stepped into the company of the pretty arch conspirators
+who were then mismanaging the Chevalier's affairs. However, with their
+mismanagement Wogan is not here concerned, for this is not a story of
+Kings and Queens and high politics but of the private fortunes of
+Parson Kelly. Olive Trant was playing backgammon in a corner with Mr.
+Law. Madame de Mezières, who was seldom absent when politics were
+towards, graced the table and conversed with Lady Cecilia Law. And
+right in front of Mr. Wogan stood that madcap her sister, Fanny
+Oglethorpe, with her sleeves tucked back to her elbows, looking
+gloriously jolly and handsome. She was engaged in mincing chickens in
+a china bowl which was stewing over a little lamp on the table, for,
+said she, Mr. Law had aspersed the English cooks, and she was minded
+to make him eat his word and her chicken that very night for supper.
+She had Parson Kelly helping her upon the one side, and a young French
+gentleman whom Wogan did not know upon the other; and the three of
+them were stirring in the bowl with a clatter of their wooden spoons.
+
+'Here's Mr. Wogan,' cried Fanny Oglethorpe, and as Wogan held out his
+hand she clapped her hot spoon into it. 'M. de Bellegarde, you must
+know Mr. Wogan. He has the broadest back of any man that ever I was
+acquainted with. You must do more than know him. You must love him, as
+I do, for the broadness of his back.'
+
+M. de Bellegarde looked not over-pleased with the civility of her
+greeting, and bowed to Wogan with an affectation of ceremony. Mr. Law
+came forward with an affable word. Olive Trant added another, and
+Madame de Mezières asked eagerly what brought him to Paris.
+
+'He is on his way to join the Duke of Ormond at Cadiz,' cried Kelly;
+'and,' said this man deceived, 'he carries the most important
+messages. Bow to him, ladies! Gentlemen, your hands to your hearts,
+and your knees to the ground! It's no longer a soldier of fortune that
+you see before you, but a diplomatist, an ambassador: His Excellency,
+the Chevalier Wogan;' and with that he ducked and bowed, shaking his
+head and gesticulating with his hands, as though he were some
+dandified court chamberlain. All the Parson's diplomacy had been
+plainly warmed out of him in his present company. Mr. Law began to
+laugh, but Fanny Oglethorpe dropped her spoon and looked at Wogan.
+
+'The Duke of Ormond?' said she, lowering her voice.
+
+'Indeed? and you carry messages?' said Miss Olive Trant, upsetting the
+backgammon board.
+
+'Of what kind?' exclaimed Madame de Mezières; and then, in an instant,
+their pretty heads were clustered about the table, and their mouths
+whispering questions, advice, and precautions, all in a breath. 'It's
+at Bristol you are to land?' 'The Earl Marischal is for Scotland?'
+'You carry 5,000 barrels, Mr. Wogan?' meaning thereby stands of arms.
+And, 'You may speak with all confidence,' Miss Oglethorpe urged, with
+a glance this way and that over her shoulders. 'There are none but
+honest people here. M. de Bellegarde,' and she looked towards the
+French spark, blushing very prettily, 'is my good friend.'
+
+Mr. Wogan bowed.
+
+'It was not that I doubted M. de Bellegarde,' he replied. 'But 'faith,
+ladies, I have learnt more of the prospects of the expedition from
+your questions than ever I knew before. I was told for a certain thing
+that heads would be broken, and, to be sure, I was content with the
+information.'
+
+At that Mr. Law laughed. Kelly asked, 'What of the despatch-box,
+then?' The ladies pouted their resentment; and Mr. Wogan, for the
+first and last time in his life, wore the reputation of a diplomatist.
+'A close man,' said M. de Bellegarde, pursing his lips in approval.
+
+'But sped on an unlikely venture,' added Mr. Law, getting back to his
+backgammon. 'Oh, I know,' he continued, as the voices rose against
+him, 'you have grumblings enough in England to fill a folio, and so
+you think the whole country will hurry to the waterside to welcome
+you, before you have set half your foot on shore. But, when all is
+said, the country's prosperous. Your opportunity will come with its
+misfortunes.'
+
+But Madame de Mezières would hear nothing of such forebodings; and
+Olive Trant, catching up a glass, swung it above her head.
+
+'May the Oak flourish!' she cried.
+
+Fanny Oglethorpe sprang from her seat. 'May the White Rose bloom!' she
+answered, giving the counter-word. The pair clinked their glasses.
+
+'Aye, that's the spirit!' cried the Parson. 'Drink, Nick! God save the
+King! Here's a bumper to him!'
+
+He stood with his face turned upwards, his blue eyes afire. 'Here's to
+the King!' he repeated. 'Here's to the Cause! God send that nothing
+ever come between the Cause and me.' He drained his glass as he spoke,
+and tossed it over his shoulder. There was a tinkling sound, and a
+flash of sparks, as it were, when the glass splintered against the
+wall. George Kelly stood for a moment, arrested in his attitude, his
+eyes staring into vacancy, as though some strange news had come of a
+sudden knocking at his heart. Then he hitched his shoulders. 'Bah!' he
+cried, and began to sing in a boisterous voice some such ditty as
+
+
+ Of all the days that's in the year,
+ The tenth of June's to me most dear,
+ When our White Roses do appear
+ To welcome Jamie the Rover.
+
+
+Or it may have been
+
+
+ Let our great James come over,
+ And baffle Prince Hanover,
+ With hearts and hands in loyal bands,
+ We'll welcome him at Dover.
+
+
+It was not the general practice to allow the Parson to sing without
+protest; for he squeezed less music out of him than any other Irishman
+could evoke from a deal board with his bare knuckles. When he sang,
+and may Heaven forgive the application of the word in this
+conjunction, there was ever a sort of mortal duello between his voice
+and the tune--very distressing to an audience. But now he sang his
+song from beginning to end, and no one interrupted him, or so much as
+clapped a hand over an ear; and this not out of politeness. But his
+words so rang with a startling fervour; and he stood, with his head
+thrown back, rigid in the stress of passion. His voice quavered down
+to silence, but his eyes still kept their fires, his attitude its
+fixity. Once or twice he muttered a word beneath his breath, and then
+a hoarse cry came leaping from his mouth.
+
+'May nothing ever come between the Cause and me, except it be
+death--except it be death!'
+
+A momentary silence waited upon the abrupt cessation of his voice:
+Wogan even held his breath; Miss Oglethorpe did not stir; and during
+that silence, there came a gentle rapping on the door. Kelly looked
+towards it with a start, as though there was his answer; but the
+knocking was repeated before anyone moved; it seemed as if suspense
+had hung its chains upon every limb. It was Mr. Wogan who opened the
+door, and in stalked Destiny in the shape of a lackey. He carried a
+note, and handed it to George Kelly.
+
+'The messenger has but this instant brought it,' he said.
+
+Kelly broke the seal, and unfolded the paper.
+
+'From General Dillon,' he said; and, reading the note through,
+'Ladies, will you pardon me? Mr. Law, I have your permission? I have
+but this one night in Paris, and General Dillon has news of importance
+which bears upon my journey.'
+
+With that he took his hat, and got him from the room. Fanny Oglethorpe
+sprang up from her chair.
+
+'Sure, my chicken will be ruined,' she cried. 'Come, M. de
+Bellegarde,' and the pair fell again to stirring in the bowl, and with
+such indiscriminate vigour that more than once their fingers got
+entangled. This Mr. Wogan observed, and was sufficiently indiscreet to
+utter a sly proposal that he should make a third at the stirring.
+
+'There is no need for a third,' said Miss Oglethorpe, with severity.
+'But, on the other hand, I want a couple of pats of butter, and a
+flagon of water; and I shall be greatly obliged if Mr. Wogan will
+procure me them.' And what with that and other requests which chanced
+to come into her head, she kept him busy until the famous supper was
+prepared.
+
+In the midst of that supper back came Mr. Kelly, and plumped himself
+down in his chair, very full of his intelligence. A glass or two of
+Mr. Law's burgundy served to warm out of his blood all the reserve
+that was left over from the morning.
+
+'We are all friends here,' said he, turning to Miss Oglethorpe.
+'Moreover, I need the advantage of your advice and knowledge. General
+Dillon believes that my Lord Oxford maybe persuaded to undertake the
+muslin trade in Britain.'
+
+'Lord Oxford,' exclaimed Miss Oglethorpe, with a start, for Oxford had
+lain quiet since he nearly lost his head five years agone. 'He is to
+collect the money from our supporters?'
+
+'It is the opinion that he will, if properly approached.'
+
+Mr. Law, at the top of the table, shook his head.
+
+'It is a very forward and definite step for so prudential a
+politician,' said he.
+
+'But a politician laid on a shelf, and pining there,' replied George.
+'There's the reason for it. He has a hope of power,--_Qui a bu,
+boira!_ The hope grows real if we succeed.'
+
+'I would trust him no further than a Norfolk attorney,' returned Mr.
+Law; 'and that's not an inch from the end of my nose. He will swear
+through a two-inch board to help you, and then turn cat in pan if a
+Whig but smile at him.'
+
+'Besides,' added Miss Oglethorpe, and she rested, her chin
+thoughtfully upon her hands. As she spoke, all the eyes in that
+company were turned on her. 'Besides,' and then she came to a stop,
+and flushed a little. 'Lord Oxford,' she continued, 'was my good
+friend when I was in England.' Then she stopped again. Finally she
+looked straight into M. de Bellegarde's eyes, and with an admirable
+bravery: 'Some, without reason, have indeed slandered me with stories
+that he was more than my friend.'
+
+'None, Madame, who know you, I'll warrant,' said M. de Bellegarde, and
+gravely lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it.
+
+'Well, that's a very pretty answer,' said she in some confusion. 'So
+Mr. Kelly may know,' she went on, 'that I speak with some authority
+concerning my Lord Oxford. It is not he whom I distrust. But he has
+lately married a young wife.'
+
+'Ah,' said Mr. Law, and 'Oh!' cried Mr. Wogan, with a shrug of his
+shoulders. 'If a lady is to dabble her tender fingers in the pie--'
+
+'And what of it, Mr. Wogan?' Madame de Mezières took him up coldly.
+
+'Yes, Mr. Wogan, what of it?' repeated Olive Trant hotly, 'provided
+the lady be loyal.' In an instant Mr. Wogan had the whole nest
+swarming about his ears, with the exception of Fanny Oglethorpe. It
+was intimated to him that he had a fine preposterous conceit of his
+sex, and would he be pleased to justify it?
+
+Madame de Mezières hinted that the ability to swing a shillelagh and
+bring it down deftly on an offending sconce did not comprise the whole
+virtues of mankind. And if it came to the test of dealing blows, why
+there was Joan of Arc, and what had Mr. Wogan to say to her? Mr. Wogan
+turned tail, as he always did when women were in the van of the
+attack.
+
+'Ladies,' he said, 'I do not think Joan of Arc so singular after all,
+since I see four here who I believe from my soul could emulate her
+noblest achievements.'
+
+But Mr. Wogan's gallantry went for very little. The cowardice of it
+was apparent for all that he bowed and laid his hand on his heart, and
+performed such antics as he thought likely to tickle women into good
+humour.
+
+'Besides,' put in Lady Cecilia, with a soothing gentleness, 'Mr. Wogan
+should know that the cause he serves owes, as it is, much to the good
+offices of women.'
+
+Mr. Wogan had his own opinions upon that point, but he wiped his
+forehead and had the discretion to hold his tongue. Meanwhile Fanny
+Oglethorpe, who had sat with frowning brows in silence, diverted the
+onslaught.
+
+'But it is just the loyalty of Lady Oxford which is in question. Lady
+Oxford is a Whig, of a Whig family. She is even related to Mr.
+Walpole, the Minister. I think Mr. Kelly will have to tread very
+warily at Lord Oxford's house of Brampton Bryan.'
+
+'For my part,' rejoined Mr. Law, 'I think the Chevalier de St. George
+would do better to follow the example of Mr. Kelly and my friends
+here.'
+
+'And what is that?' asked Wogan.
+
+'Why, scrape up all the money he can lay hands on and place it in my
+company of the West.'
+
+Mr. Wogan was not well pleased to hear of his friend's speculation,
+and, when they left the house together, took occasion to remonstrate
+with him.
+
+'How much have you placed?' he asked.
+
+'All that I could,' replied George. 'It is little enough--the remnant
+of my patrimony. Mr. Law lent me a trifle in addition to make up a
+round sum. It is a very kindly man, and well disposed to me. I have no
+fears, for all the money in France dances to the tune he fiddles.'
+
+'To his tune, to be sure,' grumbled Wogan; 'but are you equally
+certain his tune is yours? Oh, I know. He is a monstrous clever man,
+not a doubt of it. The computation of figures--it is the devil's own
+gift, and to my nose it smells damnably of sulphur.'
+
+Mr. Wogan has good occasion to reflect how Providence fleers at one's
+apprehensions when he remembers the sleepless hours during which he
+tossed upon his bed that night, seeing all the Parson's scanty savings
+drowned beyond redemption in the China seas. For no better chance
+could have befallen Kelly than that Wogan's forebodings should have
+come true. But the venture succeeded. Fanny Oglethorpe made a fortune
+and married M. de Bellegarde. Olive Trant, the richer by 100,000
+pistoles, became Princess of Auvergne. Do they ever remember that
+night at the Hotel de Mazarin, and how Parson Kelly cried out almost
+in an agony as though, in the heat of passion, he surmised the future,
+'May nothing come between the Cause and me'? Well, for one thing the
+money came. It placed in his hands a golden key wherewith to unlock
+the gates of disaster.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER II
+
+ MR. WOGAN REFUSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE AN
+ UNDESIRABLE ACQUAINTANCE IN
+ ST. JAMES'S STREET
+
+
+Mr. Wogan left Paris early the next morning without a thought for the
+despatch-box that he had sent to Kelly, and, coming to Cadiz, sailed
+with the Spaniards out of that harbour on the tenth of March, and into
+the great storm which dispersed the fleet off Cape Finisterre. In
+company with the Earl Marischal and the Marquis of Tullibardine, he
+was aboard one of those two ships which alone touched the coast of
+Scotland. Consequently, he figured with better men, as Field-Marshal
+Keith, and his brother the Ambassador, and my Lord George Murray, in
+that little skirmish at Glenshiel, and very thankful he was when the
+night shut black upon the valleys and put its limit to the attack of
+General Wightman's soldiers from Inverness. A council of war was held
+in the dark upon a hill-side, whence the fires of General Wightman's
+camp could be seen twinkling ruddily below, but Wogan heard little of
+what was disputed, for he went to sleep with his back against a
+boulder and dreamed of his ancestors. He was waked up about the middle
+of the night by the Earl Marischal, who informed him that the
+Spaniards had determined to surrender at discretion, and that the
+handful of Highlanders were already dispersing to their homes.
+
+'As for ourselves, we shall make for the Western Islands and wait
+there for a ship to take us off.'
+
+'Then I'll wish you luck and a ship,' said Wogan. He stood up and
+shook the dew off his cloak. 'I have friends in London, and I'll trust
+my lucky star to get me there.'
+
+'Your star's in eclipse,' said the Earl. 'You will never reach London
+except it be with your legs tied under a horse's belly.'
+
+'Well, I'm thinking you have not such a clear path after all to the
+Western Islands! Did you never hear of my forefather, Thomas Wogan,
+that rode with twenty-eight Cavaliers through the heart of Cromwell's
+England, and came safe into the Highlands? Sure what that great man
+could do with twenty-eight companions to make him conspicuous, his
+degenerate son can do alone.'
+
+Mr. Wogan began his journey by walking over the hill, near to the top
+of which his friends had been driven off the road to Inverness by the
+English fire, which was very well nourished. He made his way to Loch
+Duich, as they call it, and so by boat round Ardnamurchan, to a hamlet
+they call Oban. There he changed his dress for the Campbell black and
+green, and, joining company with a drove of Rob Roy's cattle from the
+Lennox, travelled to Glasgow. His Irish brogue no doubt sounded a
+trifle strange in a Highland drover, but he was in a country where the
+people were friendly. At Glasgow he changed his dress again for a
+snuff-coloured bourgeois suit, and so rode into England by the old
+Carlisle and Preston route, which he had known very well in the year
+1715.
+
+Wogan was at this time little more than a lad, though full-grown
+enough to make a man and a good-sized boy into the bargain, and the
+exploit of the Cavalier Thomas Wogan, as it had prompted his design,
+so it exhilarated him in the execution. He went lightly on his way,
+weaving all manner of chivalric tales about his ancestor, to the great
+increase of his own vanity, bethinking him when he stopped for an hour
+at a wayside inn that here, too, perhaps Thomas Wogan had reined in
+his horse, and maybe had taken a draught from that very pint-pot which
+Nicholas now held to his lips. Thus the late burst up the hill-side
+above the Shiel was quickly robbed of its sting, and by the time that
+he had reached London he was so come to a pitch of confidence in the
+high destinies of the Wogan family that, after leaving his horse in
+the charge of Mr. Gunning, of Mussell Hill, whom he knew of old as a
+staunch friend of George Kelly's, and borrowing from him a more
+suitable raiment than his stained travelling dress, he must needs walk
+down St. James's Street with no more disguise than the tilting of his
+hat over his nose, and the burying of his chin in his cravat.
+
+Soon Mr. Wogan's confidence and, with his confidence, his legs were
+brought to a sudden check. For when he was come half-way down the hill
+he saw the figure of one Captain Montague in the uniform of the Guards
+turn the corner out of Ryder Street and walk towards him. Wogan had
+met the officer before on an occasion of which he did not wish at this
+particular moment to be reminded. He wheeled about, took a step or
+two, and so came again to a halt. Was it known, he asked himself, that
+he had sailed from Cadiz and landed in Scotland? If so, and it was a
+most likely conjecture, then for Wogan to be straggling about St.
+James's Street was egregious impertinence, and the sooner he got under
+shelter the better for his neck. Now Wogan's destination was the
+lodging of George Kelly, not five hundred yards away, in Bury Street.
+But to reach that lodging it would be necessary for him to turn about
+again and face the Captain. Would the Captain know him again? Wogan
+debated the question, and finding no answer, asked himself another.
+What would Thomas Wogan have done under the like contingency? The
+answer to that was evident enough. Wogan turned about on the instant,
+cocked his hat on the back of his head, took his chin out of his
+cravat, twirled his cane, whistled a tune and sauntered past the
+Captain, looking him over as if he were so much dirt. The Captain
+stopped: Wogan felt his heart jump into his throat, whistled a bit
+louder, and twirled his cane a trifle ferociously. Over his shoulder
+he saw the Captain draw his brows together and rub a check with the
+palm of his hand like a man perplexed. The Captain took a step towards
+Wogan, and stopped again. Wogan sauntered on, expecting every moment
+to hear his name called, and a clattering run, and then to feel a
+heavy hand close upon his shoulder. But no voice spoke, no steps
+clattered on the pavement. Wogan reached the corner and spied up St.
+James's Street as he turned. The Captain was still standing in the
+attitude of perplexity; only, instead of smoothing his cheek, he had
+tilted his peruke aside and was scratching his head to ease the labour
+of his recollections. At the sight of him the ancestor and his
+twenty-eight Cavaliers rode clean out of Mr. Wogan's mind. 'Sure,
+Thomas wouldn't have done it, but Nicholas will,' said he, and kicking
+up his heels he ran. He ran along Ryder Street, turned into Bury
+Street, raced a hundred yards or so up the cobbles, and thundered on
+the door of Kelly's lodging. Here and there a head was poked from a
+window, and Mr. Wogan cursed his own noisiness. It seemed an age
+before the door was opened. Fortunately it was Mrs. Barnes, Kelly's
+landlady, in person, and not her serving-woman, who stood in the
+entrance.
+
+'Is the Parson in London?' says Wogan. 'Say that he is, Mrs. Barnes,
+and say it quick.'
+
+'Why, it's Mr. Wogan!' cries she.
+
+'Whisht, my dear woman!' answered Wogan, pushing through the doorway.
+'It's Mr. Hilton. There's no Wogan anywhere in England. Remember that,
+if you please.'
+
+Mrs. Barnes slammed the door in a hurry.
+
+'Then you are in trouble again,' said she, throwing up her hands.
+
+'Well, there's nothing unusual in that,' said he. 'Sure man is born to
+it, and who am I that I should escape the inheritance?' and he opened
+the door of Mr. Kelly's sitting-room. He saw the figure of a man
+bending over the table. As the door was thrown open, the figure
+straightened itself hurriedly. There was a sound of an iron lid
+clanging down upon a box, and the sharp snap of a lock. George Kelly
+turned and stood between the table and the door, in a posture of
+defence. Then--
+
+'Nick!' he cried, and grasped his friend's hand. The next moment he
+let it go. 'What brings you here?' he exclaimed.
+
+'My ancestor,' said Wogan, dropping into a chair. ''Twas his spirit
+guided me.'
+
+'Then take my word for it,' cried George, 'if there's a Bedlam beyond
+the grave your ancestor inhabits it.'
+
+Wogan made no reply in words at first. But he rose stiffly from his
+chair, bowed to Kelly with profuse ceremony, took his hat, and with
+his hat a step towards the door. Kelly, on the other hand, shut the
+door, locked it, put the key in his pocket and leaned his back against
+the panels. Wogan affected to see nothing of these actions, but spoke
+in a tone of dignity like a man taking his leave.
+
+'Such insults as you are pleased to confer on me,' said he, 'no doubt
+I deserve, and I take them in all Christian meekness. But when my
+ancestor Thomas Wogan, God rest his soul for ever and ever, rode with
+twenty-eight Cavaliers from Dover to Scotland through the thick of his
+bloodthirsty foes to carry the succour of his presence to the friends
+of his blessed Majesty of sacred memory King Charles the Second, it
+was not, I'd have you know, Mr. Kelly, in order that his name should
+be bespattered after he was dead by a snuffling long-legged
+surreptitious gawk of a parson who was kicked out of his Dublin pulpit
+with every circumstance of ignominy because his intellect didn't
+enable him to compose a homily.'
+
+At this point Wogan drew a long breath, which he sorely needed. It was
+not at all truth that he had spoken, as he knew--none better. The
+Parson was indeed stripped of his gown because he preached a very fine
+homily on the text of 'Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's,'
+wherein he mingled many timely and ingenious allusions to the
+Chevalier. Nor was there any particular force in that epithet
+'surreptitious,' beyond that it had an abusive twang. Yet it was just
+that word at which Mr. Kelly took offence.
+
+'Surreptitious,' said he, 'and if you please what is the meaning of
+that?'
+
+And then surveying Wogan, he began of a sudden to smile.
+
+'Ta-ta-ta,' he said with a grimace.
+
+'It is a pretty though an interjectional wit,' replied Wogan in a high
+disdain, falling upon long words, as was his fashion on the rare
+occasions when he cloaked himself with dignity.
+
+'Faith,' continued George, with the smile broadening over his face,
+'but it is indeed the very picture of Christian meekness,' and then,
+breaking into a laugh, 'Will you sit down, you noisy firebrand. As for
+Thomas Wogan--be damned to him and to all his twenty-eight Cavaliers
+into the bargain!'
+
+Mr. Wogan will never deny but what the man's laugh was irresistible,
+for the Parson's features wore in repose something of clerkly look.
+They were cast in a mould of Episcopal gravity; but when he laughed
+his blue eyes would lighten at you like the sun from a bank of clouds,
+and the whole face of him wrinkled and creased into smiles, and his
+mouth shook a great rumbling laugh out of his throat, and then of a
+sudden you had come into the company of a jolly man. Wogan put his hat
+on the table and struggled to preserve his countenance from any
+expression of friendliness.
+
+'It is the common talk at the Cocoa Tree that you sailed from Cadiz.
+It is thought that you were one of the remnant at Glenshiel. Oh, the
+rumour of your whereabouts has marched before you, and that you might
+have guessed. But see what it is to know no Virgil, and,' shaking a
+minatory finger,
+
+
+ 'Fama, malum quo non aliud velocius ullum.'
+
+
+Mr. Wogan bowed before Latin like a sapling before the wind. He seated
+himself as he was bid.
+
+'And you must needs come parading your monstrous person through the
+thick of London, like any fashionable gentleman,' continued George.
+'What am I to do with you? Why couldn't you lie quiet in a village and
+send me news of you? Did you meet any of your acquaintance by chance
+when you came visiting your friend Mr. Kelly? Perhaps you passed the
+time of day with Mr. Walpole--' and as he spoke the name he stopped
+abruptly. He walked once or twice across the room, shifting his peruke
+from one side of his head to the other in the fluster of his thoughts.
+Then he paused before Wogan.
+
+'Oh, what am I to do with you?' he cried. 'Tell me that, if you
+please.' But the moment Wogan began,
+
+'Sure, George, it's not you that I will be troubling for my
+security'--Kelly cut in again:
+
+'Oh, if you have nothing better to say than that, you say nothing at
+all. It is dribbling baby's talk,' and then he repeated a question
+earnestly. 'Did you see anyone you knew, or rather did anyone that
+knows you see you?'
+
+'Why,' replied Wogan meekly, 'I cannot quite tell whether he knows me
+or not, but to be sure I ran into the arms of Captain Montague not
+half a dozen yards from the corner of Ryder Street.'
+
+'Montague!' exclaimed Kelly. Wogan nodded.
+
+'The man who fought against you at Preston siege?'
+
+'The same.'
+
+''Tis a pity you were at so much pains to save his life in that
+scuffle.'
+
+'Haven't I been thinking that myself?' asked Wogan. 'If only I had
+left him lying outside the barricades, where he would have been surely
+killed by the cross-fire, instead of running out and dragging him in!
+But it is ever the way. Once do a thoroughly good-natured action and
+you will find it's the thorn in your side that will turn and sting
+you. But I am not sure that he knew me,' and he related how the
+Captain had stopped with an air of perplexed recollection, and had
+then gone on his way. Kelly listened to the account with a certain
+relief.
+
+'It is likely that he would not remember you. For one thing, he was
+wounded when you carried him in, and perhaps gave little heed to the
+features of his preserver. Moreover, you have changed, Nick, in these
+years. You were a stripling then, a boy of fifteen, and,' here he
+smiled and laid a hand on Wogan's shoulder, 'you have grown into a
+baby in four years.'
+
+Then he took another turn across the room. 'Well, and why not?' he
+said to himself, and finally brought his fist with a bang upon the
+table. 'I'll hazard it,' said he. 'I am not sure but what it is the
+safest way,' and, drawing a chair close to Wogan, he sat himself down.
+
+'It was the mention of Mr. Walpole set me on the plan,' he said. 'You
+heard in Paris that Lady Oxford is a kinsman of his. Well, I go down
+to Lord Oxford's in two days. It is a remote village in the north of
+Herefordshire. You shall come with me as my secretary. 'Faith, but I
+shall figure in my lord's eyes as a person of the greatest
+importance.'
+
+Mr. Wogan resisted the proposal as being of some risk to his friend,
+but Kelly would hear of no argument. The plan grew on him, the more he
+thought of it. 'You can lie snug here for the two days. Mrs. Barnes is
+to be trusted, devil a doubt. You can travel down with me in safety. I
+am plain Mr. Johnson here, engaged in smuggling laces from the
+Continent into England. And once out of London there will be little
+difficulty in shipping you out of the country until the affair's blown
+over.'
+
+So it was arranged, and Kelly, looking at his watch, says--
+
+'By my soul, I am late. I should have been with my Lord of Rochester
+half-an-hour since. The good Bishop will be swearing like a dragoon.'
+
+He clapped his hat on his head, took up his cane, and marched to the
+door. His hand was on the knob, when he turned.
+
+'By the way, Nick, I have something which belongs to you. 'Twas sent
+to my lodging in Paris by mistake. I brought it over, since I was sure
+to set eyes on you shortly.'
+
+'Ah,' said Nick. 'Then you expected me, for all your scolding and
+bullying.'
+
+'To speak the honest truth, Nick,' said Kelly, with a laugh, 'I have
+been expecting you all the last week.'
+
+He went into his bedroom, and brought out the strong-box which Wogan
+had purchased in Paris.
+
+'Sure there was no mistake,' said Wogan. 'I sent it to you as a reward
+for your discretion.'
+
+'Oh, you did. Well, you wasted your money, for I have no need for it.'
+
+'Nor I,' replied Wogan. 'But it has a very good lock, and will serve
+to hold your love-letters.'
+
+Kelly laughed carelessly at the careless words, and laid the box aside
+upon his scrutore. Many a time in the months that followed Wogan saw
+it there, and the sight of it would waken him to a laugh, for he did
+not know that a man's liberty, his honour, his love, came shortly to
+be locked within its narrow space.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER III
+
+ MR. WOGAN INSTRUCTS THE IGNORANT PARSON IN
+ THE WAYS OF WOMEN
+
+
+Mr. Wogan then remained for two days closeted in his friend's
+lodgings, and was hard put to it to pass the time, since the Parson,
+who acted as secretary and right-hand man to Bishop Atterbury, was
+ever dancing attendance upon his lordship at Bromley or the Deanery of
+Westminster. Wogan smoked a deal of tobacco, and, knitting his brows,
+made a strenuous endeavour to peruse one of George Kelly's books--a
+translation of Tully's _Letters_. He did, indeed, read a complete
+page, and then being seized with a sudden vertigo, such as from his
+extreme youth had prevented him from a course of study, was forced to
+discontinue his labours. At this juncture Mrs. Barnes comforted him
+with a greasy pack of cards, and for the rest of that day he played
+games of chance for extraordinary stakes, one hand against t'other,
+winning and losing millions of pounds sterling in the space of a
+single hour. By bedtime he was sunk in a plethora of wealth and an
+extremity of destitution at one and the same time; and so, since he
+saw no way of setting the balance right, he bethought him of another
+plan. On the morrow he would write out a full history of his
+ancestors, as a memorial of their valour and a shame to the men of
+this age.
+
+The Parson, when he was informed of the notable design, quoted a scrap
+of Latin to the effect that it would be something more than a brazen
+proceeding. Wogan, however, was not to be dissuaded by any tag of
+rhyme, and getting up before daylight, since he had but this one day
+for the enterprise, was at once very busy with all of Kelly's
+spluttering pens. He began with the founder of the family, the great
+Chevalier Ugus, who lived in the time of my little Octavius Cæsar, and
+was commissioned by that unparalleled monarch to build the town of
+Florence. 'Ugus,' wrote Mr. Wogan in big round painful letters with a
+flourish to each, and, coming to a stop, woke up George Kelly to ask
+him in what year of Our Lord Octavius Cæsar was born into this weary
+world. 'In no year of Our Lord,' grumbled George, a little churlishly
+to Wogan's thinking, who went back to his desk, and taking up a new
+pen again wrote 'Ugus.' Thereupon he fell into a great profundity of
+thought; so many philosophic reflections crowded into his head while
+he nibbled his pen, as he felt sure must visibly raise him in the
+estimation of his friends. So, taking his candle in one hand and his
+pen in the other, he came a second time to Kelly's bedside and sat him
+down heavily upon his legs, the better to ensure his awakening. It is
+to be admitted that this time the Parson sat up in his bed, and swore
+with all the volubility of a dragoon or even of my Lord Bishop of
+Rochester. But Wogan smiled amiably, knowing when he communicated his
+thoughts how soon those oaths would turn to cries of admiration.
+
+'It is a very curious thing,' said Wogan, shifting himself a little so
+that Kelly's shins should not press so sharply, 'how the mere inking
+of one's fingers produces speculation. Just as great valorous deeds
+are the consequence of swords,' here he paused to snuff the candle
+with his fingers, 'so great philosophic thoughts are the consequence
+of pens. Put a sword in a man's hand! What does he want to do but cut
+his neighbour right open from the chine to the ribs? Put a pen between
+his fingers, on the other hand, and what does he want to do but go
+away by himself and write down great thoughts?'
+
+'Then, in Heaven's name, why don't you do it?' cried George.
+
+'Because, my friend,' replied Wogan, 'out of the great love I bear for
+you, I shall always, always communicate my thoughts first of all to
+you.' Here the Parson groaned like a man giving up the ghost, and
+Wogan continued:
+
+'For instance, you have doubtless heard of my illustrious forbear the
+Chevalier Ugus.' At this Kelly tried to turn on his side; but he could
+not do so, since his legs were pinned beneath Wogan's weight. 'The
+Chevalier Ugus,' repeated Wogan, 'who built and beautified the city of
+Florence to the glory of God in the reign of the Emperor Octavius. How
+many of the English have loitered in the colonnades, and feasted their
+eyes upon the cathedral, and sauntered on the bridges of the Arno? How
+many of them, I say, have drawn profitable thoughts and pleasurable
+sensations from the edifices of my great ancestor? And yet not one of
+them--if poor Nicholas Wogan, his degenerate son, were to poke his
+nose outside of Mrs. Barnes's front door--not one of them but would
+truss him hands and heels and hang him up to derision upon a nasty
+gibbet.'
+
+So far Wogan had flowed on when a sigh from Kelly's lips brought him
+to a pause. He leaned forward and held the candle so that the light
+fell upon Kelly's face. Kelly was sound asleep.
+
+'To be sure,' said Wogan in a soft voice of pity, on the chance that
+Kelly might be counterfeiting slumber, 'my little friend's jealous of
+my reflective powers,' and going back to his chair wrote 'Ugus' a
+third time with a third pen; and then, in order to think the more
+clearly, laid his hand upon the table and closed his eyes.
+
+It was Mrs. Barnes's hand upon his shoulder, some three hours
+afterwards, which roused him from his so deep reflections, and to a
+man in Wogan's course of life the shoulder is a most sensitive member.
+She took the paper, whereon the great name was thrice inscribed, very
+daintily between her forefinger and thumb, as though she touched
+pitch; folded it once, twice, thrice, and set it on the mantelshelf.
+There Mr. Kelly, coming into the room for breakfast, discovered it,
+hummed a little to himself like a man well pleased, and turned over
+the leaf to see what was written t'other side.
+
+'That is all,' said Wogan, indifferently.
+
+'And it is a very good night's work,' replied Kelly, with the politest
+gravity, 'not a letter--and there are precisely twelve of them in
+all--but is writ with scrupulous correctness. Such flourishes, too,
+are seldom seen. I cannot call to mind that ever I saw a _g_ so
+pictorially displayed. Ugus--Ugus--Ugus--' and he held the paper out
+at arm's length.
+
+'I went no further with my work,' explained Wogan, 'because I
+reflected--'
+
+'What, again?' asked the Parson in a voice of condolence.
+
+'That the mere enunciation of the name Ugus gives an epitome of the
+Wogan family.'
+
+'Indeed, it gives a history in full,' said the Parson.
+
+'It comprises--'
+
+'Nay, it conveys--'
+
+'All that need be known of the Wogan family.'
+
+'All that need be known, indeed, and perhaps more,' added George with
+the air of a man turning a compliment Mr. Wogan was sensibly
+flattered, and took his friend's words as an apology for that
+disrespect which he had shown towards Thomas Wogan two days before,
+and the pair seated themselves to breakfast in the best of good
+humour.
+
+'We start at nine of the evening,' said George. 'I have commanded a
+sober suit of grey cloth for you, Nick, since you cannot squeeze into
+my coats, and it should be here by now. Meanwhile, I leave you to Mrs.
+Barnes's attentions.'
+
+Of these attentions Mrs. Barnes was by no means sparing. For the buxom
+widow of the bookseller, who, to her credit be it said, had her full
+share of good looks, joined to an admirable warmth of heart a less
+adorable curiosity. With the best intentions in the world for her
+lodgers' security, she was always prying into their secrets. Nor did
+she always hold her tongue outside her own doors, as Mr. Kelly had
+bitter reason afterwards to know. In a word, she had all the
+inquisitiveness of her class, and sufficient wiles to make that
+inquisitiveness difficult to parry. Not that Nicholas Wogan was at all
+troubled upon this score, for if there was one quality upon which the
+good man prided himself, it was his comprehension of the sex. 'Woman,'
+he would say with a sententious pursing of the lips and a nod of the
+head; and again 'woman,' and so drop into silence; as who should say,
+'Here's a nut I could show you the kernel of were I so disposed.'
+
+This morning, however, Mrs. Barnes made no demand upon Wogan's
+cunning. For she took the paper with the thrice iterated Ugus which
+the Parson had replaced upon the mantelshelf, and, with the same
+gingerly precautions as she had used in touching it before, dropped it
+into the fire.
+
+'And why that?' asked Wogan.
+
+Mrs. Barnes flung out at him in reply.
+
+'I have no patience with you,' she cried. 'What's Ugus, Mr. Wogan?
+Answer me that,' and she struck her arms akimbo. 'What's Ugus but one
+of your cypher words, and you must needs stick it up on your
+mantelshelf for all the world to see?'
+
+'It's no cypher word at all,' replied Wogan with a laugh.
+
+'What is it then?' said she.
+
+'My dear woman, the merest mare's nest,' said he.
+
+'Oh, you may "dear woman" me,' cried she, and sat herself down in a
+chair, 'and you may laugh at a woman's fears; but, good lack, it was a
+bad day when Mr. Kelly first found a lodging here. What with his
+plottings here and his plottings there, it will be a fortunate thing
+if he doesn't plot us all into our graves.'
+
+'Whisht,' interrupted Wogan. 'There are no plots at all, any more than
+there's sense in your talk.'
+
+But the woman's eloquence was not so easily stemmed.
+
+'Then if there are no plots, why is Mr. Kelly "Mr. Johnson," why is
+Mr. Wogan "Mr. Hilton"; and why, oh why, am I in danger of my life and
+liberty, and in peril of my immortal soul?'
+
+'Sure you are bubbled with your fears, answered Wogan. 'It is
+sufficiently well known that since Mr. George Kelly ceased to minister
+to souls he has adopted the more lucrative profession of a lace
+merchant. There's some secrecy no doubt in his comings and goings, but
+that is because he is most honourably engaged in defrauding the
+revenue.'
+
+'A pretty lace merchant, upon my soul,' said she, and she began to
+rock her body to and fro. The sight alarmed Nicholas Wogan, since he
+knew the movement to be a premonition of tears. 'A lace merchant who
+writes letters in Latin, and rides in the Bishop of Rochester's coach,
+and goes a-visiting my Lord Oxford in the country. Thirteen shillings
+have I paid for letters in one day. Laces, forsooth! It is hempen
+ropes the poor gentleman travels in, and never was a man so eager to
+fit them to his own neck.' And, at the affecting prospect which her
+words called up, the good woman lifted her apron to her eyes and
+forthwith dissolved into tears. Sobs tore her ample bosom, her soft
+frame quivered like a jelly. Never did Mr. Wogan find his intimate
+knowledge of the sex of more inestimable value. He crossed the room;
+he took one plump hand into his left palm and gently cherished it with
+his right. The tears diminished to a whimpering. He cooed a compliment
+into Mrs. Barnes's ear, 'A little white dove of a hand in a brown
+nest, my dear woman,' said he, and affectionately tweaked her ear.
+Even the whimpering ceased, but ceased under protest! For Mrs. Barnes
+began to speak again. Wogan, however, kissed the tearful eyes and
+sealed them in content.
+
+'Hoity-toity, here's a set out,' he said, 'because my Lord Oxford
+wants a pair of Venice ruffles to hide his gouty fingers, or a new
+mantilla for his new spouse,' and so, softly chiding her, he pushed
+her out of the room.
+
+At nine o'clock to the minute the chaise drove up to the door. Mr.
+Kelly took a stroll along the street to see the coast was clear; Mrs.
+Barnes was in two minds whether to weep at losing her lodgers, or to
+smile at their prospects of security, and compromised between her
+emotions by indulging them alternately; and finally the two friends in
+burgess dress entered the chaise and drove off. Mr. Wogan thrust his
+head half out of the window, the better to take his fill of the cool
+night air, but drew it back something of the suddenest at the corner
+where Ryder Street debouches into St. James's.
+
+'Sure the man's a spy,' said he, flinging himself back. Parson Kelly
+leaned cautiously forward, and under an oil-lamp above the porch of a
+door he saw Captain Montague. The Captain was standing in an
+indecisive attitude, tapping with his stick upon the pavement and
+looking up and down the street.
+
+'I doubt it,' returned Kelly. 'I have ever heard he was the most
+scrupulous gentleman.'
+
+'But he's a Whig. A Whig and a gentleman! But it's a contradiction in
+terms. Whigging is a nasty insupportable trade, and infects a man like
+a poison. A Whig is a sort of third sex by itself that combines all
+the failings of the other two.'
+
+However, this time it was evident that Captain Montague had taken no
+note of Nicholas Wogan. He could not but reflect how it was at this
+very spot that he had come upon the captain before, and mighty glad he
+was when the lights of Knightsbridge had sunk behind them, and they
+were driving betwixt the hedgerows. Then at one spring he jumped to
+the top of his spirits.
+
+'George, what a night!' cries he. 'Sure I was never designed to live
+in a house at all, but to be entirely happy under the blue roof-tree
+of the sky. Put me out on a good road at night and the whole universe
+converses with me on the most familiar terms. Perhaps it's a bush that
+throws out a tendril and says, "Smell that, you devil, and good luck
+to you." Or, maybe it's the stars that wink at me and say, "Here's a
+world for you, Nick, my little friend. Only wait a moment, and we'll
+show you a bit of a moon that'll make a poet of you." Then up comes
+the moon, perhaps, in a crescent like a wisp of fire, and, says she,
+"It's all very well here, Nicholas, but take my word for it, I can
+show you as good on the sea and better. For you'll have all this, and
+the hiss of the water under your lee besides, and the little bubbles
+dancing on the top." But what troubles you, George?'
+
+But Kelly made little or no reply, being sunk in the consideration of
+some difficulty. For two days he remained closeted with his trouble,
+and it was not until they had got to Worcester that he discovered it.
+They changed horses at the 'Dog and Turk' and drove through the town
+under the Abbey clock.
+
+'It is five minutes to twelve,' said Wogan, looking at the clock.
+
+'Yes,' said Kelly with a sigh, 'the face is very plain to read.' Then
+he sighed again.
+
+'Now, if the clock were a woman,' said he, 'it might be half-past four
+and we still thinking it five minutes to twelve.'
+
+'Oh, is it there you are?' said Wogan.
+
+'Why, yes,' replied Kelly. 'Lord Oxford, do you see, Nick, is a
+half-hearted sort of trembler--that we know and are ready for him. But
+what of my lady?'
+
+Wogan crossed his legs and laughed comfortably. Here was matter with
+which he could confidently deal.
+
+'Well, what of her?' he asked.
+
+'You heard what Fanny Oglethorpe said. She is a kinswoman of Mr.
+Walpole's. How shall we be sure of her at all? A woman, Nick, is a
+creature who walks in the byways of thought. How shall an obtuse man
+follow her?'
+
+Wogan took a pinch of snuff.
+
+'It is very well, George,' said he, 'that I took this journey with
+you. I'll make your conduct plain to you as the palm of my hand. In
+the first place, there was never a woman yet from Cleopatra downwards
+that cared the scrape of a fiddle for politics. 'Twas never more than
+a path that led to something else, and is held of just as small
+account as the road a girl dances down when she goes to meet her
+lover. Look at Fanny Oglethorpe, Olive Trant, and the rest of them in
+Paris! D'you think it's the Cause they ever give a thought to? If you
+do you're sadly out, my friend. No; what troubles their heads is
+simply that the Chevalier is a romantical figure of a man, and would
+look extraordinarily well with a gold crown on the top of his periwig.
+Now I'm wagering it will be just the same with my Lady Oxford. You
+have all the qualifications down to your legs, and let my lady once
+take a liking to your person she will gulp your politics without a
+grimace.'
+
+Mr. Kelly turned a startled face towards his instructor.
+
+'You would have me pay court to her?' says he.
+
+'Just that,' says Wogan, imperturbably. 'Keep your politics for my
+lord and have a soft word ready for my lady. Pen her a delicate ode in
+Latin. To be sure the addresses of an erudite man have something
+particularly flattering to the sex. Or drop out a pretty compliment on
+her ear.'
+
+'Oh, on her ear?' said Kelly, beginning to smile. 'Of what sort?'
+
+'Faith, George, but you exasperate me,' said Nick. 'Isn't there an
+infinity of images you could use? For instance--,' said he, and hummed
+a little.
+
+'Well, for instance!' said Kelly, urging him on.
+
+'For instance,' returned Wogan, 'you can speak of its functions--'
+
+'I understand. I am to tell her that it is a very proper thing for a
+woman to sit and listen to other people.'
+
+'Tell her that,' cries Wogan, lifting up his hands, 'and you will be
+drubbed down the staircase pretty quick! No. Tell her there is never a
+poet laureate in the world would print a single one of his poems if he
+could treasure his music within her ear.'
+
+'Ah,' says Kelly. 'That is a compliment of quite a different kind,'
+and he repeated it three times to commit it to memory. 'But one, Nick,
+will not suffice. I must have more sayings about her ear.'
+
+'And you shall,' says Wogan. 'You can speak of its appearance.'
+
+'Of its appearance?'
+
+'And fit a simile to it.'
+
+'Give me one,' said Kelly.
+
+'You can say her ear is like a rosy shell on the sea-banks.'
+
+Mr. Kelly began to laugh outright.
+
+'Sure,' said he, 'I might as well tell her at once her hair is sandy.'
+
+'Oh, she will not examine your words so nicely. She will just perceive
+that you intend a compliment.'
+
+'And take me for a very impertinent fellow.'
+
+'George' said Wogan, 'for a parson you are a man of a most unnatural
+modesty.' In which remark Wogan did his friend no more than the merest
+justice. For he had nothing in common with that usual foible of the
+young chaplains and tutors who frequent the houses of the great.
+
+To listen to them over a bottle you would think them conquerors of all
+hearts, from the still-room maid to my lady and her daughters. But Mr.
+Kelly was in a different case. The Bishop of Rochester himself gave
+him the character of being prudent and reserved beyond his years. And
+perhaps it was by reason of that very modesty that he slid insensibly
+into the thoughts of more women than he knew of. Of these, however,
+Lady Oxford was not one.
+
+It was about three in the afternoon of the next day when the chaise
+drove up to the door of the great house at Brampton Bryan. The Parson
+and Nicholas Wogan had barely stepped into the hall before an inner
+door opened and my lady came forward to greet them. She was for her
+sex uncommonly tall, and altogether of a conquering beauty, which a
+simple country dress did but the more plainly set forth. For, seeing
+her, one thought what a royal woman she would look if royally attired,
+and so came to a due appreciation of her consummate appearance.
+Whereas, had she been royally attired, her dress might have taken some
+of the credit of her beauty. She stood for a second between the two
+men, looking from one to the other as though in doubt.
+
+'And which is Mr. James Johnson? 'said she, with a sly emphasis upon
+the name.
+
+'I am,' said George, stepping forward, 'and your Ladyship's humble
+servant.'
+
+She gave him a smile and her hand. Mr. Kelly clicked his heels
+together, bent over the hand and kissed it reverentially.
+
+The lady sighed a quick little sigh (of pleasure) as she drew her hand
+away.
+
+'I have taken the liberty, your Ladyship,' said Kelly, 'to bring my
+secretary, Mr. Hilton, with me,' and he waved a hand towards Wogan.
+
+'Mr. Hilton,' she returned, 'is very welcome. For, indeed, we hear too
+few voices in the house.' She bowed very graciously, but she did not
+give her hand to Mr. Wogan. 'Gentlemen,' she continued, 'my lord bids
+me make you his apologies, but he lies abed. Else would he have
+welcomed you in person.'
+
+'Your Ladyship,' said Kelley, 'if we come at an inopportune time--'
+
+'By no means,' interrupted Lady Oxford. 'My lord is troubled with the
+gout, but the fit is passing. And if for a couple of days my poor
+hospitality will content you--'
+
+'Your Ladyship,' protested Kelly, but that was all he said. Now, to
+Mr. Wogan's thinking, here was as timely an occasion for a compliment
+as a man could wish. And since Mr. Kelly had not the tact to seize it,
+why, his friend must come to his help. Accordingly,
+
+'So might the holy angels apologise when they open the gates of
+Paradise,' said Wogan with his hand on his heart, and bowed. As he
+bowed he heard some stifled sounds, and he looked up quickly. My lady
+was crimson in the face with the effort to check her laughter.
+
+'Mr. Hilton is too polite,' said she instantly, with an elaborate
+courtesy, and turned again to Kelly with some inquiries about his
+journey. Wogan was shown up the stairs before the inquiries were
+answered. The staircase ran round the three sides of the hall up to a
+landing on the fourth, and as Wogan came to the first turn he saw Lady
+Oxford cross to the great wood fire which was burning on the hearth;
+when he came to the second he saw that the Parson had crossed too and
+stood over against her; when he reached the third turn, my lady was
+seated toasting a foot at the blaze; when he reached the landing, Mr.
+Kelly had drawn up a chair.
+
+Wogan leaned for a moment over the balustrade. It was a very small
+foot with an admirably arched instep; Mr. Wogan had seen the like in
+Spain. Well, very likely she only thrust it out to warm it. The
+firelight coloured her face to a pretty rose hue, sparkled in her dark
+eyes, and searched out the gold threads in her brown hair. Mr. Wogan
+was much tempted to whisper a reminder to his friend concerning her
+ear. But he resisted the temptation, for after all it seemed there
+would be little to do about my lady's politics.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER IV
+
+ SHOWS THE EXTREME DANGER OF KNOWING LATIN
+
+
+An hour later the three sat down to dinner, though, for all the
+talking that one of them did, there might have been present only the
+two whom Wogan had left chatting in the hall. It was not that Lady
+Oxford omitted any proper courtesy towards Mr. Johnson's secretary,
+but the secretary himself, sensible that he was something too apt to
+say in all companies just what came into his head, was careful to keep
+his tongue in a strict leash, lest an inconvenient word should slip
+from him. His deficiency, however, was not remarked. Lady Oxford was
+young, and for all that my lord lay upstairs in a paroxysm of the
+gout, she was in the highest feather; she rattled from course to
+course, plying Mr. Kelly with innumerable questions as to the latest
+tittle-tattle of the tea-parties, and whether Lady Mary Wortley and
+Mr. Pope were still the best of friends.
+
+'Then your Ladyship is acquainted with Lady Mary?' says Kelly, looking
+up with some eagerness. For Lady Mary, then a toast among the wits and
+a wit among the toasts, was glanced at by some tongues as if, being
+sister to the Duchess of Mar, she was not of the most loyal to the
+Elector. The Duke of Mar was still Secretary to King James over the
+water.
+
+'Without doubt,' returned Lady Oxford. 'Lady Mary is my bosom friend.
+The dear malicious creature! What is her latest quip? Tell me, Mr.
+Johnson, I die to hear it. Or rather whisper it. It will be too
+deliciously cruel for loud speaking. Lady Mary's witticisms, I think,
+should always be spoken in a low voice, with a suggestive nod and a
+tap of the forefinger on the table, so that one may not mistake where
+the sting lies. Not that the sayings are in themselves at all
+clumsy--how could they be, when she has such clever friends? But they
+gain much from a mysterious telling of them. You agree with me?'
+
+It was evident that Lady Oxford wasted no love on Lady Mary, and
+Kelly's face fell.
+
+'Your ladyship,' he replied, 'though I have no claims to be considered
+clever, I have the honour to be ranked amongst her friends.'
+
+'Indeed!' said she with a light laugh at the rebuff. 'No doubt you
+have brought her some of your laces and brocades from France,
+Mr.--Johnson.' She paused slyly upon the name.
+
+Kelly glanced quickly at her, their eyes met, and the lady laughed.
+There could be no doubt that she knew something of Kelly's business.
+Indeed, she would hardly have asked him for the fashionable gossip at
+all had she taken him for just what he represented himself to be.
+Wogan put his foot on his friend's pretty heavily, and, he knows not
+how, encountered her ladyship's. To his horror, Lady Oxford made a
+moan of pain. Kelly starts up in a hurry.
+
+'Your ladyship is unwell,' says he, and bids the servant bring a
+bottle of salts.
+
+'No,' she replied with a smile on her lips and her eyes full of tears,
+'but your secretary has dropped a blot on the wrong paper.'
+
+'Your ladyship,' cried Wogan in an extremity of confusion, 'it was the
+most miserable accident, believe me. A spasm in the leg, madam, the
+consequence of a sabre cut across the calf,' he explained, making the
+matter worse.
+
+'Oh, and in what battle was Mr. Johnson's secretary wounded?' she
+said, taking him up on the instant.
+
+'In a struggle with the Preventive men,' replied Wogan hurriedly, and
+he too broke off with a wry face, for Mr. Johnson was warning _him_
+and with no less vigour. Before he knew what he was doing Wogan had
+stooped down and begun to rub his leg. Lady Oxford's smile became a
+laugh.
+
+'To be sure,' said she, 'and I think Mr. Johnson must have been
+wounded too, in just that same way, and in just that same encounter.'
+
+'Faith, madam,' said Kelly, 'the smuggling trade is a hard one. No man
+engages in it but sooner or later he gets a knock that leaves its
+mark.'
+
+Lady Oxford expressed the profoundest sympathy with a great deal of
+disbelief; and when her ladyship left her guests to their wine, they
+looked at one another across the table.
+
+'Well,' said Wogan cheerfully, 'if my Lady Oxford is in Mr. Walpole's
+interest we have not made the best beginning in the world,' and in a
+little he went off to smoke a pipe in the stables.
+
+Kelly withdrew to the great library, and had not been there many
+minutes before Lady Oxford came in. It seemed she did not see him at
+the first, although he sat bent up over the fire and his shadow huge
+upon the walls. Mr. Kelly certainly did not remark her entrance. For
+one thing, he was absorbed in his book; for another, the carpet was
+thick and the lady's step of the lightest. She went first to the
+bookcase, then she crossed the room and shuffled some papers on a
+table, then she knocked against a chair, the chair knocked against the
+table, and at the noise Kelly looked up. He rose to his feet. Lady
+Oxford turned round, started, and uttered a sharp little cry.
+
+'My lady,' began Mr. Kelly.
+
+'Oh, it is you, Mr. Johnson,' she broke in with a hand to her heart,
+and dropped into the chair. 'I believe,' she said with a broken laugh,
+'I was foolish enough to be frightened. I fancied you had gone with
+your friend to the stables,' which was as much as to say that she knew
+he had not. Kelly commenced an apology for so disordering her, but she
+would not listen to it.
+
+'No,' she said, 'it is I that am to be blamed. Indeed, such stupid
+fears need chiding. But in a house so lonely and silent they grow on
+one insensibly. Indeed, I have known the mere creak of the stairs keep
+me awake in terror half the night.'
+
+She spoke with the air of one gently railing at her own distress, but
+shivered a little to prove the distress genuine, and Kelly, as he
+looked at her, felt a sudden pang of pity.
+
+'Your place, my lady, is not here,' he cried, 'but in the Mall, at the
+Spring Gardens, in the lighted theatres, when even your ladyship's own
+sex would pay you homage for outrivalling them.'
+
+'Nay,' she replied, with the sweetest smile of reproof, 'you go too
+fast, Mr. Johnson. My place is here, for here my duty lies.' She
+looked up to the ceiling with a meek acceptance of the burden laid
+upon her fair shoulders. 'But I am not come to disturb you,' she
+continued briskly; 'I came to fetch a book to read aloud to my lord.'
+At that a sigh half broke from her and was caught back as it were upon
+her lips. 'Perhaps, Mr. Johnson,' she said in a well-acted flurry,
+'you will help me in the selection?'
+
+'With all the heart in the world,' said he, laying down his volume.
+The choice took perhaps longer than need have been, for over each book
+there was some discussion. This one was too trivial to satisfy my Lord
+Oxford's weighty mind; that other was too profound to suit his health.
+'And nothing too contentious, I implore you, lest it throw him into a
+heat,' she prayed, 'for my lord has a great gift of logic, and will
+argue with you by the hour over the merest trifle.' This with another
+half-uttered sigh, and so the martyr sought her lord's bedside. It
+appeared, however, that Lord Oxford was sleepy that night, or had no
+mind for the music of his lady's voice, for in a very little while she
+returned to the library and Mr. Kelly, where Wogan presently found
+them discussing in a great animation the prospects of Mr. Law's
+ventures.
+
+'You are in for a great stake?' she asked.
+
+'For all I have,' replied Kelly, 'and a little more. It is not a great
+sum.'
+
+'But may become one,' said she, 'and will if a friend's good wishes
+can at all avail.' And so she wished her guests good night.
+
+The next morning Lord Oxford sent a message that he was so far
+recovered as would enable him to receive his visitors that afternoon.
+Meanwhile Lady Oxford, after breakfast carried off the two gentlemen
+to visit a new orchard she was having planted. The orchard was open to
+the south-west, and Kelly took objection to its site, quoting Virgil
+in favour of a westerly outlook.
+
+'Ah, but the west wind,' she said, 'comes to us across the Welsh
+mountains, which even in the late spring are at times covered deep in
+snow. However, I should be pleased to hear the advice of Virgil,' and
+the Parson goes off to the library and fetches out a copy.
+
+It was a warm day in April, with the sky blue overhead and the buds
+putting out on the trees, and for the most part of that morning Mr.
+Kelly translated the Georgics to her ladyship, on a seat under a great
+yew-tree, in a little square of grass fenced off with a hedge. She
+listened with an extraordinary complaisance, and now and then a
+compliment upon the Parson's fluency; so that Mr. Wogan lost all his
+apprehensions as to her meddling in the King's affairs. For, to his
+thinking, than listening to Virgil, there was no greater proof of
+friendship.
+
+Nor was it only upon this occasion that she gave the proof. Lord
+Oxford was a difficult man from his very timidity, and the Parson's
+visit was consequently protracted. His lordship needed endless
+assurances as to the prospects of a rising on behalf of King James,
+before he would hazard a joint of his little finger to support it. Who
+would take the place of the Royal Swede? Could the French Regent be
+persuaded to lend any troops or arms or money, or even to wink? Had
+the Czar been approached? Indeed he had, by Wogan's brother Charles.
+And what office would my Lord Oxford hold when James III. was crowned?
+Each day saw these questions reiterated and no conclusion come to.
+Lady Oxford was never present at these discussions; the face of her
+conduct was a sedulous discretion. It is true that after a little she
+dropped the pretence of laces, and, when the servants were not
+present, styled the Parson 'Mr. Kelly.' But that was all. 'These are
+not women's matters,' she would say with a pretty humility, and then
+rise like a queen and sail out of the room. Mr. Wogan might have
+noticed upon such occasions that the Parson hesitated for a little
+after she had gone, and spoke at random, as though she had carried off
+some part of his mind from affairs with the waft of her hoop. But he
+waited on the lady's dispositions and set down what he saw of his
+friend's conduct at the time as merely the consequence of an endeavour
+to enlist her secrecy and good-will.
+
+These councils with Lord Oxford took place, as a rule, in the
+afternoon, his lordship being a late riser, and even when risen
+capable only of sitting in a chair, with a leg swathed in a mountain
+of flannel. So that, altogether, Mr. Kelly had a deal of time upon his
+hands, and doubtless would have found it hang as heavy as Nick Wogan
+did, but for the sudden interest he took in Lady Oxford's new orchard.
+He would spend hours over the 'Observations on Modern Gardening,' and
+then,
+
+'Nick,' he would cry,' there's no life but a country life. One wakes
+in the morning, and the eye travels with delight over the green
+expanse of fields. One makes friends with the inanimate things of
+nature. Nick, here one might re-create the Golden Age.'
+
+'To my mind,' says Nick, 'but for the dogs and horses it would be
+purely insupportable. With all the goodwill in the world I cannot make
+friends with a gatepost, and I'm not denying I shall be mightily glad
+when the wambling old sufferer upstairs brings his mind at last to an
+anchor.'
+
+But the Parson was already lost in speculation, and would presently
+wake to ask Wogan's opinion as to whether a Huff-cap pear was
+preferable to a Bar-land. To which he got no answer, and so, snatching
+up his Virgil, would go in search of Lady Oxford. He acquired, indeed,
+a most intimate knowledge of apples and pears, and would discourse
+with her ladyship upon the methods of planting and grafting as
+though he had been Adam, and she Flora, or, rather, our mother Eve,
+before the apple was shared between them. For apples the store, the
+hayloe-crab, the brandy-apple, the red-streak, the moyle, the
+foxwhelp, the dymock-red; for pears the squash pear, the Oldfield, the
+sack-pear, never a meal passed but one of these names cropped up at
+the table and was bandied about between Kelly and her ladyship like a
+tennis-ball. Now all this, though dull, was none the less reassuring
+to Wogan, who saw very clearly that Lady Oxford was altogether devoted
+to country pursuits, and wisely inferred that while there might result
+confusion in the quality of the pears, there would be the less
+disorder in the affairs of the Chevalier.
+
+Moreover, her ladyship's inclination towards Mr. Kelly plainly
+increased. He translated the whole of the second book of the Georgics
+to her, five hundred and forty-two mortal lines of immortal poetry,
+and she never winced. Nor did she cry halt at the end of them, but,
+thereafter, listened to the Eclogues; and, all at once, their
+conversation was sprinkled with Melib[oe]us and M[oe]ris, and Lycidas
+and Mopsus, and Heaven knows what other names. Mr. Wogan remembers
+very well coming upon them one wet afternoon in the hall when it was
+growing dark. The lamps had not been lit, and Kelly had just finished
+reading one of the pastorals by the firelight. Lady Oxford sat with
+her hands clasped upon her knees, and, as he closed the book,
+
+'Oh for those days,' she cried, 'when a youth and a maid could roam
+barefoot over the grass in simple woollen garments! But now we must go
+furbelowed and bedecked till there's no more comfort than simplicity,'
+and she smoothed her hand over her petticoat with a great contempt for
+its finery. Lady Mary Wortley, to whom Wogan related this saying
+afterwards, explained that doubtless her ladyship had laced her stays
+too tight that morning; but the two men put no such construction on
+her words, nor, indeed, did they notice a certain contradiction
+between them and Lady Oxford's anxiety for London gossip--the Parson,
+because he had ceased to do anything but admire; Wogan, because a
+little design had suddenly occurred to him.
+
+It was Lady Oxford's patience under the verses which put it into
+Wogan's head. For since she endured to listen to poetry about trees
+and shepherds, poetry about herself must be a sheer delight to her.
+So, at all events, he reasoned, not knowing that Lady Oxford had
+already enjoyed occasion to listen to poetry about herself from Lady
+Mary's pen, which was anything but a delight. Accordingly he hinted to
+his friend that a little ode might set a firm seal upon her
+friendliness.
+
+'Make her a Dryad in one of the trees of her own orchard, d'ye see?'
+he suggested; 'something pretty and artful, with sufficient allusions
+to her beauty. Who knows but what she may be so flattered as to carry
+the verses against her heart; and so, when some fine day she brings
+her husband's secrets to Mr. Walpole, she may hear the paper crackling
+against her bodice, and turn back on the very doorstep.'
+
+'She will carry no secrets,' replied Kelly with a huff. 'She is too
+conscious of her duties. Besides, she knows none. Have you not seen
+her leave the room the moment politics are so much as hinted of?'
+
+'True,' said Wogan. 'But what's her husband for except to provide her
+with secrets when they are alone to which she cannot listen without
+impertinence in company?'
+
+Kelly moved impatiently away. He stood with a foot upon the fender,
+turning over the pages of his Virgil.
+
+'You allow her no merit whatsoever,' he said slowly with a great
+gentleness.
+
+'Indeed, but I do,' replied Wogan. 'I allow that she will be charmed
+by your poetry, and that's a rare merit. She will find it as soothing
+as a soldier does a pipe of tobacco after a hard day's fighting.'
+
+'I would not practise on her for the world,' says Kelly with just the
+same gentleness, and goes softly out by the door.
+
+Wogan, however, was troubled by no such delicate scruples. An ode must
+be written, even if he had to write it himself. He slapped his
+forehead as the notion occurred to him. The ode might be dropped as
+though by accident at some spot where her ladyship's eyes could not
+fail to light on it. Wogan heaved a deep breath, took a turn across
+the room, and resolved on the heroical feat. He would turn poet to
+help his friend. For two nights he fortified himself with the perusal
+of Sir John Suckling's poems, and the next morning took pencil and
+paper into the garden. He walked along the terrace, and seated himself
+on the bench beneath the yew-tree. Wogan sucked strenuously at his
+pencil.
+
+'Strephon to his Smilinda, running barefoot over the grass in a gale
+of wind,' he wrote at the top, and was very well pleased with the
+title. By noonday he had produced a verse, and was very well pleased
+with that, except, perhaps, that the last line halted. The verse ran
+as follows:--
+
+
+ Nay, sweet Smilinda, do not chide
+ The wind that wantons with thy hair;
+ The grass will all his prickles hide
+ Nor harm thy snowy feet and bare.
+ And, listen, the enamoured air
+ Makes lutestrings of thy locks so fair.
+ At night the stars are mirrors which reflect
+ Thine eyes: at least that is what I expect.
+
+
+Mr. Wogan spent an hour and three pipes of tobacco over his unwonted
+exercise, which brought him into a great heat.
+
+Having finished the verse he blew out his cheeks and took a rest from
+his labours. It was a fine spring morning, and the sun bright as a
+midsummer day. To his right the creepers were beginning to stretch
+their green tendrils over the red bricks of the garden wall. To his
+left half-a-dozen steps led up to a raised avenue of trees. Wogan
+looked down the avenue, noted the border of spring flowers, and a
+flash of a big window at the extreme end; and in all the branches the
+birds sang. The world seemed all together very good, and his poem
+quite apiece with the world. Wogan stretched his arms and kicked out
+his feet. His feet struck against something hard in a tuft of grass.
+He stooped down and picked it up. It was Kelly's Virgil. The book was
+open, and the pages all blotted and smeared with the dew. It had
+evidently lain open on the grass by the bench all night. Wogan wiped
+the covers dry, and, using it as a desk, settled himself to the
+composition of his second verse. He had not, however, thought of an
+opening for it before a voice hailed him from behind.
+
+He turned round and saw Kelly coming towards him from the direction of
+the orchard, and at that moment the opening of his verse occurred to
+him; Strephon offered to Smilinda his heart's allegiance. Wogan set
+his pencil to the paper, fearful lest he should forget the line.
+
+'Nick,' cries Kelly, waving a bundle of letters, and starts to run.
+Wogan slipped his paper between the leaves of the book; just as he did
+so, Strephon, in return for his heart's 'allegiance,' asked for
+Smilinda's soft 'obedience.'
+
+'Nick,' cries Kelly again, coming up to the bench, 'what d'you think?'
+
+'I think, 'says Wogan, 'that interruption is the true source of
+inspiration.'
+
+'What do you mean?' asked Kelly, looking at Wogan's pencil.
+
+'I mean,' says Wogan, looking at the cover of the book, 'that if I
+lived by my poetry, I would hire a man to rap at my door all day
+long.'
+
+Kelly, however, had no ears for philosophy.
+
+'Nick,' says he, 'will you listen to me, if you please? I have a
+letter from Miss Oglethorpe. It explains--'
+
+'Yes,' interposed Wogan thoughtfully. 'It explains why the best poets
+are ever those who are most dunned by their creditors.'
+
+Kelly snatched the Virgil out of Wogan's hand, and threw it on to the
+grass. The book opened as it fell. It opened at the soiled pages, and
+it was behind those pages that Wogan had slipped his poem.
+
+'You are as contrarious as a woman. Here am I, swollen with the
+grandest news, and you must babble about poets and creditors. Nick,
+there'll be few creditors to dun you and me for a bit. Just listen,
+will you?'
+
+He leaned his elbows on the back of the bench, and read from his
+letter. It was to the effect that, during April, an edict had been
+published in France, transferring to Mr. Law's company of the West the
+exclusive rights of trading to the East Indies and the South Seas.
+
+'Think of it, Nick!' he cried. 'The actions have risen from 550 livres
+to 1,000, and we are as yet at the budding of May. Why, man, as it is
+we are well to do. Just imagine that, if you can, you threadbare
+devil! We shall be rich before August.'
+
+'We shall dine off silver plates in September!' cries Nick, leaping up
+in the contagion of his friend's good spirits..
+
+'And drink out of diamond cups in November,' adds Kelly, dropping at
+once into the Irish accent.
+
+'Bedad!' shouts Wogan, 'I'll write my poetry on beaten gold,' and he
+sprang on to the seat.
+
+'You shall,' replies Kelly; 'and your ink shall be distilled out of
+black pearls.'
+
+'Sure, George, one does not write on gold with ink, but with a graving
+tool.'
+
+'This nonsense, and poetry, are what the lucky heart sings,' said
+Kelly.
+
+'To a tune of clinking coins,' said Wogan. He stooped down to his
+friend. 'Have it all in solid gold, and tied up in sacks,' said he
+earnestly. 'None of their bills of exchange, but crowns, and pieces of
+eight, and doubloons, and guinea-pieces; and all tied up in sacks.'
+
+'What will we do with it?' asked Kelly.
+
+'Why, sit on the sacks,' replied Nick, and then grew silent. He looked
+at Kelly. Kelly looked away to the garden-wall.
+
+'Ah!' said the Parson, with a great start of surprise. 'There's a
+lizard coming out of the bricks to warm himself,' and he made a step
+away from the bench. Wogan's hand came quickly down upon his shoulder.
+
+'George,' said he, 'I think we are forgetting something. Not a
+farthing of it is mine at all.'
+
+'Now, that's a damned scurvy ungenerous remark,' replied George.
+'Haven't I borrowed half of your last sixpence before now?'
+
+Wogan got down from the seat.
+
+'Poverty may take a favour from poverty, George, and 'tis all very
+well.'
+
+Kelly sat himself down on the bench, crossed his knees, and swung a
+leg to and fro.
+
+'I don't want the money,' said he, with a snort.
+
+'My philosophy calls it altogether an encumbrance,' said Wogan,
+sitting down by his side.
+
+Kelly turned his back on Wogan, and stared at the garden-wall. Then he
+turned back.
+
+'I know,' said he of a sudden, and smacks his hand down on Wogan's
+thigh. 'We'll give it to the King. He can do no more than spend it.'
+
+'He will certainly do no less.' But they did not give it to the King.
+
+Wogan was sitting turned rather towards the house, and as he looked
+down the avenue, he saw the great windows at the end open, and Lady
+Oxford come out.
+
+'Here's her ladyship come for her Latin lesson,' said Wogan, and he
+rose from his seat.
+
+'I'll tell her of our good fortune,' said Kelly, and he walked quickly
+to the steps at the end of the avenue. Lady Oxford stopped on the
+first step, with a hand resting on the stone balustrade. George Kelly
+stood on the grass at the foot of the steps, and told her of his news.
+
+'The shares,' he ended, 'have risen to double value already.'
+
+It seemed to Wogan that her eyes flashed suddenly with a queer,
+unpleasant light, and the hand which was resting idly on the
+balustrade crooked like the claws of a bird. He had seen such eyes,
+and such a hand, at the pharo tables in Paris.
+
+'It is the best news I have heard for many a day,' she said the next
+instant, with a gracious smile, and coming down the steps, walked by
+Mr. Kelly's side towards the bench.
+
+'And what will you do with it?' she asked. It was her first question,
+for she was a practical woman.
+
+'In the first flush,' replied Kelly, hesitating as to how he should
+put the answer, 'we had a thought of disposing of it where it is
+sorely needed.'
+
+She looked quickly at Kelly; as quickly looked away. She took a step
+to the seat with her eyes on the ground.
+
+'Oh,' she observed slowly; 'you would give it away.' There was,
+perhaps, a trifle of a pucker upon her forehead, perhaps a shade of
+disappointment in her eyes. But it was all gone in a moment. She
+clasped her hands fervently together, raised her face to the heavens,
+her cheeks afire, her eyes most tender. 'Indeed,' she exclaimed, 'the
+noblest, properest disposition of it! Heaven dispense me more such
+friends who, in a world so niggardly, retain so ancient a spirit of
+generosity,' and she stood for a little, with her lips moving, as if
+in prayer. It was plain to Mr. Wogan that her ladyship had guessed the
+destination of the money. No such thought, however, troubled George
+Kelly, who was wholly engaged in savouring the flattery, and, from his
+appearance, found it very much to his taste.
+
+'I would not, however, if a woman might presume to advise,' she
+continued, 'be in any great hurry to sell the shares. Though they have
+risen high, they will doubtless rise higher. And your gift, if you
+will but wait, in a little will grow worthier of the spirit which
+prompts it.'
+
+'Madam,' returned Kelly, 'it is very prudent advice. I will be careful
+to follow it.'
+
+Was it relief which showed for an instant in Lady Oxford's face? Kelly
+did not notice; Wogan could not tell; and a second afterwards an event
+occurred which wholly diverted his thoughts.
+
+All three had been standing with their faces towards the garden-seat,
+the yew-tree and the orchard beyond, Lady Oxford between, and a little
+in advance of Kelly and Wogan, so that each saw her face obliquely
+over her shoulders. Now, however, she turned and sat down, giving thus
+her whole face to the two men; and both saw it suddenly blanch,
+suddenly flush as though all the blood had leaped from her heart into
+her cheeks, and then fade again to pallor. Terror widened and fixed
+her eyes, her lips parted, she quivered as though she had been struck
+a buffet across the face.
+
+'Your ladyship--' began Kelly, and, noticing the direction of her
+gaze, he broke off his sentence, and turned him about. As he moved,
+Lady Oxford, even in the midst of her terror, stole a quick, conscious
+glance at his face.
+
+'Sure, 'tis a predecessor to George,' thought Wogan; and he too turned
+about.
+
+Some twenty paces away a man was waiting in an easy attitude. He was
+of the middle height, and, judged by his travelling dress and bearing,
+a gentleman. His face was thin, hard, and sallow of complexion, the
+features rather peaked, the eyes dark, and deepset beneath the brows.
+Without any pretension to good looks, the stranger had a certain
+sinister distinction--stranger, for that he was to the two men at this
+time, whatever he may have been to Lady Oxford. Yet George thought he
+had seen the man's eyes before, at Avignon, when the King was there;
+and Wogan later remembered his voice, perhaps at Genoa, which he had
+used much at one time. He stood just within the opening in the hedge,
+and must needs have come through the trees beyond, while Lady Oxford
+and her guests were discussing the Parson's good fortune.
+
+As soon as he saw the faces turned towards him, he took off his hat,
+made a step forwards, and flourished a bow.
+
+'Your ladyship's most humble and obedient servant.'
+
+He laid a stress upon the word 'obedient,' and uttered it with a
+meaning smile. Lady Oxford returned his bow, but instinctively shifted
+her position on the bench towards Kelly, and timidly put out a hand as
+though she would draw him nearer.
+
+The stranger took another step forwards. There was no change in his
+expression, but the step was perhaps more swiftly taken.
+
+'Mr. George Kelly,' he said quietly, and bowed again. 'The Reverend
+Mr. George Kelly, I think,' and he bowed a third time, but lower, and
+with extreme gravity.
+
+Wogan started as the stranger pronounced the name. Instantly the
+stranger turned to him.
+
+'Ah,' said he, 'Captain Nicholas Wogan, I think,' and he took a third
+step. His foot struck in a tuft of grass, and he stumbled forward; he
+fell plump upon his knees. For a gentleman of so much dignity the
+attitude was sufficiently ridiculous. Wogan grinned in no small
+satisfaction.
+
+'Sure, my unknown friend,' said he, 'I think something has tripped you
+up.'
+
+'Yes,' said the stranger, and, as he stood up, he picked up a book
+from the grass.
+
+'It is,' said he, 'a copy of Virgil.'
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER V
+
+ A LITERARY DISCUSSION IN WHICH A CRITIC, NOT
+ FOR THE FIRST TIME, TURNS THE TABLES
+ UPON AN AUTHOR
+
+
+Kelly frowned at Wogan, enjoining silence by a shake of the head. Her
+ladyship was still too discomposed to speak; she drew her breath in
+quick gasps; her colour still came fitfully and went. The only person
+entirely at ease in that company was the disconcerting stranger, and
+even behind his smiling mask of a face one was somehow aware of
+sleeping fires; and underneath the suave tones of his voice one
+somehow felt that there ran an implacable passion.
+
+'Upon my word,' said he, 'I find myself for a wonder in the most
+desirable company. A revered clergyman, a fighting captain, a lady
+worthy of her quality, and a poet.' He tapped the Virgil as he spoke,
+and it fell open between his hands. His speech had been uttered with a
+provocative politeness, and since no one responded to the provocation,
+he continued in the same strain. 'The story of Dido'--the book was
+open at the soiled pages--'and all spluttered with tears.'
+
+'It has lain open in the dew since yesterday,' interrupted Wogan.
+
+'Tears no less because the night has shed them,' he replied; 'and
+indeed it is a sad story, though not all true as the poet relates it.
+For Dido had a gout-ridden husband hidden discreetly away in a dark
+corner of the Palace, and Æneas was no more than an army chaplain,
+though he gave himself out for a general.'
+
+Kelly flushed at the words, and took half a step towards the speaker
+of them.
+
+'It is very true, Mr. Kelly. A chaplain, my soul upon it, a chaplain.
+Didn't he invoke his religion when he was tired of the lady, and so
+sail away with a clear conscience? A very parsonical fellow, Mr.
+Kelly. _O infelix Dido!_ he burst out, 'that met with an army
+chaplain, and so became food for worms before her time!'
+
+He shut up the book with a bang, and, as ill-luck would have it, Mr.
+Wogan's poem peeped out from the covers as if in answer to his knock.
+
+'Oho,' says he, 'another poet,' and he read out the dedication.
+
+'Strephon to his Smilinda running barefoot in a gale of wind.'
+
+Kelly laughed aloud, and a faint smile flickered for the space of a
+second about Lady Oxford's lips. Wogan felt his cheeks grow red, but
+constrained himself to a like silence with his companions. His
+opportunity would come later; meanwhile some knowledge was needed of
+who the stranger was.
+
+'A pretty conceit,' resumed the latter, 'though consumption in its
+effects. Will the author pardon me?'
+
+He took the sheet of paper in his hand, dropped the Virgil carelessly
+on the grass, and read out the verses with an absolute gravity which
+mocked at them more completely than any ridicule would have done. 'It
+breaks off,' he added, 'most appropriately just when the gentleman
+claims the lady's obedience. There is generally a break at that point.
+"At least, that is what I expect,"' he quoted. Then he looked at each
+of his two adversaries. For adversaries his language and their faces
+alike proved them to be. 'Now which is Strephon?' he asked, with an
+insinuating smile, as he calmly put the verses in his pocket. 'Is it
+the revered clergyman or the fighting captain?'
+
+Kelly's face flushed darkly.
+
+'The revered clergyman,' he broke in, and his voice shook a little,
+'would be happy to be reminded of the occasion which brought him the
+honour of your acquaintance.'
+
+'A sermon,' replied the stranger. 'I was much moved by a sermon which
+you preached in Dublin upon the text of "Render unto Cæsar the things
+that are Cæsar's."'
+
+Mr. Kelly could not deny that he had preached that sermon; and for all
+he knew the stranger might well have been among his audience. He
+contented himself accordingly with a bow. So Wogan stepped in.
+
+'And the fighting captain,' he said, with a courtesy of manner no whit
+inferior to his questioner's, 'would be glad to know when he ever
+clapped eyes upon your honour's face, if you please.'
+
+'Never,' answered the other with a bow. 'Captain Nicholas Wogan never
+in his life saw the faces of those who fought behind him. He had eyes
+only for the enemy.'
+
+Now, Mr. Wogan had fought upon more than one field of which he thought
+it imprudent to speak. So he copied the Parson's example and bowed.
+
+'Does her ladyship also wish to be reminded of the particulars of our
+acquaintance?' said the stranger, turning now to Lady Oxford. There
+was just a tremor, a hint of passion discernible in his voice as he
+put the question. Both Wogan and Kelly had been waiting for it, had
+restrained themselves to silence in the expectation of it. For only
+let the outburst come, and the man's design would of a surety tumble
+out on the top. Lady Oxford, however, suddenly interposed and
+prevented it. It may be that she, too, had caught the threatening
+tremble of his words, and dreaded the outburst as heartily as the
+others desired it. At all events, she rose from the bench as though
+some necessity had spurred her to self-possession.
+
+'No, Mr. Scrope,' she said calmly, 'I do not wish to be reminded of
+our acquaintance either in particular or in general. It was a slight
+thing at its warmest, and I thank God none of my seeking. Mr. Kelly,
+will you give me your arm to the house?'
+
+The stranger for a second was plainly staggered by her words. Kelly
+cast a glance at Wogan which the 'fighting captain' very well
+understood, offered his arm to Lady Oxford, and before the stranger
+recovered himself, the pair were up the steps and proceeding down the
+avenue.
+
+'A slight thing!' muttered Mr. Scrope in a sort of stupor. 'God,
+what's a strong thing, then?' and at that the passion broke out of
+him. 'It's the Parson now, is it?' he cried. 'Indeed, Mr. Wogan, a
+parson is very much like a cat. Whether he throws his cassock over the
+wall, or no, it is still the same sly, soft-footed, velvety creature,
+with a keen eye for a soft lap to make his bed in,' and with an oath
+he started at a run after Kelly. Wogan, however, ran too, and he ran
+the faster. He got first to the steps, sprang to the top of them, and
+turned about, just as Mr. Scrope reached the bottom.
+
+'Wait a bit, my friend!' said Wogan.
+
+'Let me go, if you please,' said Mr. Scrope, mounting the lowest step.
+
+'You and I must have a little talk first.'
+
+'It will be talk of a kind uncommon disagreeable to you,' said Mr.
+Scrope hotly, and he mounted the second step.
+
+Wogan laughed gleefully.
+
+'Why, that's just the way I would have you speak,' said he. Mr. Scrope
+stopped, looked over Wogan from head to foot, and then glanced past
+him up the avenue.
+
+'I have no quarrel with you, Mr. Wogan,' he said politely, and took
+the third step.
+
+'And have you not?' asked Wogan. 'I'm thinking, on the contrary, that
+you took exception to my poetry.'
+
+'Was the poetry yours? Indeed, I did not guess that,' he replied. 'But
+the greatest of men may yet be poor poets.'
+
+'In this case you're mightily mistaken,' cried Wogan, and he stamped
+his foot and threw out his chest. 'I am my poetry.'
+
+Mr. Scrope squinted up the avenue under Wogan's arm.
+
+'Damn!' said he.
+
+Wogan turned round; Parson Kelly and her ladyship were just passing
+through the window into the house. Wogan laughed, but a trifle too
+soon. For as he still stood turned away and looking down the avenue,
+Mr. Scrope took the last three steps at a bound, and sprang past him.
+Luckily as he sprang he hit against Wogan's shoulder, and so swung him
+round the quicker. Wogan just caught the man's elbow, jerked him back,
+got both his arms coiled about his body, lifted him off his feet, and
+flattened him up against his chest. Mr. Scrope struggled against the
+pressure; he was lithe and slippery like a fish, and his muscles gave
+and tightened like a steel spring. Wogan gripped him the closer,
+pinioning his arms to his side. In a little Scrope began to pant, and
+a little after to perspire; then the veins ridged upon his face, and
+his eyes opened and shut convulsively.
+
+'Have you had enough, do you think?' asked Wogan; 'or shall I fall on
+you? But you may take my word for it, whatever you think of my
+love-poems, that I never yet fell on any man but something broke
+inside of him.'
+
+Mr. Scrope was not in that condition which would enable him to
+articulate, but he seemed to gasp an assent, and Wogan put him down.
+He staggered backwards towards the house for a yard or two, leaned
+against one of the trees, and then, taking out his handkerchief, wiped
+his forehead; at the same time he walked towards the house, but with
+the manner of a man who is dizzy, and knows nothing of his direction.
+
+'Stop!' cried Wogan.
+
+Scrope stooped, and turned back carelessly, as though he had not heard
+the command. Indeed, he seemed even to have forgotten why he was out
+of breath.
+
+'Mr. Wogan,' he said, 'I do not quite understand. It seems you write
+love-poems to her ladyship, and yet encourage the Parson to court
+her.'
+
+Wogan was not to be drawn into any explanation.
+
+'Let us leave her ladyship entirely out of the question. There's the
+value of my poetry to be argued out.'
+
+Mr. Scrope bowed, and they walked down the steps side by side, and
+through the opening in the hedge. A path led through the trees, and
+they followed it until they came to an open space of sward. Wogan
+measured it across with his stride.
+
+'A very fitting place for the argument, I think,' he said, and took
+off his coat.
+
+'What? In Smilinda's garden?' asked Scrope easily. 'Within view of
+Smilinda's windows? Surely the common road would be the more
+convenient place.'
+
+'Why, and that's true,' answered Wogan. 'It would have been an
+outrage.'
+
+'No,' said Scrope, 'merely a flaw in the argument. This is the nearest
+way. At least, I think so,' and he turned off at an angle, passed
+through a shrubbery, and came out opposite a little postern-gate in
+the garden-wall.
+
+'You know the grounds well,' said Wogan.
+
+'It is my first visit,' replied Scrope, with a trace of bitterness,
+'but I have been told enough of them to know my way.'
+
+He stepped forward and opened the gate. Outside in the road stood a
+travelling chaise with a pair of horses harnessed to it.
+
+'There is no one within view,' said Wogan. The road ran to right and
+left empty as far as the eye could reach; in front stretched the empty
+fields.
+
+'No one,' said Mr. Scrope, and he looked up to the sky.
+
+'Well, I would as lief take my last look at the sunlight as at
+anything else, and I doubt not it is the same with you.'
+
+Wogan, in spite of himself, began to entertain a certain liking for
+the man. He had accepted each stroke of ill-fortune--his discomfiture
+at Lady Oxford's hands, the grapple on the steps, and now this
+duel--without disputation. Moreover Wogan was wondering whether or no
+the man had some real grievance against her ladyship and what motive
+brought him, in what expectation, in his chaise to Brampton Bryan. He
+felt indeed a certain compunction for his behaviour, and he said
+doubtfully,
+
+'Mr. Scrope, you and I might have been very good friends in other
+circumstances.'
+
+'I doubt it very much, Mr. Wogan.' Scrope shook his head and smiled.
+'Your poetry would always have come between us. I would really sooner
+die than praise it.'
+
+He looked up and down the road as he spoke, and then made an almost
+imperceptible nod at his coachman.
+
+'That field opposite will do, I think,' Scrope said, and advanced from
+the doorway to the side of his chaise as though he was looking for
+something. It was certainly not his sword; Wogan now thinks it was his
+pistols. Wogan felt his liking increase and was inclined to put the
+encounter off for a little. It was for this reason that he stepped
+forward and passed an arm through Scrope's just as the latter had set
+a foot on the step of the chaise, no doubt to search the better for
+what he needed.
+
+'Now what's amiss with the poem?' asked Wogan in a friendly way.
+
+'It is altogether too inconsequent,' replied Scrope with a sudden
+irritation for which Wogan was at a loss to account.
+
+'But my dear man,' said he, 'it was not intended for a syllogism.'
+
+Scrope took his foot off the step and turned to Wogan as though a new
+thought had sprung into his brain.
+
+'Mr. Wogan,' he said, 'I shall have all the pleasure imaginable in
+pointing out the faults to you if you care to listen and have the
+leisure. Then if you kill me afterwards, why I shall have done you
+some slight service and perhaps the world a greater. If I kill you, on
+the other hand, why there's so much time wasted, it is true, but I am
+in no hurry.'
+
+There was no escape from the duel; that Wogan knew. Mr. Scrope had
+insulted the Parson, Lady Oxford, and himself; he was aware besides
+that the Parson and Wogan, both of them at the best suspected
+characters, were visiting the Earl of Oxford; and he had, whether it
+was justified or no, a hot resentment against the Parson. He might,
+since he knew so much, know also more, as, for instance, the names
+under which the Parson and Wogan were hiding themselves. It would not
+in any case need a very shrewd guess to hit upon their business, and
+if Mr. Scrope got back safe to London, why he might make himself
+confoundedly unpleasant. Wogan ran through these arguments in his
+mind, and was brought to the conclusion that he must most infallibly
+kill Mr. Scrope; but at the same time a little of his company
+meanwhile could do no harm.
+
+'Nor I,' replied Wogan accordingly. 'I shall be delighted to confute
+your opinions.'
+
+Mr. Scrope bowed; it seemed as though his face lighted up for a
+moment.
+
+'There is no reason why we should stand in the road,' he said, 'when
+we can sit in the chaise.'
+
+'Very true,' answered Wogan.
+
+Scrope mounted into the chaise. Wogan followed upon his heels. They
+sat down side by side, and Scrope pulled out the verses from his
+pocket. He read the dedication once more:
+
+'Strephon to Smilinda running barefoot over the grass in a gale of
+wind.'
+
+'Let me point out,' said he, 'that you have made the lady run barefoot
+at the very time when she would be most certain to put on her shoes
+and stockings. And that error vitiates the whole poem. For the wind is
+severe, you will notice. So when she reprimands the storm, she should
+really reprimand herself for her inconceivable folly.'
+
+'But Smilinda has no shoes and stockings at all in the poem,' replied
+Wogan triumphantly.
+
+'That hardly betters the matter,' returned Scrope. 'For in that case
+her feet might be bare but they would certainly not be snowy.'
+
+He stooped down as he spoke and drew from under the seat a bottle of
+wine, which he opened.
+
+'This,' he said, 'may help us to consider the poem in a more
+charitable light.'
+
+He gave Wogan the bottle to hold, and stooping once more fetched out a
+couple of glasses. Then he held one in each hand.
+
+'Now will you fill them?' he said. Wogan poured out the wine and while
+pouring it:
+
+'Two glasses?' he remarked. 'It seems you came prepared for the
+conversation.'
+
+Scrope raised his eyes quickly to Wogan's face, and dropped them again
+to the glasses.
+
+'One might easily have been broken,' he explained.
+
+They leaned back in the chaise, each with a glass in his hand.
+
+'It is to your taste, I hope,' said Scrope courteously.
+
+Wogan smacked his lips in contentment.
+
+'Lord Oxford has no better in his cellars.'
+
+'I may agree without boastfulness. It is indeed Florence of a rare
+vintage, which I was at some pains to procure.' He laughed with a
+spice of savagery and resumed the consideration of Wogan's verses.
+
+'You seem to me to have missed the opportunity afforded by your gale
+of wind. A true poet would surely have made great play with the lady's
+petticoats.'
+
+'Smilinda had none,' again replied Wogan in triumph, and he emptied
+his glass.
+
+'No shoes and stockings and no petticoats,' said he in a shocked
+voice. 'It is well you wrote a poem about her instead of painting her
+portrait,' and he filled Wogan's glass again, and added a little to
+his own, which was no more than half empty.
+
+'Don't you comprehend, my friend,' exclaimed Wogan, 'that Smilinda's a
+nymph, an ancient Roman nymph?'
+
+'Oh, she's a nymph!'
+
+'Yes, and so wears no clothes but a sort of linsey-wolsey garment
+kirtled up to her knees.'
+
+'Well, let that pass. But here's a line I view with profound
+discontent. "The grass will all its prickles hide." Thistles have
+prickles, Mr. Wogan, but the grass has blades like you and me; only,
+unlike you and me, it has no scabbards to sheathe them in.'
+
+'Well,' said Wogan, 'but that's very wittily said,' and he laughed and
+chuckled.
+
+'It is not bad, upon my faith,' replied Scrope. 'Let us drink to it in
+full glasses.'
+
+He emptied the bottle into Wogan's glass and tossed it into the road.
+
+'Now here's something more. The wind, you observe, makes lutestrings
+of Smilinda's hair.'
+
+'There is little fault to be discovered in that image, I fancy,' said
+Wogan, lifting his glass to his lips with a smile.
+
+'It is a whimsical image,' replied Scrope. 'It is as much as to call
+her hair catgut.'
+
+Wogan was startled by the criticism. He sat up and scratched his nose.
+
+'Well, I had not thought of that,' he said. He was somewhat
+crestfallen, and he looked to his glass for consolation. The glass was
+empty; he looked on to the road where the empty bottle rolled in the
+dust.
+
+'I have its fellow,' said Scrope, interpreting Wogan's glance. He
+produced a second bottle from the same place. The second bottle
+brought them to the end of the verse. There was, however, a little
+discussion over the last line, and a third bottle was broached to
+assist.
+
+'"At least that is what I expect." It is a very vile line, Mr. Wogan.'
+
+'It is, perhaps, not so good as the others,' Wogan admitted. 'But you
+must blame the necessities of rhyming.'
+
+'But the art of the poet is to conceal such necessities,' answered
+Scrope. 'And observe, Mr. Wogan, you sacrifice a great deal here to
+get an accurate rhyme, but in the remaining two lines of the next
+verse you do not trouble your head about a rhyme at all.'
+
+'Oh, let me see that!' said Wogan, holding out a hand for the paper.
+He had clean forgotten by this time what those two lines described.
+
+'Allegiance, Mr. Wogan,' said Scrope, politely handing him the verses,
+'is no rhyme to obedience.'
+
+'Allegiance--obedience--obedience--allegiance,' repeated Wogan as
+clearly as he could. 'Nay, I think it's a very good rhyme.'
+
+'Oh!' exclaimed Scrope in a sudden comprehension. 'If you tell me the
+verses are conceived in the Irish dialect, I have not another word to
+say.'
+
+Now Mr. Wogan, as a rule, was a little touchy on the subject of his
+accent. But at this moment he had the better part of three bottles of
+admirable Florence wine under his belt and was so disposed to see
+great humour in any remark. He grew uproarious over Mr. Scrope's
+witticism.
+
+'Sure, but that's the most delicate jest I have heard for months,' he
+cried. 'Conceived in the Irish dialect! Ho! Ho! I must tell it at the
+Cocoa Tree--though it hits at me,' and he stood up in the chaise.
+'Obedience--allegiance.' Mr. Scrope steadied him by the elbow. 'Faith,
+Mr. Scrope, but you and I must have another crack one of these days.'
+He put a foot out on the step of the chaise. 'I love a man that has
+some warmth in his merriment--and some warmth in his bottle too.' He
+stepped out of the chaise on to the ground. 'The best Florence I have
+tasted--the best joke I have heard--the Irish dialect. Ha, ha!' and he
+waved a hand at Scrope. Scrope called quickly to the coachman; the
+next instant the chaise started off at a gallop.
+
+Wogan was left standing in the road, shouting his laughter. When the
+coach chaise was some thirty yards away, however, his laughter stopped
+completely. He rubbed his hand once or twice over his bemused
+forehead.
+
+'Stop!' he yelled suddenly, and began to run after the chaise. Scrope
+stood up and spoke to the driver. The horses slackened their pace
+until Wogan got within twenty yards of it. Then Scrope spoke again,
+and the coachman drove the horses just as fast as Wogan was running.
+
+'You have forgotten something, my friend,' cries Wogan.
+
+'And what's that?' asked Scrope pleasantly, leaning over the back of
+the chaise.
+
+'You have forgotten the duel.'
+
+'No,' shouted Scrope with a grimace. 'It is you that forgot that.'
+
+'Ah, you cheese-curd!--you white-livered coward!' cried Wogan, 'and I
+taking you for a fine man--equal to myself--you chalky cheese-curd!'
+He quickened his pace; Scrope called to the coachman; the coachman
+whipped up his horses. 'Oh wait a bit till I come up with you. I'll
+eat you in your clothes.'
+
+Wogan bounded along the road, screaming out every vile epithet he
+could lay his tongue to in the heat of the moment. His hat and wig
+fell off on the road; he did not stop, but ran on bareheaded.
+
+
+ 'But listen, the enamoured air
+ Makes lutestrings of thy locks so fair,'
+
+
+quoted Scrope, rubbing his hands with delight. Wogan's fury redoubled,
+he stripped off his coat and ran till the road grew dizzy and the air
+flashed sparks at him. But the chaise kept ever at the same distance.
+With this interval of twenty yards between them, chaise and Wogan
+dashed through the tiny street of Brampton Bryan. A horde of little
+boys tumbled out of the doors and ran at Wogan's heels. The more he
+cursed and raved, the more the little boys shouted and yelled. Scrope
+in the chaise shook with laughter, clapped his hands as if in
+commendation of Wogan's powers, and encouraged him to greater efforts.
+They passed out of the village; the children gave up the pursuit, and
+sent a few parting stones after Wogan's back; in front stretched the
+open road. Wogan ran half a mile further, but he was too heavily
+handicapped with his three bottles of wine, and Scrope's horses were
+fresh. He shouted out one last oath, and then in a final spasm of fury
+sat down by the roadside, stripped off his shoe, and springing into
+the middle of the road, hurled it with all his might at the retreating
+chaise. The shoe struck the top of the hood, balanced there for a
+moment, and bounced over on to the seat. Scrope took it up and waved
+it above his head.
+
+
+ 'The grass will all its prickles hide,
+ Nor harm thy snowy feet and bare.'
+
+
+The driver plied his whip; the chaise whirled out of sight in a cloud
+of dust; and the disconsolate Wogan hobbled back to Brampton Bryan
+with what secrecy he could.
+
+Mr. Scrope was on his way with the road to London open, were he
+disposed to follow it. Mr. Wogan seemed to see his chaise flashing
+through the turnpikes, and his sallow cheeks taking on an eager colour
+as the miles were heaped behind him.
+
+He knew that Mr. Kelly and Nicholas Wogan were at Lord Oxford's house
+at Brampton Bryan. He knew enough, therefore, to throw some disorder
+on the Chevalier's affairs were he disposed to publish his news. But
+not in that way did he take, at this time, his revenge upon the
+Parson.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VI
+
+ MR. NICHOLAS WOGAN REMINDS THE PARSON OF A
+ NIGHT AT THE MAZARIN PALACE
+
+
+While Wogan pursued in vain a flying foe, Lady Oxford and Parson Kelly
+waited in the house for his return, her ladyship in a great
+discomposure and impatience, and the Parson more silent than ordinary.
+Whatever he may have thought of Scrope's unexpected visit, his pride
+forbade him questions.
+
+'The most unfortunate affair,' exclaimed her ladyship distractedly.
+'Sure never was a woman so cursed. But indeed I was born under a
+frowning star, Mr. Kelly, and so my lord's friends cannot visit him,
+but some untoward accident puts them into peril.'
+
+'You need be troubled by no fears on our account,' replied Kelly, 'for
+Nick will ensure the fellow's silence before ever he lets him out of
+his sight.'
+
+'True,' said she, with a fresh pang of anxiety, 'Mr. Wogan is with him
+and will doubtless seek an explanation.'
+
+Kelly smiled, but without any overwhelming amusement.
+
+'Neither,' said he, 'need your ladyship fear that he will listen to
+any indiscreet explanation. Words have very little to do with the
+explanations which Nicholas favours.'
+
+Lady Oxford remarked the distant stateliness in Kelly's tone and was
+in a hurry to retrieve the slip she had made.
+
+'It is just that I mean,' she cried, coming over to Kelly. 'If Mr.
+Wogan--kills this man,' and her eyes flashed as though she did in her
+heart desire that consummation, 'here at the Park Gates--'
+
+'Believe me,' replied Kelly reassuringly, 'he will omit no proper
+ceremony if he does.'
+
+'No, nor will the county justices either,' retorted Lady Oxford, 'and
+there are Mr. George Kelly and Mr. Nicholas Wogan to explain their
+presence at Brampton Bryan Manor, as best they can, to a bench of
+bumpkins.'
+
+'Again your ladyship is unnecessarily alarmed. For if Mr. Scrope is
+now no more, Mr. George Kelly and Mr. Nicholas Wogan are still Mr.
+James Johnson and his secretary Mr. Hilton. No harm threatens Brampton
+Bryan Manor from their visit.'
+
+This he said no less coldly, and to cut the conversation short,
+stalked with excessive dignity to the door. Lady Oxford was gazing
+ruefully down the avenue from the window, when she heard the knob of
+the door move under his hand. She turned quickly about.
+
+'It was not of Brampton Bryan Manor I was thinking,' she said
+hurriedly, 'nor of our safety. Why, in what poor esteem do you hold
+me! Am I then so contemptible a thing?' There was no anger in her
+reproach. Rather it melted in a most touching sadness. 'Have I no
+friends whose safety troubles me?' she added. At that out came her
+handkerchief and fluttered at her eyes. 'Nay, but I thought I had--two
+of the noblest.' It was a mere scrap of a handkerchief, and the
+greater part of that a lace edging. It would not have sopped up many
+tears, but it served her ladyship's turn. For indeed the mere sight of
+it convinced Kelly of his monstrous cruelty.
+
+'Your ladyship!' he cried, turning back. 'Tears! And I have caused
+them. Faith, I should be hanged for that. Yet they flow for my friend
+and me, and I am blessed instead.'
+
+But she would have none of his apologies. She stepped back as he
+approached.
+
+'No,' said she, and wiped an imaginary tear-drop from the dryest of
+eyes; 'you have asked me for an explanation of Mr. Scrope's coming and
+you have a right to ask it.'
+
+'Madam,' expostulated Kelly, 'I was careful, on the contrary, to ask
+for no explanation whatever. For I have no right to it.'
+
+'Oh, but you have,' returned her ladyship with asperity; and then up
+went her handkerchief again.
+
+'All men,' she said, in a voice most pathetical, 'have a right to ask
+any explanation of any woman, at anytime. Women, poor sad creatures,
+are suspect from their cradles, and to distrust them is the
+prerogative of manhood.' Here she tore away her handkerchief and
+lifted her hands in an ardent prayer. 'Oh that some day I might meet
+with one single man who would believe us worthy of respect!' She
+walked away to the window and said in a low voice, 'With what
+friendship would I requite him.'
+
+Thus the unfortunate Mr. Kelly was not merely plunged in remorse, but
+brought to see that he had missed the one solitary path which would
+have led him into this great lady's friendship.
+
+'Your ladyship,' he implored, 'mistakes my sentiments altogether.'
+
+'Mr. Kelly,' she replied, proudly, 'we will not, if you please, pursue
+the matter. You have your explanation and I trust you will allow it to
+content you,' and so she sailed majestically out of the room, leaving
+Mr. Kelly in that perturbation that he quite failed to notice he had
+received no explanation whatever. She dropped her stateliness,
+however, when the door was closed behind her, and, hurrying across the
+hall, lay in wait behind a shrubbery for Wogan's return. Wogan, on the
+other hand, had admirable reasons for avoiding all paths, and so
+slipped into the back of the house unseen. Consequently it was not
+until half-an-hour later, when Lady Oxford was fairly distracted, that
+she discovered him, decently clothed, and urging upon Kelly the
+necessity of an immediate retreat. He broke off from his advice as
+Lady Oxford entered.
+
+'You have done him no hurt? 'she asked, looking Wogan over from head
+to foot in search of a speck of blood, and ready to swoon if she saw
+one.
+
+'Not the least in the world,' replied Wogan.
+
+'Nor he you?'
+
+'There was never any likelihood of that.' Wogan had to put the best
+face on the matter possible, and since he could not own to the
+humiliating truth, why, the necessary lie might just as well redound
+to his credit. 'I swore him to secrecy upon his bended knees. He took
+the oath on the hilt of this very sword, 'and Wogan hitched forward
+his hanger.
+
+A footman at this moment announced that dinner was served.
+
+'Will you give me your hand, Mr. Wogan?' asked Lady Oxford, and
+detaining him until Kelly had passed out of the room:
+
+'He gave you doubtless a reason for his coming?' she asked.
+
+'Surely he did,' said Wogen, who was not for admitting any omission on
+his own part.
+
+'And what reason?' asked her ladyship.
+
+Mr. Wogan looked at the ground and got a flash of inspiration.
+
+'Why,' said he as bold as brass, 'precisely the same reason which you
+gave to my friend George Kelly,' in which answer Wogan hit the literal
+truth, although her ladyship looked puzzled, as well she might, and
+then flushed a fine crimson.
+
+However, she made up an ingenious story, and that same day hinted
+rather than told it with a pretty suggestion of sympathy which quite
+melted Mr. Kelly's heart, and threw Wogan into some doubt whether to
+believe her or no. Scrope, it appeared, had been at some indefinite
+time a secretary to Mr. Walpole, and was entrusted with the keeping of
+the good man's accounts. Lady Oxford was then simply Mistress Margaret
+Middleton and intimate with her cousin, Mr. Walpole, although since
+her marriage, as Mr. Kelly and his friend were requested to note, that
+intimacy had entirely ceased. Hence it came about that the rash Scrope
+cast longing eyes upon the humble relation of his patron, and was
+indeed so carried away by passion that Margaret was forced now and
+again to chide him for the forwardness of his demeanour. Also, alas!
+he transgressed in a more serious way. For Mr. Walpole's accounts fell
+into the saddest disorder; there were sums of money of which no trace
+could be found until--well, the deplorable affair was hushed up. Mr.
+Scrope was turned off and set down his dismissal to Margaret, who,
+gentle soul, would not have hurt a fly. From that time he had not
+spared her his resentment, and would go miles out of his way if by any
+chance he might fix a slight upon her. Which conduct she most
+Christianly forgave, since indeed the poor man's head must needs be
+turned.
+
+'Yet he had all the appearances of prosperity,' objected Wogan.
+
+'I fancied that I said that there were large sums missing,' replied
+her ladyship.
+
+'Yes, you did indeed say so,' said Mr. Kelly, 'but you avoided the
+implication out of your generous pity.'
+
+It is not in truth very difficult to befool a man who does half the
+fooling himself. Mr. Kelly was altogether appeased by Lady Oxford's
+explanation, which to his friend seemed to explain nothing, but none
+the less he readily acknowledged to Wogan the propriety of hurrying
+his business to a close.
+
+'To tell the truth,' said Wogan, as soon as her ladyship had
+withdrawn, 'I feel my cravat stiffening prophetically about my neck.
+My presence does not help you; indeed, it is another danger; and since
+we are but a few miles from Aberystwith, I am thinking that I could do
+nothing wiser than start for that port to-night.'
+
+The Parson drew figures with his forefinger on the table for a while;
+then:
+
+'I would not have you go, he said slowly. 'I will use what despatch I
+may; but I would not have you go, and leave me here.'
+
+Kelly was true to his word, and used so much despatch that within two
+days he extorted a promise from Lord Oxford to undertake the muslin
+trade in England, as the cant phrase went. Possibly he might have won
+that same promise before had used the same despatch. But Lord Oxford's
+foible was to hold long discourses, and Mr. Pope truly said that he
+had an epical habit of beginning everything at the middle. However it
+may be, the two men left the Manor on the morning of the third day.
+Wogan drove back with the Parson as far as Worcester, who for the
+first few miles remained in a melancholy silence, and then burst out
+of a sudden.
+
+'To think that she should be mewed up in a corner of Herefordshire,
+with no companions but drunken rustics! Mated to an old pantaloon,
+too!'
+
+'Sure it was her ladyship's own doing,' murmured Wogan.
+
+'No woman in all London could hold a candle to her. And we distrusted
+her--we distrusted her, Nick.' He beat a clenched fist into the palm
+of his other hand to emphasise the enormity of the crime. 'Why, what
+impertinent fools men are!'
+
+Then he again relapsed into silence and again broke out.
+
+'Damme! but Fortune plays bitter tricks upon the world. 'Tis all very
+well to strike at a pair of rascals like you and me, Nick, but she
+strikes at those who offend her least. Faith, but I am bewildered.
+Here is a woman indisputably born to be a queen and she is a nurse.
+And no better prospect when my lord dies than a poor jointure and a
+dull Dower House.'
+
+'Oh, she told you that, did she?' said Wogan. 'Sure it was a queenly
+complaint.'
+
+'She made no complaint,' said Kelly fiercely. 'She would not--she
+could not. It is a woman of unexampled patience.'
+
+He grumbled into silence, and his thoughts changed and turned moodily
+about himself.
+
+'Why did I ever preach that sermon?' he exclaimed. 'But for that I
+might now have the care of half-a-dozen rambling parishes. Instead of
+hurrying and scurrying from one end of Europe to the other, at the
+risk of my neck, I might sit of an evening by the peat fire of an inn
+kitchen and give the law to my neighbour. I might have a little
+country parsonage all trailed over with roses, and leisure to ensure
+preferment by my studies and enjoy the wisdom of my Latin friend
+Tully. I might have a wife, too,' he added, 'and maybe half a score of
+children to plague me out of my five wits with their rogueries.'
+
+He fetched up a sigh as he ended which would have done credit to my
+Lady Oxford; and Wogan, seeing his friend in this unwonted pother, was
+minded to laugh him out of it.
+
+'And a credit to your cloth you would have been,' says he. 'Why, it's
+a bottle you would have taken into the pulpit with you, and a mighty
+big tumbler to measure your discourse by. Indeed there would have been
+but one point of resemblance between yourself and your worthier
+brethren, and that's the number of times you turned your glass upside
+down before you came to an end.'
+
+Kelly, however, was not to be diverted from his melancholy. The
+picture of the parsonage was too vivid on the canvas of his desires.
+And since he dreamed of one impossibility, no doubt he went a step
+further and dreamed of another besides. No doubt his picture of the
+parsonage showed the figure of the parson's wife, and no doubt the
+parson's wife was very like to my Lady Oxford.
+
+Wogan, though he had laughed, was, to tell the truth, somewhat
+disturbed, and began to reckon up how much he was himself to blame for
+setting Kelly's thoughts towards her ladyship. He had not thought that
+his friend had taken the woman so much to heart. But whenever the
+Parson fell a dreaming of a quiet life and the cure of souls, it was a
+sure sign the world was going very ill with him.
+
+'I would have you remember, George,' said Wogan, 'that not so long ago
+I saw you stand up before a certain company in Paris and cry out with
+an honest--ay, an honest passion, "May nothing come between the Cause
+and me!"
+
+Kelly flushed as his words were recalled to him and turned his head
+away. Wogan held out his hand.
+
+'George, am I then to understand that something has come between the
+Cause and you?' And he had to repeat the question before he got an
+answer. Then Kelly turned back.
+
+'Understand nothing, Nick, but that I am a fool,' he cried heartily,
+and slapped his hand into Wogan's. 'True, the Cause, the Cause,' he
+muttered to himself once or twice. After all, Nick,' he said, 'we have
+got the old man's assurance. My Lord Oxford will lend a hand. We have
+not failed the Cause.' And they did not speak again until they drove
+into Worcester. Then Kelly turned to Nick with a sad sort of smile.
+
+'Well, have you nothing to say to me? 'said he.
+
+Mr. Wogan could discover nothing to say until he had stepped out of
+the chaise at the post-house and was shaking his friend's hand. Then
+he delivered himself of the soundest piece of philosophy imaginable.
+
+'Woman,' he said, 'is very much like a jelly-fish--very pretty and
+pink and transparent to look at, but with a devil of a sting if you
+touch it.'
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VII
+
+ LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU HAS A WORD
+ TO SAY ABOUT SMILINDA
+
+
+From Worcester Nicholas Wogan made his way to Bristol, and, taking
+passage there on a brigantine bound for Havre-de-Grace with a cargo of
+linen, got safely over into France. He travelled forthwith to Paris
+that he might put himself at the disposition of General Dillon, and,
+being commanded to supper some few days after his arrival by the Duke
+of Mar, saw a familiar swarthy face nodding cheerily at him across the
+table. The lady was embrowned with the Eastern sun, and, having lost
+her eye-lashes by that disease which she fought so manfully to
+conquer, her eyes were fierce and martial. It was indeed the face of
+the redoubtable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, sister to the Duchess of
+Mar, who chanced to be passing through Paris on her travels from
+Constantinople. Wogan remembered that Mr. Kelly's rustic friend at
+Brampton Bryan had spoken of Lady Mary with considerable spleen. And
+since he began to harbour doubts of her rusticity, he determined to
+seek some certain information from Lady Mary.
+
+Lady Mary was for a wonder in a most amiable mood, and had more than
+one question to put concerning 'Kelly as the Bishop that was to be
+when your King came to his own.'
+
+'Why, madam, he has a new friend,' said Wogan.
+
+Lady Mary maybe caught a suspicion of uneasiness in Wogan's tone. She
+cocked her head whimsically.
+
+'A woman?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Who?'
+
+'My Lady Oxford.'
+
+Lady Mary made a round O of her lips, drew in a breath, and blew it
+out again.
+
+'There go the lawn-sleeves.'
+
+Wogan took a seat by her side.
+
+'Why?'
+
+Lady Mary shrugged her shoulders.
+
+'In what esteem is she held?' continued Wogan, 'of what character is
+she?'
+
+'I could never hear,' returned Lady Mary carelessly. 'For her friends
+always stopped abruptly when they chanced upon her character, and the
+rest was merely pursed lips and screwed-up eyes, which it would be the
+unfairest thing in the world to translate in her disfavour. Her
+character, Mr. Wogan, is a tender and delicate plant. It will not grow
+under glass, but in a dark room, where I believe it flourishes most
+invisibly.'
+
+Lady Mary seemed ill-disposed to pursue the topic, and began to talk
+of her journey and the great things she had seen at Constantinople.
+Wogan waited until she came to a pause, and then stepped in with
+another question.
+
+'Is Lady Oxford political?'
+
+'Lady Oxford! Lady Oxford!' she repeated almost pettishly. 'Upon my
+word, the woman has infected you. You can speak of nothing else.
+Political?' and she laughed maliciously. 'That she is, and on both
+sides. She changes her party more often than an ambitious statesman.
+For politics to my Lady Oxford are just pawns in the great game of
+Love.'
+
+'Oh, Love,' exclaimed Wogan, with a recollection of Mr. Scrope. 'Is
+Love her quarry?'
+
+'She will play cat to any man's mouse,' returned Lady Mary
+indifferently.
+
+'And there are many mice?'
+
+Lady Mary shrugged her shoulders and made no reply. However, Wogan's
+appetite for information was only whetted, and to provoke Lady Mary to
+speak more freely he made an inventory of Lady Oxford's charms. He
+dwelt on her attractions. Lady Mary played with her fan, pulled
+savagely at the feathers, opened it, shut it up, while Wogan
+discoursed serenely on item--a dark eye, big, with a glint of light in
+it like sunshine through a thundercloud. Lady Mary laughed scornfully.
+Wogan went on to item--a profusion of blackish-brown hair, very silky,
+with a gloss, and here and there a gold thread in the brown; item--a
+Barbary shape; item--an admirable instep and a most engaging ankle.
+
+'It would look very pretty in the stocks,' Lady Mary snapped out.
+
+Wogan shook his head with a knowing air.
+
+''Twould slip out.'
+
+'Not if I had the locking of it in,' she exclaimed with a vicious
+stamp of the foot, and rose, as though to cross the room.
+
+'I have omitted the lady's most adorable merit,' said Wogan
+thoughtfully. Lady Mary was altogether human, and did not cross the
+room.
+
+'She has the greatest affection for your ladyship. She spoke of your
+ladyship indeed in quite unmeasured terms, and while praising your
+ladyship's wit would not have it that one single spark was due to the
+cleverness of your ladyship's friends. Upon that point she was most
+strenuous.'
+
+Lady Mary sat down again. The stroke had evidently told.
+
+'I am most grateful to her,' she said, 'and when did Lady Oxford show
+such a sweet condescension towards me?'
+
+'But a few weeks ago at Brampton Bryan, where she was nursing her
+husband with an assiduous devotion.'
+
+'I have known her show the like devotion before, when her losses at
+cards have driven her from London.'
+
+'So she gambles?' inquired Wogan. 'Altogether, then, a dangerous
+friend for George.'
+
+Lady Mary nodded.
+
+'Particularly for George,' said she with a smile. 'For observe, she is
+compact of wiles, and so is most dangerous to an honest man. She is at
+once insatiable in her desires, and implacable if they are not
+fulfilled. She is always in love, and knows nothing of what the word
+means. She is tender at times, but only through caprice; she is never
+faithful except for profit or lack of occasion to be anything else.
+Coquetry is the abiding principle of her nature, and her virtue merely
+a habit of hiding her coquetry. Her mind is larded with affectations
+as is her face with paint, and once or twice she has been known to
+weep--when tears were likely to deceive a man. There, Mr. Wogan, you
+have her likeness, and I trust you are satisfied.'
+
+It was not a character very much to Wogan's liking (Lady Mary, he
+learned later, was quoting from a manuscript 'portrait' of her own
+designing), though he drew a spice of comfort from the thought that
+Lady Mary might have coloured the effigy with her unmistakable enmity.
+But events proved that she had not over-coloured it, and even at that
+time Lady Oxford had no better reputation than Lady Mary Wortley
+attributed to her. The ballad-makers called her gallant, and they did
+her no wrong--the ballad-makers of the _ruelles_, be it understood,
+not they of the streets, but such poets as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
+herself and his Grace Sophia of Wharton.[1] The street-singers knew
+not Lady Oxford, who, indeed, was on the top of the fashion, and could
+hold her own in the war of written verses. It was in truth to her
+ability to give as good as she took in the matter of ballads that she
+owed Lady Mary's hostility, who had no taste for the counter-stroke.
+There were many such daring Penthesileas of the pen who never gave
+each other quarter; but neither Wogan nor the Parson were at this time
+in their secrets, although subsequently a ballad, not from Lady Mary's
+pen, was to have an astonishing effect upon their fortunes.
+
+
+---------------------
+
+Footnote 1: Sophia, a nickname of the _Duke_ of Wharton.
+
+---------------------
+
+
+'Your ladyship can help me to make the best of it, at all events,'
+said Wogan. 'Since you have told me so much, will you tell me this one
+thing more? Have you ever heard of Mr. Scrope?'
+
+'Scrope? Scrope?' said she casting about in her recollections. Wogan
+told her the story of Mr. Scrope's appearance at Brampton Bryan, and
+the explanation which Lady Oxford had given to account for it. Lady
+Mary laughed heartily.
+
+'Secretary to Mr. Walpole?' she said. 'And how, then, did he come to
+hear that mad sermon of Mr. Kelly's at Dublin?'
+
+'Sure I have been puzzled to account for that myself,' says Wogan.
+'But who is he? Where does he come from? What brought him to Brampton
+Bryan? What took him away in such a mighty hurry? For upon my word I
+find it difficult to believe the man's a coward.'
+
+'And you are in the right,' replied her ladyship. 'I know something of
+Mr. Scrope, and I will wager it was no cowardice made him run. I doubt
+you have not seen the last of Mr. Scrope. It is a passionate,
+determined sort of creature. He came to London a year or so agone. It
+was understood that he was a country gentleman with a comfortable
+estate in Leicestershire. He had laid his estate at Lady Oxford's
+feet, before she was as yet her ladyship. Lady Oxford would have it,
+and then would have none of it, and married the Earl. Well, he had
+been her valet for a season, and, I have no doubt, thought the service
+worth any price. She gave him her fan to hold, her gloves to caress,
+and what more can a man want? He spent much of his money, and some
+whisper that he turned informer afterwards.'
+
+'Oh, did he?' asked Wogan, who was now yet more concerned that he had
+let the informer slip through his fingers.
+
+'Yes. An informer for conscience' sake--a gentleman spy. His father
+died for Monmouth's affair. He has ever hated the Pretender and his
+cause. He is a Protestant and a fanatic.'
+
+Then she looked at Wogan and began to laugh.
+
+'I would have given much to have seen you bouncing down the road after
+Mr. Scrope's chaise,' and she added seriously, 'But I doubt you have
+not heard the last of Mr. Scrope.'
+
+That also was Wogan's thought. For Lady Mary's story, though vague
+enough, was sufficiently clear to deepen his disquietude. Well, Mr.
+Wogan would get no comfort by the mere addling his brains with
+thinking of the matter, and he thrust it forth of his mind and went
+upon his way, that led him clean out of the path of this story for a
+while. He was despatched to Cadiz to take charge of a ship, and, in
+company with Captain Galloway of the _Resolution_, who was afterwards
+seized at Genoa, and Morgan, of the _Lady Mary_, he spent much
+fruitless time in cruising on and off the coasts of France, Spain, and
+Sweden. It was given out that they carried snuff, or were engaged in
+the Madagascar trade. But they took no cargoes aboard but barrels of
+powder and stands of arms, and waited on the Rising, which never came.
+There were weeks idled away at Morlaix, at Roscoff in Brittany, at
+Lisbon in Portugal, at Alicant Bay in Spain, until Wogan's heart grew
+sick with impatience. At rare times, when the venture wore a face of
+promise, the little fleet would run the hazard of the Channel and
+creep along the English coast, from Dartmouth, across the West Bay to
+Portland, from Portland on to the Isle of Wight. Mr. Wogan would pace
+the deck of his little ketch, _Fortune_, of a night, and as he looked
+at the quiet fields lying dark beneath the sky, would wonder how the
+world wagged for his friend the Parson, and whether my Lady Oxford was
+shaping it or no, until a longing would seize on him to drop a boat
+into the water and himself into the boat, and row ashore and see. But
+it was not for more than a full twelve months that his longing was
+fulfilled, and during those twelve months the harm was done.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VIII
+
+ MR. KELLY HAS AN ADVENTURE AT A MASQUERADE
+ BALL
+
+
+For the greater part of that year Mr. Kelly simply went about his
+business. He travelled backwards and forwards from General Dillon,
+Lord Lansdowne, the Duke of Mar, in Paris, to the Bishop of Rochester,
+in London, and from the Bishop to the others of the five who
+mismanaged the Chevalier's affairs in England, Lord Arran, Lord
+Strafford, Lord North and Grey, Lord Orrery, and last, though not
+least, the Earl of Oxford. Thus business brought him more than once
+knocking again at the doors of Brampton Bryan Manor, though he did not
+always find her ladyship at home to welcome him. On such occasions he
+found the great house very desolate for the want of her footstep and
+her voice, and so would pull out his watch and fall to wondering what
+at that precise moment she was engaged upon in town.
+
+Thus things dallied, then, until a warm wet night of summer in the
+year 1720. Mr. Kelly was in London and betook himself to His Majesty's
+Theatre in Drury Lane, where he witnessed a farce which was very much
+to his taste. It was entitled 'South-Sea; or the Biter Bit,' and was
+happy not merely in its quips, but in the moment of its performance.
+For the King, or, as the honest party called him, the Elector, and his
+lords had sold out, and were off to Germany with their plunder, and
+the stocks were falling by hundreds every week. Mr. Kelly might well
+laugh at the sallies on the stage and the wry faces with which the pit
+and boxes received them. For he had recently sold out his actions in
+the Mississippi scheme at a profit of 1,200 per cent., and had his
+money safe locked up at Mr. Child's, the goldsmith. Kelly's, however,
+was not a mere wanton pleasure. For the floating of the bubble out of
+reach meant a very solid change in the Jacobite prospects. So long as
+the South-Sea scheme prospered and all the town grew wealthy, there
+would be no talk of changing kings and no chance for Mr. Kelly's
+friends. That great and patriotic bishop whom he served, my Lord of
+Rochester, had said to him this many a month past, 'Let 'em forget
+their politics, let 'em all run mad in Change Alley, and the madder
+the better. For the funds will fall and be the ruin of thousands, and
+when England is sunk into a salutary wretchedness and discontent, then
+our opportunity will come.'
+
+It was altogether, then, in a very good humour that Mr. Kelly left the
+theatre. The night was young, and he disinclined for his lodgings. He
+strolled across to the Groom Porters, in White Hall, where his spirits
+were mightily increased. For taking a hand there at Bassette, in three
+deals he won nine rich septlevas, and, for once, did not need the
+money, and when he left the Groom Porters his pockets were heavy with
+gold, and his head swimming with the fumes of punch.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that those same fumes of punch floated
+Lady Oxford into Mr. Kelly's mind. He swaggered up St. James's Street
+with her ladyship consequently riding atop of his bemused fancies. It
+was a gay hour in St. James's, being then about half past one of the
+morning. Music rippled out of windows open on the night. Kelly heard
+the dice rattle within and the gold clink on the green cloth; lovers
+were whispering on the balconies; the world seemed to be going very
+well for those who had not their money in the Bubble, and for no one
+better than for Mr. Kelly. He looked about him, if by chance he might
+catch a glimpse of his divinity among the ladies of fashion as he
+watched them getting into their chairs, pushing their hoops sidelong
+before them, and the flambeaux flaring on their perfections. He
+imagined himself a Paladin rescuing her from innumerable foes. She was
+an angel, a sprite, a Hamadryad, in fact everything tender and
+immaterial.
+
+He was roused from these dreams by an illumination of more than
+ordinary brilliancy, and looking up saw that he had wandered to the
+theatre in the Haymarket. A ragged crowd of pickpockets and the like
+was gathered about the portico. Carriages and chairs set down in quick
+succession, ladies in dominoes, gentlemen in masks. Mr. Kelly
+remembered that it was a night of the masquerades; all the world would
+be gathered in the theatre, and why not Lady Oxford, who was herself
+the better half of it? Kelly had a ticket in his pocket, pushed
+through the loiterers, and stood on the inner rim of the crowd
+watching the masqueraders arrive. Every carriage that drew up surely
+concealed her ladyship, every domino that passed up the steps hid her
+incomparable figure. Mr. Kelly had staked his soul with unruffled
+confidence upon her identity with each of the first twelve women who
+thus descended before he realised that he was not the only one who
+waited. From the spot where he stood he could see into the lobby of
+the theatre. Heidegger, M. le surintendant des plaisirs du Roi de
+l'Angleterre,
+
+
+ 'With a hundred deep wrinkles impressed on his front,
+ Like a map with a great many rivers upon 't,'
+
+
+was receiving the more important of his guests. The guests filed past
+him into the parterre, Heidegger remained. But another man loitered
+ever in the lobby too. He was evidently expecting someone, and that
+with impatience. For as each coach or chaise drew up he peered eagerly
+forward; as it delivered its occupants he turned discontentedly away.
+It is perhaps doubtful whether Mr. Kelly would have paid him any great
+attention but for his dress, which arrested all eyes and caused the
+more tender of the ladies who passed him to draw their cloaks closer
+about them with a gesture of disgust. For he was attired to represent
+a headsman, being from head to foot in black, with a crape mask upon
+his face and a headsman's axe in his hand. He had carried his
+intention out with such thoroughness, moreover, that he had daubed his
+doublet and hose with red.
+
+Mr. Kelly was in a mood to be charmed by everything strange and
+eccentric, and the presence of this bloodsmeared executioner at a
+masquerade seemed to him a piece of the most delicate drollery.
+Moreover, the executioner was waiting like Mr. Kelly, and with a like
+anxiety. Mr. Kelly had a fellow-feeling for him in his impatience
+which prompted him suddenly to run up the steps and accost him.
+
+'Like me, you are doubtless waiting for your aunt,' said the Parson
+courteously.
+
+The impulse, the movement, the words had all been the matter of a
+second; but the executioner was more than naturally startled, as Mr.
+Kelly might have perceived had he possessed his five wits. For the man
+leaped rather than stepped back; he gave a gasp; his hand gripped
+tight about the handle of his axe. Then he stepped close to Kelly.
+
+'You know me?' he said. The voice was muffled, the accent one of
+menace. Kelly noticed neither the voice nor the menace. He bowed with
+ceremony.
+
+'Without a doubt. You are M. de Strasbourg.'
+
+The headsman laughed abruptly like a man relieved.
+
+'You and I,' he returned, mimicking Kelly's politeness of manner,
+'will be better acquainted in the future.'
+
+Kelly was overjoyed with the rejoinder. 'Here's a devil of a fellow
+for you,' he cried, and with his elbow nudged Heidegger in the ribs.
+Heidegger was at that moment bent to the ground before the Duchess of
+Wharton, and nearly stumbled over her Grace's train. He turned in a
+passion as soon as the Duchess had passed.
+
+'Vas you do dat for dam?' he said all in a breath. Kelly however was
+engaged in contemplating the executioner. He ran his thumb along the
+edge of the axe.
+
+'It is cruelly blunt,' said he.
+
+'You need not fear,' returned the other. 'For your worship is only
+entitled to a cord.'
+
+'Oh, so you know me,' says Kelly, stepping close to the executioner.
+
+'Without a doubt,' replied the latter, stepping back, 'Monsieur le
+Marchand de dentelles.'
+
+It was Kelly's turn to be startled, and that he was effectually; he
+was shocked into a complete recovery of his senses and an accurate
+estimation of his folly. He walked to the entrance and stood upon the
+steps. The executioner knew him, knew something of his trade. Who,
+then, was M. de Strasbourg? Kelly recalled the tones of his voice,
+conned them over in his mind, and was not a penny the wiser. He
+glanced backwards furtively across his shoulder and looked the man
+over from head to foot.
+
+At that moment a carriage drove up to the entrance. Mr. Kelly was
+standing on the top of the steps and the face of the coachman on the
+box was just on a level with his own. He stared, in a word, right at
+it, and so took unconsciously an impression of it upon his mind, while
+pondering how he should act with regard to M. de Strasbourg.
+Consequently he did not notice that a woman stepped out of the
+carriage and, without looking to the right or left, quickly mounted
+the steps. His eyes, in fact, were still fixed upon the coachman's
+face; and it needed the brushing of her cloak against his legs to
+rouse him from his reflections.
+
+He turned about just as she disappeared at the far end of the lobby.
+He caught a glimpse of a white velvet cloak and an inch of blue satin
+petticoat under a muffling domino. He also saw that M. de Strasbourg
+was drawn close behind a pillar, as though he wished to avoid the
+lady. As soon, however, as she had vanished he came boldly out of his
+concealment and followed her into the theatre. Mr. Kelly began
+instantly to wonder whether a closer view of the domino would help him
+discover who M. de Strasbourg really was, and entering the theatre he
+went up into the boxes.
+
+At first his eyes were bedazzled by the glitter of lights and jewels
+and the motley throng which paraded the floor. There was the usual
+medley of Chinese, Turks, and friars; here was a gentleman above six
+feet high dressed like a child in a white frock and leading strings
+and attended by another of very low stature, who fed him from time to
+time with a papspoon; there was a soldier prancing a minuet upon a
+hobby horse to the infinite discomfort of his neighbours; and as for
+the women--it seemed to Mr. Kelly that all the goddesses of the
+heathen mythology had come down from Olympia in their customary
+négligé.
+
+Among them moved M. de Strasbourg like a black shadow, very
+distinguishable. Kelly kept his eyes in the man's neighbourhood, and
+in a little perceived a masked lady with her hair dressed in the Greek
+fashion. What character she was intended to represent he could not for
+the life of him determine. He learnt subsequently that she went as
+Iphigeneia--Iphigeneia, if you please, in a blue satin petticoat. To
+be sure her bosom was bared for the sacrifice, but then all the ladies
+in that assembly were in the like case. She had joined a party of
+friends, of whom M. de Strasbourg was not one. For though he kept her
+ever within his sight, following her hither and thither, it was always
+at a distance; and, so far as Kelly could see, and he did not take his
+eyes from the pair, he never spoke to her so much as a single word. On
+the contrary he seemed rather to lurk behind and avoid her notice.
+Kelly's curiosity was the more provoked by this stealthy pursuit. He
+lost his sense of uneasiness in a wonder what the man designed against
+the woman. He determined to wait the upshot of the affair.
+
+The night wore away, the masqueraders thinned. The inch of blue satin
+petticoat took her departure from the parterre. M. de Strasbourg
+followed her; Mr. Kelly followed M. de Strasbourg.
+
+The lobby was crowded. Kelly threaded his way through the crowd and
+came out upon the steps. He saw the lady, close wrapped again in her
+velvet cloak, descend to her carriage. The coachman gathered up his
+reins and took his whip from its rest. The movement chanced to attract
+Kelly's eyes. He looked at the coachman, at the first glance
+indifferently, at the second with all his attention. For this was not
+the same man who had driven the carriage to the masquerade. And then
+the coachman turned his full face towards Kelly and nodded. He nodded
+straight towards him. But was the nod meant for him? No! Well, then,
+for someone just behind his shoulder.
+
+Kelly did not turn, but stepped quietly aside and saw M. de Strasbourg
+slip past him down the steps. So the nod was meant for him. M. de
+Strasbourg was still masked, but he had thrown a cloak about his
+shoulders which in some measure disguised his dress. The mystery
+seemed clear to Kelly; the lady was to be forcibly abducted unless
+someone, say Mr. James Johnson, had a word to say upon the matter. The
+carriage turned and drove slowly through the press of chairs and
+shouting link-boys; M. de Strasbourg on the side-walk kept pace with
+the carriage. Kelly immediately crossed the road, and, concealed by
+the carriage, kept pace with M. de Strasbourg. Thus they went as far
+as the corner of the Haymarket, and then turned into Pall Mall.
+
+At this point Kelly, to be the more ready should the lady need his
+assistance, stepped off the pavement and walked in the mud hard by the
+hind wheels of the carriage. It was now close upon four of the
+morning, but, fortunately, very dark, and only a sullen sort of
+twilight about the south-eastern fringes of the sky.
+
+In Pall Mall the carriages were fewer, but the coachman did not
+quicken his pace, doubtless out of regard for M. de Strasbourg, and at
+the corner of Pall Mall, where the road was quite empty, he jerked the
+horses to a standstill. Instantly M. de Strasbourg ran across the road
+to the carriage, the coachman bent over on that side to watch, and Mr.
+Kelly, on the other side, ran forward to the box. M. de Strasbourg
+wrenched open the door and jumped into the carriage. Mr. Kelly heard a
+woman's scream and sprang on to the box. The coachman turned with a
+start. Before he could shout, before he could speak, Kelly showed him
+a pistol (for he went armed) under the man's nose.
+
+'One word,' said Kelly, 'and I will break your ugly face in with the
+stock of that, my friend.'
+
+The woman screamed again; M. de Strasbourg thrust his head out of the
+window.
+
+'Go on,' he shouted with an oath, 'you know where. At a gallop! Kill
+the horses, they are not mine! Flog 'em to death so you go but fast
+enough.'
+
+'To the right,' said Kelly, quietly.
+
+The man whipped up the horses. They started at a gallop up St. James's
+Street.
+
+'To the right,' again whispered Kelly.
+
+The carriage turned into Ryder Street, rocking on its wheels. M. de
+Strasbourg's head was again thrust from the window.
+
+'That's not the way. Are you drunk, man?--are you drunk?' he cried.
+
+'To the left,' says Kelly, imperturbably, and fingered the lock of the
+pistol a little.
+
+The carriage swung into Bury Street.
+
+'Stop,' said Kelly.
+
+The coachman reined in his horses; the carriage stopped with a jerk.
+
+'Where in the devil's name have you taken us?' cried M. de Strasbourg,
+opening the door.
+
+Kelly sprang to the ground, ran round the carriage to the open door.
+
+'To the Marchand de dentelles, M. de Strasbourg,' said he with a bow.
+'I have some most elegant pieces of _point d'Alençon_ for the lady's
+inspection.'
+
+M. de Strasbourg was utterly dumbfounded. He staggered back against
+the panels of the carriage; his mouth opened and shut; it seemed there
+was no language sufficiently chaotic to express his discomposure. At
+last:
+
+'You are a damned impudent fellow,' he gasped out in a weak sort of
+quaver.
+
+'Am I?' asked Kelly. 'Shall we ask the lady?'
+
+He peeped through the door. The lady was huddled up in a corner--an
+odd heap of laces, silks, and furbelows, but with never a voice in all
+the confusion. It seemed she had fainted.
+
+Meanwhile M. de Strasbourg turned on the unfortunate coachman.
+
+'Get down, you rascal,' he cried; 'you have been bribed, you're in the
+fellow's pay. Get down! Not a farthing will you get from me, but only
+a thrashing that will make your bones ache this month to come.'
+
+'Your honour,' replied the coachman piteously, 'it was not my fault.
+He offered to kill me unless I drove you here.'
+
+M. de Strasbourg in a rage flung back to Kelly. He clapped a hand on
+his shoulder and plucked him from the carriage door.
+
+'So you offered to kill him, did you?' he said. 'Perhaps you will make
+a like offer to me. But I'll not wait for the offer.'
+
+He unclasped his cloak, drew his sword (happily not his axe) and
+delivered his thrust with that rapidity it seemed all one motion. Mr.
+Kelly jumped on one side, and the sword just gleamed against his
+sleeve. M. de Strasbourg overbalanced himself and stumbled a foot or
+two forwards. Kelly had whipped out his sword by the time that M. de
+Strasbourg had recovered, and a battle began which was whimsical
+enough. A quiet narrow street, misty with the grey morning, the
+carriage lamps throwing here a doubtful shadow, a masked headsman
+leaping, swearing, thrusting in an extreme passion, and, to crown the
+business, the coachman lamenting on the box that whichever honourable
+gentleman was killed he would most surely go wanting his hire, he that
+had a woeful starving family! Mr. Kelly, indeed, felt the strongest
+inclination to laugh, but dared not, so hotly was he pressed. The
+attack, however, he did not return, but contented himself with
+parrying the thrusts. His design, indeed, reached at no more than the
+mere disarming of M. de Strasbourg. M. de Strasbourg, however, lost
+even his last remnants of patience.
+
+'Rascal!' he cried. 'Scullion! Grasshopper!'
+
+Then he threw his hat at Kelly and missed, and at last flung his
+periwig full in Kelly's face, accompanying the present with a thrust
+home which his opponent barely parried.
+
+It was this particular action which brought the contest to a grotesque
+conclusion quite in keeping with its beginnings. For the periwig
+tumbled in the mud, and the coachman, assured that he would get no
+stiver of his hire, scrambled down from his box, rushed at a prize of
+so many pounds in value, picked it up and took to his heels.
+
+M. de Strasbourg uttered a cry and leaped backwards out of reach.
+
+'Stop!' he bawled to the coachman. The coachman only ran the quicker.
+M. de Strasbourg passed his hand over his shaven crown and looked at
+the carriage. It was quite impossible to abduct a lady without a
+periwig to his head. He swore, he stamped, he shouted 'Stop!' once
+more, and then dashed at full speed past Kelly in pursuit.
+
+Kelly made no effort to prevent him, but gave way to his inclination
+and laughed. The coachman threw a startled glance over his shoulder
+and, seeing that M. de Strasbourg pressed after him, quickened his
+pace; behind him rushed a baldheaded executioner hurling imprecations.
+The pair fled, one after the other, to the top of Bury Street, turned
+the corner and disappeared. Kelly laughed till the tears ran down his
+cheeks, and leaned against the carriage.
+
+The touch of the panels recalled him to the lady's presence. The
+street was now fairly roused by the clamour. Night-capped heads peeped
+from the windows; an indignant burgher in a dressing-gown even
+threatened Mr. Kelly with a blunderbuss; and, as he turned to the door
+of the carriage, he saw Mrs. Barnes at a window on the second floor
+looking at him with an air of the gravest discontent.
+
+'Take me into shelter, good sir, at once, at once,' cried the lady
+from out the confusion of her laces, in a feigned tone of the
+masquerade.
+
+'With all my heart, madam,' said Kelly. 'This is my door, and my
+lodging is at your disposal. Only the street is fairly awake, and
+should you prefer, I will most readily drive you to your own house.'
+
+The lady looked out of the window. She was still masked so that Kelly
+could see nothing of her face, and she hesitated for a little, as if
+in doubt what answer she should make.
+
+'You may make yourself at ease, madam,' said Kelly, believing that she
+was not yet relieved of fear; 'you are in perfect safety. Our worthy
+friend had to choose between your ladyship and his periwig, of which
+he has gone in chase. And, indeed, while I deplore his taste, I cannot
+but commend his discretion.'
+
+'Very well,' she replied faintly. 'I owe you great thanks already,
+Mr.--' she paused.
+
+'Johnson,' said Kelly.
+
+'Mr. Johnson,' she replied; 'and I shall owe you yet more if you will
+drive me to my home.'
+
+She gave him the address of a house in Queen's Square, Westminster.
+Kelly mounted on the box, took up the reins, and drove off. He looked
+up, as he turned the carriage in the narrow street, towards the second
+floor of his lodging. Mrs. Barnes shook her head at him in a terrible
+concern.
+
+'I shall write and tell Mr. Wogan,' she bawled out.
+
+'Hush, Mrs. Barnes, have you no sense?' cried Kelly, and he thought
+that from within the carriage he heard a stifled peal of laughter.
+'Poor woman,' thought he, ''tis the hysterics,' and he drove to
+Queen's Square, Westminster, at a gallop.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER IX
+
+ WHEREIN THE CHIVALROUS MR. KELLY BEHAVES
+ WITH DEPLORABLE FOLLY
+
+
+Mr. Kelly did not drive very straight perhaps, but to be sure he had
+the streets entirely to himself, and he certainly hit upon Queen's
+Square. The house was unknown to him, and he drove through the square
+before he found it.
+
+It made an angle at the south corner, and was conspicuous for a solid
+family air, and a fine new statue of Queen Anne. Level windows of a
+distinguished respectability looked you over with indifference and
+said, 'Here's a house you'll take off your hat to, if you please.'
+'Faith, but those windows must have shuddered in their sashes when
+they saw the Parson driving Madam home at five o'clock of the morning
+from a masquerade ball. A sleepy footman opened the door; a no less
+sleepy maid yawned in the hall. However, they both waked up to some
+purpose when Mr. Kelly jumped down from the box, bade the footman take
+the carriage round to the stables, called the maid to attend upon
+Madam, and himself opened the carriage door. He opened it quickly with
+a thought that Madam might very likely have removed her mask, for he
+was not so tipsy but that he was curious to know who it was that he
+had befriended. Madam, however, had done nothing of the kind.
+
+'Is my lady ill?' asked the maid, hurrying forward. So Madam was a
+woman of title.
+
+'A trifle discomposed, no doubt,' answered Kelly.
+
+My lady said nothing whatever. It seemed she was unwilling to speak in
+the feigned voice before her maid, and in the natural voice before Mr.
+Kelly. She took his arm, and, leaning on it somewhat heavily, yet
+walked with a firm enough step into the hall, as Mr. Kelly could not
+but remark.
+
+The maid threw open a door on the right. It gave into a little cheery
+room with a wainscot of polished oak, and a fire blazing on the
+hearth. My lady did not release Mr. Kelly's arm, and they both stood
+in front of the fire, and no doubt found the warmth comfortable enough
+after the chill of the morning. Her ladyship, indeed, went so far as
+to untie the strings of her domino, and make as though she would turn
+it back upon her shoulders. But with a glance at Mr. Kelly, she
+changed her mind, and hugged it somewhat closer over her dress than
+before.
+
+'Were you at the masquerade, Mr. Johnson?' she asked in a low voice.
+
+Mr. Kelly took the movement and the words together, and set them down
+as mere coquetry. Now, coquetry to Kelly at that time was a challenge,
+and it was contrary to his principles of honour to remain under such a
+provocation from man or woman. So he answered:
+
+'Indeed, your ladyship, I was, to my eternal happiness. I shall dream
+of blue satin for a month to come.'
+
+Her ladyship hitched her domino a little tighter still about her neck,
+and quickly tied the strings again, but made no other reply to his
+sally. The action, while it inflamed his curiosity, put him into
+something of a quandary. Was it but another piece of coquetry, he
+asked himself, or did she indeed wish to hinder him from discovering
+who she was? He could answer neither question, but he felt
+constrained, at all events, to offer to take her concealment as a hint
+that he should depart. It seemed a pity, for the adventure promised
+well.
+
+'Your ladyship,' he said, and at that she gave a start and glanced at
+him, 'for so I understand from your maid I may address you,' he added,
+'it grows late, the world is getting on to its legs, and your ladyship
+has had an eventful night.'
+
+He took a step backwards and bowed.
+
+'No,' said she, in a sharp quick voice, and put out a hand to detain
+him. Then she stopped as quickly, and drew in her hand again.
+
+Mr. Kelly had borne himself very prettily in the little affair with M.
+de Strasbourg. Madam, in fact, was in the typical attitude of woman.
+She knew it was inconvenient to keep him, but for the life of her she
+could not let him go, wherefore she found a woman's way out of the
+trouble. For she staggered on her legs, and fainted to all appearance
+clean away, leaving matters to take their own course and shift for
+themselves. She fainted, of course, towards Mr. Kelly, who caught her
+in his arms and set her in an arm-chair. The maid, who all this while
+had been standing in the doorway, smiled. 'I will run to her
+ladyship's dressing-room for the salts,' she said, and so went out of
+the room, carefully closing the door behind her. Kelly kneeled by the
+lady's side, and taking up her fan, sought to waft her that way back
+into the world. She did not stir so much as a muscle, but lay all
+huddled up in her domino and mask. Mr. Kelly leaned over her, and so
+became aware of a penetrating perfume which breathed out from her
+dress. The perfume was bergamot.
+
+Kelly dropped the fan and sat back on his heel. The maid had called
+her 'my lady,' and bergamot was Lady Oxford's favourite perfume. What
+if it was Lady Oxford he had unwittingly rescued! The possibility
+caught his breath away. If that were only true, he thought, why, he
+had done her some slight service, and straightway a great rush of
+tenderness came upon him, which went some way to sober him. In a
+minute, however, he dropped into despondency; for Lord Oxford's house
+was in the northern part of the town, as he knew, though he had never
+as yet been there, and neither the footman nor the maid were of her
+ladyship's household. Yet, if by some miracle the lady might be
+Smilinda! She was of the right height. Mr. Kelly looked at her,
+seeking vainly to trace out the form hidden under the folds of the
+domino. But if it were Smilinda, then Smilinda had swooned.
+
+Mr. Kelly woke to this conclusion with a start of alarm. He clapped
+his hand into his pocket, pulled out his snuff-box, opened it quickly,
+and held it close beneath her ladyship's nose. The effect of the snuff
+was purely magical, for before she could have inhaled one grain of
+it--before, indeed, Mr. Kelly's box was within a foot of her face, up
+went her hands to the tie-strings of her mask.
+
+So the swoon was counterfeit.
+
+'Madam,' said Kelly, 'you interpret my desires to a nicety. It is your
+face I would see, but I did not dream of removing your mask. I did but
+offer to revive you with a pinch of snuff.'
+
+She took the box from his hand, but not to inhale the macawba.
+
+'It is for your own sake, Mr. Johnson, that I do not unmask. 'Tis like
+that I am a fright, and did you see my face you would take me for a
+pale ghost.'
+
+'Madam,' said Kelly, 'I am not afraid of ghosts, nor apt to take your
+ladyship for one of those same airy appearances. A ghost! No,' he
+cried, surveying her. 'An angel! It is only the angels in Heaven that
+wear blue satin petticoats.'
+
+The lady laughed, and checked the laugh, aware that a laugh betrays
+where a voice does not.
+
+'Ghost or angel,' she said,' a being of my sex would fain see herself
+before she is seen. 'Tis a mirror I seek.' She was still holding Mr.
+Kelly's snuff-box. It was open and within the lid a little
+looking-glass was set; and as she spoke she turned away and bent over
+it with a motion as if she was about to lift her mask.
+
+'Nay,' said Kelly abruptly; he stretched out his hand towards the
+snuff-box. 'The glass will be unfaithful, for the snuff has tarnished
+it. Madam, I beseech you, unloose that mask and turn your face to me
+and consult a truer mirror, your servant's eyes.' He spoke, perhaps,
+with a trifle more of agitation than the occasion seemed to warrant.
+Madam did indeed turn her face to Mr. Kelly, but it was in surprise at
+his agitation, and the mask still hid her face. Mr. Kelly could see no
+more than a pair of eyes blazing bright and black through the eyelet
+holes.
+
+'You are gallant, I find, as well as brave,' she said, 'unless some
+other cause prompted the words.'
+
+'What cause, madam? You wrong me.'
+
+'Why,' said she, 'you still hold out your hand.' Mr. Kelly drew it
+away quickly. 'Ah,' she continued, 'I am right. There was a reason.
+You would not have me examine your snuff-box too closely.'
+
+In that she was right, for the snuff-box was at once the dearest and
+the most dangerous of Mr. Kelly's possessions. It was a pretty toy in
+gold and tortoiseshell, with brilliants on the hinges, and had been
+given to Mr. Kelly on a certain occasion when he had been presented to
+his king at Avignon. For that reason, and for another, he was mightily
+loth to let it out of his possession. What that other reason was Madam
+very soon discovered.
+
+'It is a dangerous toy,' she said. 'It has perhaps a secret to tell?'
+
+'Madam, has not your mask?' returned Kelly.
+
+'There is a mystery behind the mirror.'
+
+'Well, then, it's mystery for mystery.'
+
+For all that he spoke lightly he was in some uneasiness. For the lady
+might not be Smilinda, and her fingers played deftly about the setting
+of the mirror, touching a stone here and there. To be sure she wore
+gloves, and was the less likely therefore to touch the spring. But
+give her time enough--however, at that moment Kelly heard the maid's
+footsteps in the hall. He stepped to the door at once and opened it.
+
+'You have the salts?' he asked. 'You have been the deuce of a time
+finding them.'
+
+The maid stared at him.
+
+'But her ladyship fainted,' she argued.
+
+'Well,' said he, 'wasn't that why you went for the salts?'
+
+'To be sure,' says she. ''Twas an order to go for the salts.'
+
+She pushed open the door. My lady was still fingering the box. The
+maid paid no attention to the box, but she looked at my lady's mask;
+from the mask she looked towards Kelly with a shrug of the shoulders,
+which said 'Zany' as plain as writing.
+
+Kelly had no thoughts to spare for the maid.
+
+'Madam,' he said, 'here is your maid, to whose attentions I may leave
+you.'
+
+He advanced, made a bow, took up his hat, held out his hand for his
+snuff-box.
+
+'But I cannot let you go,' she answered, 'without I thank you'--all
+the time she was running her fingers here and there for the spring.
+Kelly noticed, too, with some anxiety, that while he had gone to the
+door she had made use of the occasion to strip off her glove--'and
+thank you fitly, as I should have done ere this. But the trouble I was
+in has made me backward.'
+
+'Nay, madam,' said Kelly impatiently, and taking a step nearer, 'there
+is no need for thanks. No man could have done less.'
+
+Her ladyship's fingers travelled faster in their vain attempt.
+
+'But you risked your life!' said she in admiration.
+
+'It is worth very little,' said he with a touch of disdain; 'and,
+madam, I keep you from your bed.'
+
+The maid turned her eyes up to the ceiling, and then Madam by chance
+pressed on a diamond which loosed a hidden spring; the glass in the
+snuff-box flew down and showed a painting of the Chevalier in
+miniature.
+
+'Oh!' cried my lady with a start in which, perhaps, there was a trace
+of affectation. Then she turned to the maid and bade her bring some
+wine and glasses. She spoke quickly, now forgetting for the moment to
+disguise her voice. Mr. Kelly recognized it with absolute certainty.
+The voice was Smilinda's.
+
+The maid went out of the door. Kelly looked at the lady, and seeing
+that she was seemingly engrossed in the contemplation of the little
+picture, stole after the maid.
+
+'Betty!' he called in a whisper.
+
+'Sir? 'she asked, coming to a stop.
+
+He took a crown from his pocket, spun it in the air, and caught it.
+
+'The Margout,' said he, 'will doubtless be more difficult to discover
+than the salts,' he suggested.
+
+'It might indeed be necessary to go down to the cellar,' she replied
+readily.
+
+'And that would take time,' said Kelly, handing her the crown.
+
+'It would take an entire crown's worth,' said the maid, pocketing the
+coin.
+
+Kelly slipped back into the room.
+
+The lady seemed not to have noticed Mr. Kelly's absence, so fondly did
+she study the portrait; but none the less, no sooner had he closed the
+door than she cried out, not by any means to him but in a sort of
+ecstasy, '_Le Roi!_' Then she hid the snuff-box suddenly and glanced
+with a shudder round the room. The panic was altogether misplaced,
+since there could be no other person in the room except the owner of
+the box, who, if her ladyship was guilty for admiring, was ten
+thousand times more so for possessing it.
+
+She caught with her hand at her heart when she perceived Mr. Kelly,
+then her eyes smiled from out of her mask, as though in the extremity
+of her alarm she had forgotten who he was, and so fell back in her
+chair with an air of languor, breathing deep and quick.
+
+'Upon my word, I fear, Mr. Johnson,' she said, 'that if I have escaped
+one danger by your help I have fallen into another. You seem to me to
+be a man of dangerous company.'
+
+'Indeed I find it so when I am with you, madam, since you discover my
+secrets and show me nothing of your own,' replied Kelly.
+
+The maid it appears, had no less perversity than her mistress, for
+precisely at this moment she rapped on the door, and without waiting
+for any answer sharply entered the room, bearing the wine and glasses
+on a salver. There was a distance of three yards between Kelly and her
+ladyship. The maid measured the distance with her eyes, and her face
+showed some disappointment. Her ladyship dismissed her, filled both
+the glasses and took one in her hand. Mr. Kelly drained the other, and
+the bumper carried off the remnant of his brains.
+
+'You run no danger from my knowing your secret, Mr. Johnson,' said
+she, 'for--'
+
+Breaking off her sentence, she turned her head aside, swiftly pushed
+up her mask and kissed the portrait in the box, stooping her fragrant
+hair over it. Mr. Kelly, speeded by the wine, was this time too quick
+for her ladyship. Before she could raise her face he had paid the same
+compliment to her lips as she to his Majesty. She lifted her head with
+a bewitching air of anger.
+
+'Lady Oxford!' he cried out as if in amazement, since he had bottomed
+the mystery for now some time. 'Forgive me, madam, if my hasty loyalty
+to my Sovereign prevented me from recognising his latest adherent. The
+Cause must now infallibly triumph.'
+
+'Sir,' she began, looking up at him with her eyes melting from anger
+to reproach, 'your apology is something graceless. For though my
+colour be gone'--it was only the worse or artificial part of her
+matchless complexion which the mask had rubbed off--'you yet had time
+to know and respect a face you--'and then she came suddenly to a stop,
+as she untied the strings of her domino and threw it back from her
+shoulders. 'You blame me,' she said pitifully. Her ladyship was a
+ready woman, and even went more than half-way to meet an attack. At
+Brampton Bryan the talk had been of duty and the charms of a rustic
+life; but here the dutiful country wife, violently disarrayed in the
+extreme of fashion, had been alone to a masquerade ball and Mr. Kelly
+might conceive himself tricked. And so 'You blame me,' she said, 'you
+blame me even as you blamed me at Brampton Bryan, and with no more
+justice.'
+
+'At Brampton Bryan!' exclaimed Kelly suddenly.
+
+'M. de Strasbourg! M. de Strasbourg was Scrope.'
+
+Her ladyship nodded.
+
+'And 'twas he attacked _you_--would have carried you off.'
+
+Her ladyship shivered.
+
+'And I let him go. Curse me! I let him go even as Nick did. But the
+third time! Oh, only let the third time come.'
+
+Her ladyship shook her head with the most weariful resignation.
+
+'It will come too late, that third time,' she said; 'too late for me.
+I have no husband who can protect me, and no friend so kind as to
+serve me in his place.'
+
+'Nay, madam,' cried Kelly, instantly softened by the lonely picture
+which her words called up in his mind. She was transfigured all at
+once into Una, Andromeda, Ariadne, or any other young woman of great
+beauty and virtue who has ever been left desolate to face a wintry
+world. 'Believe me, you have one friend whose only aspiration is to
+serve you with his life-blood. 'Faith, madam, had you but shown me
+your face when first I came to the door of your carriage, I would
+never have let M. de Strasbourg run away until I had offered you his
+smoking heart on the point of my sword.'
+
+Her ladyship gave the Parson to understand that she had gone to the
+ball on the King's service. Had his brain been of its customary
+sobriety the adventure would doubtless have surprised him more than it
+did. He might have questioned the nature of the service which took her
+ladyship to the masquerade. But she had sufficient art to tell him
+nothing and persuade him that she told all. Moreover, he had other
+matters to engage him.
+
+There is no need to extend more particularly the old story of a young
+man's folly with a woman of Lady Oxford's kind. She had sought to hide
+who she was, she said, because she dared not trust herself; and the
+fact that she was not living in her own house, which was being
+repaired, but in one that she had borrowed, with the servants, from a
+friend who had gone to the Bath, seemed to make her intention
+possible. But Heaven had been against her. Mr. Kelly was readily
+beguiled into the sincere opinion that she had fought against her
+passion, but that her weakness and his transcendent bravery, of which
+she would by no means allow him to make light, had proved her ruin. It
+was all in a word set down to gratitude, which was a great virtue, she
+suggested. Love, indeed, was just the charge of powder which would
+have never flashed--no never--had not gratitude served as a flint and
+thrown off the spark.
+
+Well, Mr. Kelly walked home in the dawning of a new day and painted
+his thoughts with the colours of the sky. For weeks thereafter he
+seemed in his folly to tread on air; and no doubt he had more than
+ordinary warrant for his folly. He had a fortune safely lodged with
+Mr. Child, the goldsmith; his mistress was no less fair than she
+showed fond; and so fond she was that she could not bring herself to
+chide the coachman who was discovered the next morning drunk with
+drugged wine at a tavern near the Haymarket, whither one of Scrope's
+hirelings had lured him. Mr. Kelly was prosperous in the three great
+games of life, love, and politics. For he was wholly trusted by the
+Bishop, by Lord Oxford and the rest; he took his place in the world
+and went and came from France with hanging matter in his valise. The
+valise weighed all the lighter for the thought that he was now serving
+Lady Oxford as well as the King. She was at this time always in his
+dreams. His passion indeed was in these days extreme, a devouring fire
+in brain and marrow. He believed her a most loyal conspirator, and, of
+course, all that he knew came to her ladyship's ears. But his bliss in
+the affection of Lady Oxford quite blinded him to danger, and he
+seemed to himself to walk invisible, as though he had the secret of
+fernseed.
+
+For a season, then, Mr. Kelly was the happy fool, and if the season
+was short--why, is it ever long? Mr. Wogan is not indeed sure that the
+Parson has got altogether out of her ladyship's debt, in spite of what
+happened afterwards. For when the real morning broke and the true love
+came to him, troubles followed apace upon its coming. It is something
+to have been a happy fool, if only for a season and though the
+happiness ended with the folly.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER X
+
+ WHAT CAME OF MR. KELLY'S WINNINGS FROM THE
+ SOUTH SEA
+
+
+Luck is a chameleon, and in November of that same year 1720, thought
+fit to change its complexion. The date, to be precise, was the 17th of
+the month. Mr. Wogan can determine on the particular day, for the
+reason that Mrs. Barnes carried out her threat, and sent him a
+laborious long letter concerning the Parson's moral iniquities. The
+letter reached Mr. Wogan in October, who was then cleaning his ship at
+Morlaix in Brittany, and what with his fifteen months of purposeless
+cruises, felt himself as encrusted with idleness as his ship's bottom
+with barnacles. It was just this eternal inactivity which no doubt
+induced him to take the serious view of Mrs. Barnes's epistle. 'It is
+a most cruel affair,' said he to Mr. Talbot, who was with him, 'and of
+the last importance that I should hurry to London and set it
+straight.'
+
+'But you are fixed here,' said the Crow, for so Talbot was commonly
+called from the blackness of his complexion. 'Can I undertake the
+business for you?'
+
+'No,' says Nick, shaking his head very solemn; though maybe his eye
+twinkled. Mr. Wogan forgets what point the plot was at then, for since
+the black year, 1688, there had been but one plot, though it had
+changed and shifted shape like the faces you see in the dark before
+you sleep. But he could not hear that anything immediate was intended;
+and it would be, therefore, the most convenient occasion to refit his
+ketch _Fortune_. He gave orders to that effect, travelled to Paris,
+obtained from General Dillon a month's leave to dispose of his own
+affairs, and went whistling to London like a schoolboy off on his
+holidays. For, to tell the truth, he was not greatly concerned at
+George Kelly's backslidings, but on the contrary was inclined to
+chuckle over them, and trusted completely to his friend's discretion.
+
+He arrived in London on November 20, and drove boldly to Kelly's
+lodging in Bury Street. For the Glenshiel affair had completely blown
+over--there had never been more than a rumour that he was there--and
+as for the Fifteen, why Mr. Wogan had his pardon like the rest. That
+he got for his behaviour to Captain Montagu at Preston; moreover, who
+could know the boy Wogan that ran away from Westminster School, and
+his task of copying Lord Clarendon's history, in Mr. Hilton, the man
+of six feet four in his stockings. He found Kelly's lodgings empty.
+
+'A letter came for him three days ago,' explained Mrs. Barnes, 'and he
+set off almost on the instant in an agitation so great that he did not
+wait to pack his valise, but had it sent after him.'
+
+'Where to?'
+
+'I do not know,' replied Mrs. Barnes with a sniff of the nose and a
+toss of the head, 'and no doubt I am a better woman for not knowing.'
+
+'No doubt, replied Wogan gravely. 'But, Mrs. Barnes, who signed the
+letter? Where did it come from?'
+
+'And how should I know that?' she cried. 'Would I demean myself by
+reading the letters of a nasty trull? For she's no better for all her
+birth, and that's not so high neither.'
+
+'Ah,' says Wogan, 'I see you don't know who signed the letter.'
+
+'And that's truth,' said she, 'but I saw the superscription. As for
+the letter, he hid it in his bosom.'
+
+'Well, that's as good as showing the signature. Who carried his valise
+after him?'
+
+'Francis Vanlear,' she said, 'the porter who plyed in St. James's
+Street and Piccadilly and lodged at the Crown ale-house in Germain
+Street.'
+
+Thither Wogan sent for him, and when he was come asked him whither he
+had carried the valise.
+
+'To Mr. Gunning's at Mussell Hill,' Vanlear answered, where he had
+found a horse ready saddled at the door and 'Mr. Johnson' in a great
+fume to be off.
+
+Wogan gave the porter a crown for his trouble and went forthwith to
+Mr. Gunning's, whom he had not seen since the occasion of his coming
+down from Glenshiel. From Mr. Gunning he learned that Kelly had
+undoubtedly taken the Aberystwith road, since he had left the horse he
+borrowed at Beaconsfield, and thither had Mr. Gunning sent to fetch
+it. Kelly's destination was consequently as clear to Wogan as the
+urgency of his haste, and coming back into London he dropped in at the
+Cocoa Tree, where he found the story of Lady Oxford and Mr. Kelly a
+familiar pleasantry.
+
+He heard of it again that night at Will's coffeehouse in Covent
+Garden, and at Burton's in King Street, where Mr. Kelly was very well
+known. For, besides being close to Kelly's lodging, it was one of the
+houses to which his letters were directed under cover. From Burton's
+Wogan came back to Bury Street, and, while smoking a pipe in the
+parlour before going to bed, he chanced to notice his strongbox. It
+stood on the scrutoire by the side of Mr. Kelly's big Bible, where
+Wogan had left it eighteen months before. It was the brother to Mr.
+Kelly's strong-box, in every particular but one, and that one a
+stouter lock. Wogan remembered that when he had placed the box on the
+scrutoire the key was attached to it by a string. Now, however, he
+noticed that the key was gone. He was sufficiently curious to cross
+the room and try the lock. But the box would not open; it was securely
+locked. There were papers too within it, as he found out by shaking
+it. Kelly, then, was using the box--but for what purpose? His own box
+served for his few political papers. Any other papers that needed the
+shelter of a strong box must be love-letters. Here, then, were
+amorous, not political epistles. Besides, he was in the habit of
+burning all those which had done their work, and the rest which he
+needed he carried about in his own dispatch-box.
+
+'Now, I wonder,' said Wogan, tapping the lid, 'I wonder whether a
+certain letter, signed--shall we say Smilinda?--and summoning my
+friend to Brampton Bryan, is locked up inside you.' Wogan's guess hit
+the truth even to the signature, though he was destined to get little
+satisfaction from this proof of his sagacity. The letter, he later
+learned, lay in box with not a few others in the same handwriting, and
+they all ended in the same manner with a request: 'Burn this.' Mr.
+Kelly would have been honester had he obeyed it, but, like many a man
+when passion gets hold of him, he could not part with them. Faint
+whispers breathed, as it seemed, from Heaven, and caught and written
+loud in my lady's hand, pure diamonds fetched up from the obscure
+mines of a woman's heart, sure he treasured them up beyond all jewels,
+and locked them up in Mr. Wogan's despatch-box to his own undoing.
+
+This letter was, (Wogan learned afterwards) the most laconic of them
+all, and it was the most momentous. It began, 'My own Strephon,' and
+then Strephon was crossed out and again written on the top, and it was
+signed 'Smilinda' in a doubtful hand; as though, at first, Brampton
+Bryan had recalled to her ladyship the beginning of their affections
+with so overpowering a compulsion that she must needs use the names
+which were associated with it, and then the dear woman's modesty
+timidly crossed them out, and in the end love got the upper hand and
+wrote them in again. At least that was a small portion of all the
+great meanings which Kelly read in the hesitation of her ladyship's
+address. Between the Strephon and the Smilinda there was but one
+line--'Come; there is a secret. I have great need of you.' But this
+had been quite enough to send Mr. Kelly spurring out into the November
+night with such speed that he came to Oxford the next day, where he
+found the snow lying very deep. The snow troubled him, no doubt,
+because it delayed him, but he took little account of the cold beyond
+a sharp pang or two lest Smilinda might have caught a chilblain. For
+himself--well, Smilinda had need of him--the great lady turned for
+help to the Irish outlaw. Wasn't it always so? Her Majesty throws her
+glove to the page, my lord the King Cophetua goes clean daft for a
+beggar wench, and the obliging Cupid builds a rickety bridge whereby
+the despairing lovers leap into each other's arms.
+
+Smilinda needed him! There was a tune ravished from Heaven! His whole
+frame moved to it as the waves to the direction of the moon. It sang
+in his blood, his heart beat to it, the hooves of his horse drummed it
+out on the road. Even the boughs of the trees whispered the words with
+a tender secrecy to the wind, much as the reeds whispered that other
+saying, ages ago, which the Queen in the fable had entrusted to them.
+And, 'faith, when you come to think of it, there was little difference
+in meaning between the two remarks. Smilinda needed Mr. Kelly! It was,
+after all, as much as to say 'Mr. Kelly has ass's ears.' He made such
+haste that on the evening of the second day after his departure from
+London he cantered up the drive of the Manor House.
+
+Lady Oxford met him in the hall, and Mr. Kelly's heart gave a great
+jump of pride when he saw her stately figure all softened to an
+attitude of expectation.
+
+'I knew you would come,' she said; and, as Mr. Kelly bent over her
+hand, she whispered, 'My Strephon,' for all the world as if her
+emotion choked her. Then she raised her voice for the servants to
+hear: 'My lord is from home, Mr. Johnson, but he has commissioned me
+at once to pay you his regrets and to act as his deputy in your
+business.'
+
+Mr. Kelly was all impatience to broach his business, but her
+ladyship's solicitude would not allow him to speak until he had
+supped. She came near to waiting upon him herself, and certainly plied
+him with her best wine, vowing that it was ill weather for travellers,
+and that if he kept his glass full beside his elbow it was a sure sign
+he hated her. This, of course, after the servants had been dismissed.
+Mr. Kelly chided her for the thought, and, with a shake of the finger,
+quoted her a text: 'We are bidden not to look upon the wine when it is
+red,' said he.
+
+'And a very good text, too,' says she; 'so, if you please, shut your
+eyes and drink it,' and, coming behind him, she laid her cool hand
+upon his eyes and forehead. So Mr. Kelly drank, and the bumper floated
+his wits into my lady's haven.
+
+'Now,' says my lady; and, leading the way into her boudoir, she sat
+herself down before the fire, and, clasping her hands at the back of
+her head, smiled at Mr. Kelly.
+
+'Strephon,' she murmured on a lilt of her voice, and with all the
+provocation that witchery could devise. Mr. Kelly was on his knees at
+her side in a moment. She laid a white hand upon his breast, and,
+gently holding him off:
+
+'Tell me,' says she, 'why I sent for you.'
+
+'Because my Smilinda needed me,' he answered with a laugh of pride.
+Her hand caressed his shoulder. She nodded, bit her under lip and
+smiled very wisely.
+
+'What is the service Strephon can do?' cried Kelly. 'Is it to lift the
+world? Give me but your love and I'll accomplish that.'
+
+Smilinda clapped her hands with delight, like a child.
+
+'It is nothing so important,' said she. 'It is not in truth any
+service you can do for me, but rather one that I can do for you.'
+
+Kelly's face lost all its light, and dropped to the glummest
+disappointment. He had so nursed that aspiration of doing her some
+great service. Through the night, through the day, it had borne him
+company. Some great service--that was to be the bridge of Cupid's
+building whereby they were to stand firm-footed on equal ground. And
+now it was some service Lady Oxford was to do for him. Lady Oxford
+noticed the change; it may have been to read the thought which it
+expressed, and that the thought touched her to unwonted depths. For
+the smile faded from her lips, her eyes became grave, thoughtful,
+there was a certain suspense in her attitude.
+
+'Must the woman always owe, the man always pay?' she asked, but in a
+broken way, and with almost a repugnance for herself. Indeed, she
+barely finished the question, and then, with an abrupt laugh, crossed
+to the window, drew aside the curtains, and gazed out upon the
+darkness and the glimmering snow.
+
+'A strange, cold world,' she said in an absent voice, 'with a strange
+white carpet.' Mr. Kelly in truth had given her a glimpse into a world
+yet stranger to her ladyship than that which her eyes beheld--a world
+that had an odd white carpet too, though the feet of those who paced
+it as often as not were stained--a world of generous impulses and
+unselfish devotions. Into this world Lady Oxford was peering with an
+uneasy curiosity. Perhaps for a moment she compared it with her own;
+perhaps she was caught by it and admired it; but, if so, it was with a
+great deal of discomfort. For she dropped the curtain petulantly
+across the window, and, coming back to the fire--well, what she would
+have said it is impossible to guess, for a gentle tap on the door was
+followed by a servant's entrance into the room. He carried a letter on
+a salver, and, advancing to Lady Oxford, offered it to her.
+
+Now, Mr. Kelly was standing almost at the centre of the mantelpiece,
+Lady Oxford at one end; and they faced one another. So the man
+inevitably stopped between them, and, when he lifted up the salver, it
+was impossible but that the Parson should observe the superscription.
+He recognised the handwriting of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Lady
+Oxford recognised it too, for she flushed as she picked the letter up.
+But she flushed deeper as she read it through, and then crumpled it up
+and flung it into the fire with an anger which showed very clearly she
+would have done the like for Lady Mary were the writer instead of her
+letter within reach of her vindictive fingers.
+
+'A strange, incomprehensible creature is Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,'
+said Lady Oxford with a laugh and a glance at Mr. Kelly. 'The most
+whimsical contradiction. She offers you a kindness with one hand and
+slaps you in the face with the other. For instance, this letter here.
+'Twas written out of pure kindness. It completes the friendliest
+service, yet it ends with so rough a jest that but for Strephon's sake
+I should be much drawn to reject the service.'
+
+'For my sake? 'asked Kelly.
+
+'Why, to be sure. Lady Mary gave me a piece of news a week ago in
+town. It was that news which made me send for you, and she writes now
+expressly to confirm it. But, let my Strephon answer me,' and she
+asked whether he had yet sent his winnings from the Mississippi to be
+used for the King's service.
+
+Now, Mr. Kelly was, after all, a human being. It was all very well in
+the first flush of prosperity to propose to scatter his few thousands,
+but afterwards he had come to see that they would not go so very far.
+Besides, he had now obvious reasons for desiring to cut as agreeable a
+figure as he could. At all events the money still remained with Mr.
+Child, the goldsmith, and so he told her ladyship, with a little
+remorse.
+
+'Then,' she cried in joy,' that chance has come for which Smilinda has
+been longing. My presents, Strephon, you have always refused,' which
+was true enough; indeed, on the other hand, she had Mr. Kelly's royal
+snuff-box and a few of his jewels. 'But now I can make your fortune,
+and with yours my own. There's the sweetness of it,' she said, and
+clasped her hands on her heart. 'Your fortune, too!'
+
+'My fortune you have made already,' said he, with other compliments
+proper to the occasion. But her ladyship was in a practical mood.
+
+'Listen,' says she. 'I am made acquainted that the tide has turned. I
+mean, you know, in the Straits of Magellan. The South-Sea stock that
+has been falling so long will certainly rise in a week; the Elector is
+buying secretly. Lady Mary has it from Mr. Pope, and he at the first
+and best hands from Mr. Craggs, the secretary. Mr. Craggs will insert
+my name in the next list and your money I shall send to the directors
+with my own. You shall be rich, Strephon, on the level of your
+merits.'
+
+Mr. Kelly was very well content with his one speculation, but the
+evident joy with which Lady Oxford anticipated serving him was worth
+more than his thousands.
+
+'My gold shall be in Smilinda's coffers the morning that I get back to
+town, 'he said.
+
+'You must go at once,' she exclaimed, 'we must lose no time. Stay. I
+will travel with you to-morrow morning if you will favour me with your
+company'; and so a new flow of compliments carried the South Sea out
+of sight. But a minute or two later Mr. Kelly, chancing to look down
+at the hearth, said, quite inconsequently:
+
+'We must not forget to thank Lady Mary.'
+
+Smilinda followed the direction of his eyes, and saw that Lady Mary's
+letter had tumbled out of the fire and now lay, half burnt, but the
+other half only curled up and scorched. She shivered as though she was
+cold, and the better to warm herself knelt down on the hearth-rug.
+Then she took up the letter (which Kelly must not see) and carelessly
+tossed it into the fire.
+
+'You know Lady Mary,' she said. 'Yes, you told me.'
+
+'I do, indeed,' said Kelly, with a smile.
+
+'I could wish you did not,' said her ladyship with a frown. Smilinda
+made it plain that she was jealous. Kelly laughed heartily at the
+assumption, which was in truth ridiculous enough.
+
+'Who am I,' said he, 'that I should attract Lady Mary's fancy,'
+
+'You are--my Strephon,' replied Smilinda, with a sigh of exquisite
+tenderness.
+
+Kelly argued the matter on other grounds. Smilinda listened to them
+all.
+
+'I have no doubt you are right,' she said, with a meek resignation.
+'But I remember you spoke very warmly of the friendship you had for
+her, and ever since--' here she broke off shyly. 'A weak woman's empty
+fears,' she continued,' but they keep her awake at nights. Well, she
+must even make the best of them.'
+
+Smilinda lying awake at nights out of jealousy! There was a notion to
+convict Mr. Kelly of slow murder. He was on his knees in a moment, and
+swore that for the future on earth and in Heaven he would avoid Lady
+Mary's company as though she was the devil in person. It was a
+confused sort of oath and deprived Mr. Kelly for a time of a very good
+friend; but on the other hand it undoubtedly raised a load from Lady
+Oxford's anxieties.
+
+She left Brampton Bryan the next morning and travelled with Mr. Kelly
+up to London, where the coach set them down at the King's Head in the
+Strand. Kelly went straight from the King's Head to the goldsmith and
+his money was carried to Queen's Square that same afternoon. It would
+seem, however, that Mr. Pope had been choused, for the market fell
+from little to nothing. But when the Bubble presently burst into air,
+Smilinda burst into tears, and Mr. Kelly was smitten to the heart for
+her distress.
+
+'I have ruined thee, my Strephon,' she sobbed. She had covered her
+face with her hands and the tears trickled through her fingers.
+
+'Love arms me against such ill-fortunes,' replied Kelly. 'It is only
+Smilinda's tears that hurt. Each one of them falls upon Strephon's
+heart like a drop of molten lead.'
+
+'Ah, Strephon,' she cried. 'Thou art ruined and Smilinda's hapless
+hand hath dealt the blow. The arrow came from her quiver,' she being
+one of Dian's nymphs, you are to suppose.
+
+Then Mr. Kelly fell to comparing himself to Procris in the fable, who
+was shot by her lover, and said that it was sweet to perish by her
+inadvertent shaft. It seems that kind of love-making has now gone out
+of date. But that was the humour of it when Kelly and Wogan were
+young. Men and women, let them but fall in love, and they were all
+swains and nymphs, though they dabbled in the stocks and were as
+hard-headed as before and afterwards.
+
+'That odious Lady Mary,' exclaimed Smilinda. 'She was born to be my
+bane and curse. 'Twas her counsel that ruined my Strephon. My Strephon
+has kept his oath?'
+
+Her Strephon had, but on the other hand, Mr. Wogan had sworn no oath,
+and would not have kept it if he had done so. He paid a visit to Lady
+Mary soon after Kelly's return from Brampton Bryan. She asked him his
+news and gave him a budget of gossip in return.
+
+'And Lady Oxford has sold her diamonds!' she ended.
+
+Wogan asked how that came about, and she answered:
+
+'Lady Oxford was here at the bassette table three weeks since. Her
+stakes were ever inordinately high, and she lost to me all night. She
+drew a queen when she should have chose the knave, the knave was
+Sonica. "There go my diamonds," she said, and vowing she would punt no
+more, went home in her chair. I could not see her or hear of her for a
+little. I guessed that she had run away into the country until she
+could wheedle enough money to pay me out of the dotard husband. So at
+a venture I wrote a polite letter to her, hoping that the country air
+would restore her credit. Well, here she is back in London and her
+losses paid. That means selling her diamonds.'
+
+Wogan laughed over Lady Oxford's straits and came home to the lodging
+in Bury Street. Wogan's time was getting short and he must return to
+Morlaix. But, as has been said, he left Brittany in a hurry with very
+little money in his pocket, and what was left at his journey's end he
+had since spent in London. So he said to the Parson:
+
+'George, my friend, I must dip into your winnings after all. For here
+am I with a couple of crowns,' he took them out and laid them on the
+table. George flushed crimson.
+
+'Nick,' said he, 'you have two crowns more than I have.'
+
+Wogan turned away to the window and looked out into the street,
+bethinking him of what Lady Mary had told him.
+
+'Sure, Nick, it's the truth,' Kelly pleaded, entirely miscomprehending
+Wogan's action. 'I drew the money out of the Mississippi and sunk it
+in the South Sea. It's all gone. I have not two penny pieces to rub
+together until this day week, when my pension is paid. Nick, you'll
+believe that. Why, Nick, you would ha' been welcome to all that I had.
+But you know that. Sure you know it.'
+
+Wogan had no such mean thought as Kelly in his fluster attributed to
+him. He turned back to the table.
+
+'So you are as poor as an Irish church mouse again, are you?' he said
+with a smile. 'Well, here's two crowns--one for me, one for you.'
+
+He pocketed one coin and pushed the other over to the Parson. The
+Parson took it up and turned it over blinking his eyes. For a moment
+there was an awkward sort of silence. Wogan laughed; the Parson blew
+his nose.
+
+'I hear,' said Wogan, 'that Lady Oxford has lost her diamonds.'
+
+Kelly looked up in perplexity.
+
+'Lost her diamonds!' said he. 'Why, she wore them last night!'
+
+'I thought the rumour was untrue,' said Wogan.
+
+Mr. Kelly slipped his crown into his pocket. There was no more said
+about the matter between them, though perhaps they clasped hands at
+parting with a trifle more than their ordinary heartiness.
+
+Mr. Wogan, however, told Lady Mary of the Parson's loss, and she was
+at no pains to discover the explanation. Lady Oxford had paid Lady
+Mary with the Parson's guineas. They had never been in the South Sea
+Bubble.
+
+'I should like to send the money I won back to Mr. Kelly,' said Lady
+Mary.
+
+'That's plainly impossible,' returned Wogan, and to this Lady Mary
+perforce agreed. '_Olet_,' the Latin-learned lady said, and Wogan
+remarked, 'Certainly,' so she put the money aside, thinking that some
+day she might employ it on Mr. Kelly's behalf. That night Wogan
+borrowed his travelling money from Mr. Carte, the historian, whom he
+met at the Cocoa Tree, and so set out the next morning for Brittany.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XI
+
+ THE PARSON DEPARTS FROM SMILINDA AND LEARNS
+ A NUMBER OF UNPALATABLE TRUTHS
+
+
+Mr. Wogan then returned to Morlaix, and, finding his ketch by this
+time cleaned and refitted, and two others (the _Revolution_, a big
+ship of 40 guns, under Morgan, which was afterwards seized by
+Commodore Scot at Genoa, and the _Lady Mary_, a smaller vessel of 14
+guns, commanded by Captain Patrick Campbell) at anchor in the harbour,
+he set sail for the Downs. There they picked up four thousand small
+arms and a couple of hundred kintals of cannon powder, for traffic, it
+was alleged, on the coasts of Brazil and Madagascar. But the arms and
+ammunition travelled no further than Bilboa, where they were stored in
+the country house of Mr. Brown, an Irish merchant of that part,
+against the next expedition to England. At Bilboa the three ships
+parted, and Mr. Wogan, taking in upon freight such goods as he could
+get, sailed to Genoa, and lay there behind the Mole.
+
+Nor was the Parson to tarry long behind him in London; for less than a
+fortnight after Wogan's departure, he was sent to carry to Rome, for
+the Chevalier's approval, a scheme of a lottery for raising a quarter
+of a million pounds, which Mr. Christopher Layer (later hanged) most
+ingeniously imagined. With the scheme he carried some silk stockings
+as a present for the Chevalier and his spouse. This was none of the
+Bishop of Rochester's work, who knew nothing of Mr. Layer, and of what
+was later plotted by bold and impatient spirits. The Parson had sad
+work parting with Smilinda, but made light of the separation to save
+the lady from distress, and she had happily broken a bank at pharo
+that same night, which withheld her from entirely breaking her heart.
+Still, it was as affecting an affair as one could wish for.
+
+The Parson received certain orders of Atterbury's as to business with
+General Dillon, the Chevalier's manager in Paris, just before he was
+to start; and, coming from the Deanery at Westminster where the Bishop
+resided, he walked at once through Petty France to Queen's Square.
+Lady Oxford's house was all in a blaze of light with figures moving to
+and fro upon the blinds of the windows. 'Mr. Johnson' was announced,
+but for some little while could not get a private word with her
+ladyship, and so stood of one side, taking his fill of that perfumed
+world of fans and hoops, of sparkling eyes and patches and false
+hearts wherein Lady Oxford so fitly moved. Many of the faces which
+flitted before his eyes were strange to him, but one he remarked in
+particular--a strong, square sort of face set on the top of an elegant
+figure that wore the uniform of the King's Guards. Mr. Kelly had seen
+that face under the oil-lamp of a portico in Ryder Street on the
+occasion when he and Nicholas Wogan set out on their first journey to
+Brampton Bryan, and the officer who owned the face was now a certain
+Colonel Montague.
+
+Kelly remarked him because he was playing at the same table with her
+ladyship, and losing his money to her with all the grace in the world.
+At last Lady Oxford rose, and, coming towards him:
+
+'Well?' she murmured, 'my Strephon is pale.'
+
+'I leave for Rome to-morrow morning,' he returned in a whisper. At
+that her hand went up to her heart, and she caught her breath.
+
+'Wait,' said she, and went back to her cards. As the guests were
+departing some two hours later, she called to Kelly openly.
+
+'Mr. Johnson leaves for Paris to-morrow morning, and has the great
+kindness to carry over some of my brocades, which indeed need much
+better repairing than they can get in London.'
+
+It made an excuse for Mr. Johnson to stay, but none the less provoked
+a smile here and there; and Colonel Montague, deliberately coming to a
+stop a few paces from Kelly, took careful stock of him. The Colonel
+did not say a word, but just looked him over. Mr. Kelly was tickled by
+the man's impudence, and turned slowly round on his heels to give him
+an opportunity of admiring his back. Then he faced him again. The
+Colonel gravely bowed his thanks for Mr. Kelly's politeness, Mr. Kelly
+as gravely returned the bow, and the Colonel stalked out of the door.
+It was in this way that Mr. Kelly and the Colonel first met.
+
+But the moment Smilinda and Strephon were left alone!
+
+'Oh,' wailed Smilinda, and her arms went round Strephon's neck.
+'_Heureuse en jeu, malheureuse en amour_. O fatal cards, would that I
+had lost this dross!' cries she, with her eyes on the glittering heap
+of guineas and doubloons strewed about the table. 'Oh, Strephon, thou
+wilt forget me in another's arms. I dread the French syrens.'
+
+And then Mr. Kelly to the same tune:
+
+'Never will I forget Smilinda. If I come back with the King, and he
+makes me a Bishop, with a pastoral crook, thy Strephon will still be
+true.'
+
+Whereat the lady laughed, though Kelly was jesting with a heavy heart,
+and vowed that Lady Mary would write a ballad on 'Strephon, or the
+Faithful Bishop.' Then she fell into a story of lovely Mrs. Tusher,
+the Bishop of Ealing's wife, who was certainly more fair than
+faithful. Next she wept again, and so yawned, and gave him her
+portrait in miniature.
+
+'You will not part with it--never--never,' she implored.
+
+The portrait was beautifully set with diamonds.
+
+'It shall be buried with me,' said Kelly, and so Lady Oxford let him
+go, but called him back again when he was through the door to make him
+promise again that he would not part with her portrait. Mr. Kelly
+wondered a little at her insistence, but set it down to the strength
+of her affection. So he departed from the cave of the enchantress with
+many vows of mutual constancy and went to Rome, and from Rome he came
+back to Genoa, where he fell in with Nicholas Wogan.
+
+Mr. Wogan remembers very well one night on which the pair of them,
+after cracking a bottle in Grimble's tavern, came down to the
+water-gate and were rowed on board of Wogan's ketch. This was in the
+spring of the year 1721, some four or five months since the Parson had
+left England, and Wogan thought it altogether a very suitable occasion
+for what he had to say. He took the Parson down into his cabin, and
+there, while the lamp flecked the mahogany panels with light and
+shade, and the water tinkled against the ship's planks as it swung
+with the tide, he told him all that he had surmised of Lady Oxford's
+character, and how Lady Mary had corroborated his surmises. At the
+first Mr. Kelly would hear nothing of his arguments.
+
+'It is pure treason,' said he. 'From any other man but you, Nick, I
+would not have listened to more than a word, and that word I would
+have made him eat. But I take it ill even from you. Why do you tell me
+this now? Why did you not tell it me in London, when I could have
+given her ladyship a chance of answering the slander?'
+
+'Why,' replied Wogan, 'because I know very well the answer she would
+have made to you--a few words of no account whatever, and her soft
+arms about your neck, and you'd have been convinced. But now, when you
+have not seen her for so long, there's a chance you may come to your
+senses. Did you never wonder what brought Scrope to Brampton Bryan?'
+
+'No need for wonder since she told me.'
+
+'She told you, did she? Well, I'm telling you now, and do you sit
+there until I have told you, for Mr. Scrope's history you are going to
+hear. Bah, leave that bodkin of a sword alone. If you draw it, upon my
+soul I'll knock you down and kneel on your chest. Mr. Scrope went
+before you in her ladyship's affections.'
+
+Here Mr. Kelly flinched as though he had been struck, and thereafter
+sat with a white stern face as though he would not condescend to
+answer the insinuation. 'Sure he was a gentleman--out of
+Leicestershire, and of some fortune, which fortune Lady Oxford spent
+for him. He was besides a sad, pertinacious fellow, and nothing would
+content him but she must elope with him from her old husband, and make
+for themselves a Paradise on the Rhine. It appears that he talked all
+the old nonsense--they were man and wife in the sight of God, and the
+rest of it. Her ladyship was put to it for shifts and excuses, and at
+the last, what with his money being almost spent, and his suit more
+pressing, she fled into the country where we met her. Scrope was no
+better than a kitten before its eyes are opened, and, getting together
+what was left of his fortune, followed her with a chaise, meaning to
+carry her off there and then. However, he found us there, and I take
+it that opened his eyes. And I would have you beware of Mr. Scrope,
+George. A kitten becomes a cat, and a cat has claws. It is Lady Mary's
+thought that you have not heard the last of him, for his conscience
+hath made him a kind of gentleman spy on the honest party.'
+
+George, who in spite of himself could not but see how exactly Wogan's
+account fitted in with and explained Scrope's attempt after the
+masquerade, caught at Lady Mary's name with an eager relief.
+
+'Ah, it was she gave you this flimsy story,' he cried, leaning forward
+over the table. 'There's more malice in it than truth, Nick. The pair
+of them have been at loggerheads this long while. Lady Mary never
+could suffer a woman who can hold her own against her. Why, Nick, you
+have been gulled,' and he lit his pipe, which he had let go out.
+
+'Oh, and have I? Well, at all events, I have not stripped myself of
+every penny in order to pay Lady Oxford's losses at cards. Scrope is
+not the only man whom her ladyship has sucked dry.'
+
+'What do you mean?' cried Kelly, letting his pipe slip out of his
+fingers and break on the floor. Wogan told him of his visit to Lady
+Mary, and the story was so circumstantial, the dates of the loss at
+cards and the payment so fitted with Lady Oxford's message to Kelly
+and her proposal as to the placing of his fortune, that it could not
+but give him pause.
+
+'It is not true,' was all he could find to say, and 'I'll not believe
+it,' and so fell to silence.
+
+'You'll be wanting another pipe,' said Wogan. He fetched one from a
+cupboard and filled it. The two men smoked for a while in silence.
+Then Kelly burst out of a sudden:
+
+'Nick, the fool that I was ever to preach that sermon in Dublin,' and
+stopped. Wogan knew well enough what the Parson meant. His thoughts
+had gone back to the little parsonage, and the rambling cure of half a
+dozen parishes, and the quiet library, and evenings by the inn-fire,
+where he would tell his little trivial stories of the day's doings. It
+was always that dream he would play with and fondle when the world
+went wrong with him, though to be sure, could the dream have come
+true, he would have been the unhappiest man that ever breathed Irish
+air.
+
+'Shall we go on deck?' Wogan proposed.
+
+It was a fine clear night, but there was no moon. The riding-lights of
+ships at anchor were dotted about the harbour, the stars blazed in a
+rich sky; the water rippled black and seemed to flash sparks where the
+lights struck it; outside the harbour the Mediterranean stretched away
+smooth as a slab of marble. Kelly stood in the chains while Wogan
+paced up and down the deck. The Parson was in for his black hour, and
+silent companionship is the only alleviation for the trouble. After a
+time he came towards Wogan and caught him by the arm, but so tight
+that Wogan could feel his friend's finger-nails through the thick
+sleeves of his coat.
+
+'I'll not believe it,' Kelly argued; but it was against himself he was
+arguing now, as Wogan perceived, and had the discretion to hold his
+tongue. ''Faith,' he continued, 'she came into my life like a glint of
+the sun into a musty dark room,' and then he suddenly put his hand
+into his bosom and drew out something at which he looked for a moment.
+He laughed bitterly and swung his arm back. Before, however, he could
+throw that something into the sea Wogan caught his hand.
+
+'Sure,' said he, 'I saw a sparkle of diamonds.'
+
+Kelly opened his hand and showed a miniature.
+
+'Lady Oxford's diamonds,' he answered bitterly, 'which she did not
+sell, but gave out of a loving, generous heart.'
+
+'George, you're moon-struck,' said Wogan. 'Diamonds, after all, are
+always diamonds.'
+
+'True,' said Kelly, 'and I promised never to part with them,' he
+sneered. He put the miniature back in his pocket, and then dropping
+his arm to his side said,
+
+'Put me ashore, Nick. I will see you to-morrow. I am very tired.'
+
+But in the morning he was gone, and a few days later Nick, who was not
+spared certain prickings of conscience for the hand he had taken in
+bringing about the Parson's misfortunes (he had just now, by hindering
+him from throwing away the miniature, taken more of a hand than he
+guessed), sailed out from Genoa.
+
+The rest of that year '21 was a busy time for all engaged in
+forwarding the Great Affair. England itself seemed ripe for the
+attempt, and it was finally determined to hazard it in the spring of
+the next year, when the Elector would be in Hanover. The new plan was
+that the exiled Duke of Ormond, whom the soldiers were thought to
+love, should sail from Spain with the Earl Marischal, Morgan, and
+Halstead, commanding some ragged regiments of Mr. Wogan's countrymen.
+The Duke was to land in the west, the King was to be at Antwerp ready
+to come over, and the young Prince Charles of Wales, who would then be
+not quite two years old, was to be carried to the Highlands. A mob was
+to be in readiness in town, with arms secretly buried; the soldiers
+were expected to declare for High Church and Ormond; and in a word the
+'honest party' was to secure its interest on its own bottom, without
+foreign help, which the English people has never loved. The rich
+lords, but not Bishop Atterbury, knew of the beginning of this scheme,
+but abandoned it. They did not know, or only Lords North and Grey
+knew, that the scheme lived on without them.
+
+Mr. Kelly therefore had his hands full, and it was very well for him
+that it was so. There were things at stake of more moment than his
+love-affairs, as he was the first to recognise. Yet, even so, he had
+time enough, in the saddle and on the sea, to plumb the black depths
+of his chagrin and to toss to and fro that shuttlecock of a question,
+whether he should accuse her ladyship for her trickeries or himself
+for misdoubting her. However, he got a complete answer to that
+question before the year was out. It was his habit now, whenever he
+was in London, to skulk out of sight and knowledge of Lady Oxford, to
+avoid theatres, routs, drums, and all places where she might be met,
+and Mr. Carte the historian took his place when it was necessary to
+visit Lord Oxford in the country. Mr. Carte had a ready pretence, for
+Lord Oxford kept a great store of old manuscripts concerning the
+history of the country, and these beauties, it is to be feared, came
+somewhat between Mr. Carte and his business, just as her ladyship's
+eyes had come between Mr. Kelly's and his. Accordingly the Parson saw
+little of her ladyship and heard less, since his friends avoided all
+mention of her and he himself asked no questions.
+
+'Saw little,' and the phrase is intended. For often enough of an
+evening his misery would fetch him out of the coffee houses and lead
+him like a man blindfold to where her ladyship was accustomed to
+visit. There he would stand in the darkness of the street until the
+door opened and Lady Oxford, all smiles and hooped petticoats, would
+trip gaily out to her chair. But very likely habit--the habit of her
+conversation and appearance--had as much to do with this particular
+folly as any despairing passion. How many lovers the wide world over
+fancy they are bemoaning their broken hearts, when they are only
+deploring their broken habits! Well, Mr. Kelly, at all events, took
+the matter _au grand sérieux_, and so one night saw her ladyship come
+out from the porch of Drury Lane theatre in company with Colonel
+Montague.
+
+There is one unprofitable piece of knowledge which a man acquires who
+has ever had a woman make love to him; he knows when that woman is
+making love to someone else. Lady Oxford's modest droop of the head
+when the Colonel spoke, her shy sidelong smile at him, her red lips a
+trifle parted as though his mere presence held her in a pleased
+suspense--all these tokens were familiar to Mr. Kelly as his daily
+bread, and he went home eating his own heart, and nursing a quite
+unjustifiable resentment against Nicholas Wogan for that he ever saved
+the Colonel's life. It did not take Kelly long to discover that his
+suspicions were correct. A few questions to his friends, who for his
+sake had kept silence, and the truth was out. Lady Oxford's constancy
+had lasted precisely seven weeks before the Whig colonel had stepped
+into the Jacobite parson's shoes. Mr. Kelly put his heart beneath his
+heel and now stamped her image out of it. Then he went upon his way,
+and the King's business took him to Avignon.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XII
+
+ THE PARSON MEETS SCROPE FOR THE THIRD TIME,
+ AND WHAT CAME OF THE MEETING
+
+
+It was early in the year 1722 when Mr. Kelly came to _la ville
+sonnante_, and took a lodging at L'Auberge des Papes in the Rue des
+Trois Faucons. He brought with him a sum of 5,000_l_. collected in
+England, and this sum he was to hand over to a messenger from the Duke
+of Ormond, who was then at Corunna in Spain, and, what with his
+disbursements in the purchase of arms, and the support of Irish
+troops, was hard put to it for money.
+
+It was therefore of the last importance that this sum should come safe
+to Corunna, and so extraordinary precautions were taken to ensure that
+result. The Parson, since he did not know who the messenger might be,
+was to wait every morning between the hours of nine and ten on the
+first bench to the left of the Porte du Rhone in the boulevard outside
+the city walls, until a man should ask him if he had any comfortable
+greeting for Aunt Anne, that being the cant name for the Duke. This
+man was thereafter to prove to Mr. Kelly's satisfaction that he was
+indeed the messenger expected.
+
+Now, the messenger was delayed in his journey, and so for a week
+George Kelly, having deposited his money with Mr. Philabe, the banker,
+sat every morning on his bench with what patience he might. He came in
+consequence to take particular notice of an oldish man and a rosebud
+of a girl who walked along the boulevard every morning at the time
+that he was waiting. They were accompanied by a French poodle dog, and
+indeed it was the poodle dog which first attracted Mr. Kelly's
+attention to the couple. It has already been said that Mr. Kelly had a
+trick of catching a woman's eyes, though this quality implies no great
+merit. On the other hand he drew dogs and children to him, and that
+implies a very great merit, as you may observe from this, that there
+is never a human being betwixt here and Cathay will admit that dogs
+and children have a dislike for him.
+
+The poodle dog, then, comes to a halt opposite Mr. Kelly's bench on
+the very first morning that he sat there, cocks his ears, lifts a
+forefoot from the ground, and, looking after the old man and the young
+girl, says plain as print, 'Here, wait a bit! There's something on
+this bench very well worth looking into.' However, his master and
+mistress were in a close conversation and so the poodle puts his foot
+on the ground and trots after them. But the next morning he came up to
+the bench, puts his head of one side to display the fine blue riband
+round his neck, squats on his haunches, and flops a paw on to the
+Parson's knee.
+
+'How d'ye do?' says the Parson politely.
+
+'I think I'll stretch myself, thank you,' says the poodle, and
+promptly proceeds to do so, using Mr. Kelly's knee as a purchase for
+his paws. He was still engaged upon this exercise when his young
+mistress missed him. She whistled; the poodle looked at the Parson
+with the clearest invitation.
+
+'Won't you come too?'
+
+'I have not been presented,' replied the Parson.
+
+Thereupon the girl turned round.
+
+'Harlequin,' she called to the dog, and showed Mr. Kelly as sweet a
+face as a young man ever deserved to see. It was fresh and clear as
+the morning dew, with frank eyes and a scarlet bow of a mouth ready
+for a laugh. 'Harlequin!' said Mr. Kelly to himself with a start, as
+he looked towards the girl. Harlequin trotted off to his mistress, and
+got prettily chided for his forwardness, of which chiding he made
+little or no account, and very properly. It is not every dog that
+achieves immortality by stretching itself against a stranger's knee.
+But Harlequin did. For had Harlequin not made Mr. Kelly's
+acquaintance, he would never have found a niche in Mr. Swift's verses.
+
+
+ Now let me tell you plainly, Sir,
+ Our witness is a real cur,
+ A dog of spirit for his years,
+ Has twice two legs, two hanging ears,
+ His name is _Harlequin_, I wot,
+ And that's a name in every plot:
+
+ * * * * * * *
+
+ His answers were extremely witty
+ Before the secret wise Committee;
+ Confest as plain as he could bark,
+ Then with his fore-foot left his mark:
+
+
+wrote the Dean of St. Patrick's concerning this very poodle dog of
+Miss Rose Townley.
+
+For Rose Townley was the girl's name, as the Parson now knew, and the
+old gentleman was her father, who had tended Mr. Nicholas Wogan after
+his wounds in the year '15 at Preston. Mr. Wogan had more than once
+spoken to Kelly of Dr. Townley and his daughter Rose, who had retired
+to Avignon, after the Rising, and he had made mention of their poodle
+Harlequin, of which poodle the present or reigning dog, Harlequin II.,
+was the son and heir. So that, hearing the name called out by Rose,
+Kelly was aware who the two people were. Dr. Townley had been
+suspected in the Rising, and therefore had settled at Avignon as
+physician to the Duke of Ormond, and when the nobleman left the town,
+remained because he was grown old, and had lost his taste for politics
+and warrings. He had, moreover, received his pardon for his share in
+the struggle, and was indeed at this very time preparing to return
+into England. But of this Kelly was not aware.
+
+The next morning Kelly was again on his bench, and again Dr. Townley
+and his daughter passed him. Harlequin came forward at once to wish
+the Parson good-morning. Rose spoke to her father, plainly telling him
+of Harlequin's new friendship, for the Doctor looked up towards Mr.
+Kelly and the girl looked away. In consequence there sprang up a queer
+sort of acquaintance between the Doctor and his daughter on the one
+hand, and Parson Kelly on the other. Every morning they looked for him
+on his bench; every morning he had a few words with Harlequin.
+
+Doubtless he would have pursued the acquaintance further, but for
+Rose. She it was who kept the Parson from approaching Dr. Townley. For
+he was still sore with Lady Oxford's treacheries, and feminine beauty
+was _vanitas vanitatum_ to him. Moreover, though he had snatched her
+ladyship's image out of his heart, some of her sayings had stuck in
+his mind, and amongst her sayings not a few were aimed at girls.
+Smilinda was a woman, and saw a rival in each youthful beauty. 'Girls
+of our time,' she would say with a sneer, 'were very kind, at all
+events, whatever one might think of their looks. And to hear them
+speak of marriage, why one would fancy oneself in the company of rakes
+dressed up like the other sex for a masquerade.' She would gloat over
+the misadventures of poor Mistress Dolly Walpole, the Minister's
+sister, by the hour, she had even written a ballad thereon, 'The
+Dolliad,' and since Mr. Kelly had never had been much in the society
+of young unmarried women, he had insensibly imbibed a deal of
+Smilinda's philosophy upon this head. And so he waited for the
+messenger in silence.
+
+Now, upon the fourth day Mr. Philabe the banker sent round for the
+Parson to L'Auberge des Papes, and, when he was come, told him that on
+that morning a man called at the bank with a letter which he gave to a
+clerk. The clerk carried the letter to Mr. Philabe, who opened it. It
+enclosed a second letter superscribed to Mr. George Kelly, and prayed
+the banker to add to the superscription Mr. Kelly's address. This Mr.
+Philabe would not do, but sent out word that he would take care the
+letter came into Kelly's hands. The man, however, who had brought it
+immediately replied that it was of the last importance the letter
+should be delivered at once: otherwise there was no use in delivering
+it at all. If Mr. Philabe would send a messenger at once, well and
+good; if not, would he kindly return the letter forthwith.
+
+This request roused Mr. Philabe's suspicions. For if he sent a
+messenger, as he was prayed to do, the man could follow him, and as
+easily discover the address as if Philabe had written it on the note.
+He replied consequently that neither could he accede to this request,
+but that Mr. Kelly should most certainly have the letter that day.
+
+Upon this the man insisted that the letter should be returned to him,
+but the more strenuously he insisted, the stronger became Mr.
+Philabe's suspicions, until he determined not to part with the letter
+at all, and the man finally went away very ill-pleased.
+
+Mr. Philabe, as he told this story, handed the letter to Mr. Kelly,
+who broke open the seal, and found nothing but a clean sheet of paper.
+
+'Little doubt,' said he, 'why the fellow wanted his letter back. It is
+a pure trick to know where I lodge. What was he like?'
+
+'He wore a travelling-dress,' said Mr. Philabe, 'and a cocked hat.'
+
+'And very likely a pair of boots,' added Kelly. 'But this tells me
+very little of his looks.'
+
+Mr. Philabe was a poor hand at a description, and beyond that the man
+had a nose, two eyes, a mouth, two legs, and a pair of arms, Kelly
+learned nothing whatever of his appearance.
+
+That very day, however, the mystery was to be made clear. Between
+daylight and dark Mr. Kelly chanced to walk up the narrow Rue St.
+Agricole, and had just come abreast of the broad flight of steps which
+leads upwards to the church, when a man leaped down in front of him.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' said the Parson politely stepping aside.
+
+'That is not enough,' said the other, and, turning on his heel, he
+faced Kelly and barred the way.
+
+Kelly recognised the voice, recognised the face.
+
+'Ah,' cried he, 'Mr. Scrope.' His first feeling was one almost of
+exultation. In the face of his enemy he forgot altogether that there
+was no longer any amorous reason for his enmity. He almost forgot,
+too, what he had heard from Wogan about Mr. Scrope's supposed quality
+as a gentleman spy. 'The third time,' he said with a laugh. 'I
+promised myself the third time.'
+
+Scrope nodded his head.
+
+'We are of one mind, then.' He looked up and down the street. It was
+empty from end to end. 'There is a little square terrace at the top of
+these steps, with blank walls upon the two sides, and the church door
+upon the third. The terrace will be very suitable and quiet.'
+
+He turned as he spoke and set a foot upon the lowest step.
+
+'One moment,' said Kelly. During Scrope's words he had reflected.
+Scrope and himself, politics apart, were really in the like case. For
+if he had followed Scrope in her ladyship's caprices, Montague had
+followed him, 'as Amurath to Amurath succeeds.' His enmity quite died
+away, and gave place to something very like a fellow-feeling.
+Moreover, he had to consider the messenger from the Duke of Ormond and
+the 5,000_l_. in Mr. Philabe's keeping.
+
+'One moment,' he said. Scrope stopped with a sneer.
+
+'If you can remain a few days at Avignon,' he continued, 'I shall be
+happy to oblige you in whatever you will. For the moment I have
+duties.'
+
+'Of course,' interrupted Scrope. 'Duties are wonderful convenient
+things when one's bones are in danger. The pious Æneas knew that very
+well, Mr. Kelly; but then the worthy army-chaplain had not a Scrope
+upon his heels for the best part of a twelvemonth.'
+
+'Oh,' cried Kelly, 'then it is you who have followed me.' More than
+once he had heard that his steps were dogged.
+
+'Over a wearisome stretch of Europe,' agreed Scrope.
+
+'It was you who came to Philabe this morning?'
+
+'Who else? So, you see, I have been at some pains to come up with you,
+and those duties must wait.'
+
+'Those duties,' replied Kelly, 'are so urgent that I am in two minds
+whether to take to my heels.'
+
+To any man who was acquainted with the Parson this statement would
+have been proof enough that there was all the necessity in the world
+for delay. But then Scrope knew very little of his opponent, and:
+
+'I am not at all surprised to hear that,' he replied contemptuously.
+
+Mr. Kelly reddened at the sneer, but kept a tight hold upon his
+patience.
+
+'Understand me,' said he quietly. 'If I ran away now, I should most
+certainly follow you afterwards, as you have followed me, and when I
+came up with you I should kill you.'
+
+'And understand me,' broke in Scrope. His cold, sneering face suddenly
+lighted up with a fierce passion. 'Neither you will follow me, nor I
+you. We stand face to face, as I have hoped we should until I have
+dreamed the hope true. You have robbed me of what I held most
+precious. You have done worse. You have proved to me that what I held
+most precious was never worth so much as a cracked farthing. That
+morning I came to Brampton Bryan, I came at Lady Oxford's bidding. We
+were to have done with pretences for good and all. Oh, she had
+forgotten, if you will, but if she had forgotten, who made her forget?
+You, Mr. Kelly, the sneaking cuckoo! I would have worn her proudly,
+for all the world to see--the star upon my coat, the scarf across my
+breast. I would have faced my fellows with one arm for her waist, and
+the other for a naked sword to silence their slanders with. Well,
+there's no waist, but there's still the naked sword.' As he spoke,
+with his left hand he jerked his sword out of the scabbard, and caught
+it by the hilt with his right. 'There's still the naked sword,' he
+laughed, with a sort of thrill in the laugh, and made the blade
+whistle through the air. There's still the sword and a vile cuckoo of
+a parson--'
+
+'That's enough,' cried Kelly, marching to the steps in an anger now
+not a whit less than Scrope's, for there was a certain sting of truth
+in Scrope's abuse which put him to shame; 'more than enough.'
+
+'No, not more than enough,' said Scrope quietly, and he followed.
+
+'You want a little more?' said Kelly, who had reflected. 'Very well;
+your heroics may be candid enough, but it is less Mr. Scrope the lover
+and rival than Mr. Scrope, the spy, that I regard with a certain
+misliking.'
+
+'_Assez_, you die!' said Scrope, with a hiss in his voice.
+
+The space at the top of the steps was a pretty enough spot for their
+purpose. It was open only on the side towards the street, which was
+quite deserted, and raised so high above the pathway that a passer-by
+would see nothing of what was doing. On the other hand, however, the
+light was failing. Scrope was for bringing the encounter to a speedy
+end, and drove at the Parson in an impetuous fury. His sword glittered
+and darted very chill and cold in that grey twilight. He thrust swift
+as a serpent.
+
+The blood of the Parson was also up. He had at first regarded Scrope's
+challenge as a pure piece of irony. Why should two men fight for a
+hilding who had equally jilted and cheated the pair? That had been
+George's first thought; but now his rapier was drawn for the Cause,
+and to rid it of a dangerous enemy. Scrope was probably on the track
+of Ormond and the gold, as well as on that of his rival.
+
+The Parson was as brave as steel, but (though he never knew it) was no
+true master of the play. The men rushed at each other; their swords
+were locked, they were breast to breast; George wrenched his blade
+free, leaped back to get his distance, struck his heel against a
+cobble, and the next moment he felt Scrope's blade burn into his side.
+Kelly clasped his hand over the wound, and sank on to the ground. The
+blood came through between his fingers; he snatched the cravat from
+his neck, and made a poor shift to bandage it about his body. The one
+thought in his mind was of the Duke of Ormond's messenger. Perhaps the
+very next morning he might come to Avignon and find no one on the
+bench.
+
+'A surgeon,' he whispered to Scrope, saving his breath. Scrope was
+quietly wiping his sword, and made no reply.
+
+'A surgeon,' repeated Kelly. 'I must live.'
+
+'Or die,' said Scrope carelessly. He pulled on his coat, and came
+close to Kelly. Then he suddenly felt in his pockets.
+
+'No,' he said, with an air of disappointment. 'I was hoping that I had
+a copy of Virgil wherewith to soothe your last moments. Shall I take a
+message to her ladyship?' He picked up his hat. 'Or shall I ask Mr.
+Nicholas Wogan to write a ballad--"Strephon's Farewell to his
+Smilinda"? Mr. Wogan would, I think, be extremely amusing with so
+pathetical a subject for his Muse. Well, it grows late. You will, no
+doubt, excuse me.'
+
+He made a bow to the Parson, clapped his hat on his head, and walked,
+whistling to the steps. He stopped when he had descended a couple of
+them, and, turning, shook his head thoughtfully at Kelly.
+
+'But I am grieved I have no Virgil,' he said, and so disappeared below
+the level of the terrace.
+
+Kelly listened till the sound of his feet died slowly down the street.
+Then he began to drag himself painfully upon his knees towards the
+steps. He did not dare to get to his feet, lest his blood should flow
+faster from his wound. He did not dare to shout. He crawled forward
+over the flags for miles, it seemed; then the knot of the bandage got
+loose, and a great faintness came over him. With fumbling fingers he
+re-tied the knot; the flags began to heave before his eyes like waves
+of the sea, the silence roared in his ears. He looked upwards, and a
+spinning procession of houses and churches turned him giddy. He sank
+down on his side, and then he was aware of something wet that rasped
+along his hand. He looked down. There was a joyous little bark, and
+the something wet rasped along his check.
+
+'Harlequin!' he thought, with a pang of hope. He summoned all his
+strength, all his will; the houses ceased to spin. He let himself down
+to his full length, with great care drew a scrap from one pocket, a
+pencil from the other, and laboriously wrote. Then he poked the paper
+underneath the ribbon round the poodle's neck. 'Home!' he cried,
+clapping his hands; and fainted.
+
+But ten minutes afterwards Miss Rose Townley unfolded a slip of paper,
+with here and there the mark of a bloody thumb, and written on it
+these words, 'Help Harlequin's friend'; and at her feet a bright-eyed
+poodle dog stood, wagging his tail, ready to conduct her to the spot
+where Harlequin's friend lay in sore need.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIII
+
+ OF THE ROSE AND THE ROSE-GARDEN IN AVIGNON.
+
+
+Life is not wholly the lopsided business that some would have you
+esteem it. Here was the Parson paying, with a sword-thrust of the
+first quality, for a love-affair that was dead already; over and
+ended. That was bad, but, to balance his accounts, the Parson waked up
+from his swoon in Dr. Townley's house, with the Doctor's beautiful
+daughter, Rose, to be his nurse-tender. Lady Oxford had caused his
+duel with Scrope, to be sure, but she had thereby, as it were, cast
+him straight into the girl's arms, and in that very condition which
+was likely to make her most tender to him. Carry the conceit a little
+farther, and you'll see that here was Mr. Kelly, through her
+ladyship's behaviours, imprisoned in the hands of one of those very
+creatures which she was ever persuading him to avoid: namely, that
+terrible monster a girl, and she very young, frank, and beautiful.
+When the Parson came to his senses, he called Dr. Townley to his side,
+and telling him who he was, and how that, being a friend of Mr.
+Wogan's, he knew the doctor from hearing his daughter call the dog
+Harlequin, he continued:
+
+'You were at Preston with my friend, and I therefore have the less
+reluctance in asking a service of you beyond those you have already
+done me;' and he began to tell the Doctor of the expected messenger
+from Spain whom he was to meet on the boulevard.
+
+But the Doctor interrupted him.
+
+'Mr. Wogan is indeed my friend, though I have seen nothing of him
+these past six years; and his name is a passport into our friendship,
+as my daughter will assure you. So, Mr. Kelly, such kindness and
+hospitality as we can show you you may count upon; but--well, I had my
+surfeit of politics at Preston. I have no longer any faith in your
+cause, in your King. I do not think that he will come before the
+coming of the Coquecigrues. I am, indeed, leaving Avignon in a few
+months, and hope for nothing better than a peaceful life in some
+village of my own country under the King who now sits on the throne.
+
+This he said very kindly, but with a certain solemnity which quite
+closed Mr. Kelly's lips; and so, giving him a sleeping potion, the
+Doctor left the room. In spite of the potion, however, the Parson
+made but a restless night of it, and more than once from under his
+half-closed lids he saw the doctor come to his bedside; but towards
+morning he fell into something of a sleep and woke up in the broad
+daylight with a start, as a man will who has something on his mind. In
+a minute or two Mr. Kelly remembered what that something was. He got
+out of his bed, and, holding the door open, listened. There was no
+sound audible at all except the ticking of a clock in the parlour
+below. Mr. Kelly drew on his clothes carefully, so as not to disarrange
+the bandages of his wound, and, taking his shoes in his hand, crept
+down the stairs. It was a slow, painful business, and more than once he
+had to sit down on the steps and rest. He glanced into the parlour as
+he passed, and saw, to his great relief, that it was only half past
+eight in the morning. What with fomentations and bandages Mr. Kelly
+had kept the tiny household out of bed to a late hour, and so no one
+was astir. He drew back the bolt and slipped out of the house.
+
+Half an hour later, Dr. Townley came into the bedroom and found it
+empty. He scratched his head to ease his perplexity, and then wisely
+took counsel with his daughter.
+
+'There was a man he expected to come for him,' he said. 'He was very
+urgent last night that I should see to it. But I cut him short, and so
+do not know where they were to meet with each other.'
+
+At that moment the clock in the parlour struck nine.
+
+'I know!' cried Rose on a sudden, and dragged her father off to the
+boulevard outside the Porte du Rhone, where they discovered Mr. Kelly
+sitting bolt upright on his bench, with a flushed red face and
+extraordinarily bright eyes, chattering to himself like a monkey.
+
+The Parson lay for a week after that at death's door, and it needed
+all Dr. Townley's skill and Rose's nursing to keep him out of the
+grave. Meanwhile the Duke of Ormond's messenger arrived from Corunna,
+and kicked his heels on the boulevard until Mr. Kelly recovered his
+senses and summoned Mr. Philabe to his aid. Mr. Philabe the next
+morning took Kelly's place on the bench, and that day the money
+changed hands and the messenger started back post-haste to Corunna. At
+Corunna he told the story of the Parson's misfortune in more than one
+café, and so it came shortly to Wogan's ears, who put in with his ship
+at that port in order to give up his command.
+
+The reason for this change in Wogan's condition was simple enough.
+Sufficient arms and ammunition had now been collected at Bilboa, and
+it was become urgent that the plans for the rising of the soldiers in
+England, and the capture of the Tower of London, should be taken
+earnestly in hand. The Duke of Ormond, who was to land in the West,
+was supposed a great favourite with the English troops, but it was
+none the less necessary that their favour should be properly directed.
+To that end Mr. Talbot, Tyrell, and Nicholas Wogan, amongst others,
+were deputed to travel into England, ready for the moment of striking.
+Nick was to have the rank of a colonel, and was bidden to repair to
+Paris by a certain date, where he was to take his instructions from
+General Dillon and the Earl of Mar. Now that date gave him half a week
+or so of leisure, and he knew of no better use to which he could put
+it than in stopping at Avignon, which lay directly in his path to
+Paris.
+
+But before he reached the olives of Provence Mr. Kelly was
+convalescent and much had happened. How it had happened Mr. Wogan only
+discovered by hints which the Parson let slip unconsciously. For
+George had a complete distaste for the sensibilities, and, after all,
+a true man, even in the company of his closest friend, never does more
+than touch lightly upon the fringe of what he holds most sacred. He
+said that he was recovered of two fevers at one and the same time, and
+by the same ministering hands, and so was come forth into a sweet,
+cool life and a quiet air. His affairs, whether of stocks in the
+Mississippi scheme or of the Great Business, went clean out of his
+mind. His heart was swept and garnished like the man's in the Parable,
+and almost unawares a woman opened the door and stepped in, bringing
+with her train seven virtues, as of modesty, innocence, faith,
+cheerfulness, youth, courage, and love--qualities no better nor no
+fairer than herself.
+
+How did it begin? Why, at the first there would be a smiling face at
+the doorway to wish him a good morning, or if he had slept ill a sweet
+look of anxious fear which would make up for a dozen sleepless nights.
+When he could get up from his bed and come into the parlour, the dog
+Harlequin, and Rose, and he became children and playfellows together,
+for the brute had been taught a hundred pretty tricks that would make
+a dying man laugh; until at length the girl grew familiar, and was
+seated at the very hearth and centre of his affections, where her
+memory remains enshrined.
+
+Mr. Kelly spoke frankly of the matter only once in Mr. Wogan's
+hearing, and that was many years afterwards, and then he was not
+speaking of the matter at all. It was Lady Mary Wortley who set him on
+to it one night.
+
+For she quoted a saying of some sage or another. 'In a man,' said she,
+'desire begets love, and in a woman love begets desire.'
+
+'And that is true,' said Kelly. 'I do think the steadfast and
+honourable passions between our sex and women are apt to have their
+beginnings on the woman's side, and then, being perceived and most
+gratefully welcomed, light up as pure a flame in the heart of a man.
+For otherwise, if a man sees a woman that she is fair, as King David
+saw Bathsheba, and so covets her, his appetite may in the end turn to
+love or may not. But if his eyes are first opened to an innocent
+woman's love, he being at best a sinful creature, he is then stirred
+with a wonderful amazement of grateful tenderness which never can pass
+away, but must endure, as I hold, even after death.' Which was all
+very modish and philosophical, and meant--well, just what anyone who
+had visited Avignon in February of the year '22 might have seen with
+half an eye. Rose was in love with the Parson and the Parson knew it,
+and so fell in love with Rose.
+
+Mr. Wogan reached Avignon in the afternoon. The Doctor's house stood a
+stone's throw from the Palace of the Emperor Constantine, with a
+little garden at the back which ran down to the city wall. The top of
+the wall was laid out as a walk with a chair or two, and there Wogan
+found the Parson and Rose Townley. It was five years and more since
+Wogan had seen Rose Townley, and she was grown from a child to a
+woman. He paid her a foolish compliment, and then the three of them
+fell into an awkward silence. Mr. Wogan asked Kelly for a history of
+his wound, and then:
+
+'So 'twas Scrope. Lady Mary was right when she warned me we had not
+seen the last of him. 'Faith, George, it was my fault. For, d'ye see,
+if I had not been so fond of my poetry I should have made my account
+with the gentleman at the gates of Brampton Bryan Manor, and you would
+never have been troubled with him at all.'
+
+"Brampton Bryan?" asked Rose. "Where is that?"
+
+Mr. Kelly made no answer, and perhaps Wogan's remark was not the
+discreetest in the world. Miss Rose would not forget that name,
+Brampton Bryan. At all events, the three of them fell to silence once
+more, and Mr. Wogan knew that he was trespassing and that he would
+have done better to have journeyed straight to Paris. Rose, however,
+came to the rescue and made him tell over again, as he had told her
+often before, his stories of the march to Preston. But, whereas before
+she had listened to them with a great enthusiasm and an eagerness for
+more, now her colour came and went as though they frightened her, and
+she would glance with a quick apprehension towards the Parson.
+
+'And the battles are to be fought all over again,' she said, clasping
+her hands on her knees, and then plied Wogan for more details. She
+shivered at the thought of wounds and cannon-balls and swords, yet she
+must know to the very last word all that was to be described of them.
+So, until the sun sank behind the low green hills of the Cevennes, and
+the Rhone at their feet, in that land of olives, took on a pure olive
+tint. Then she rose and went into the house to prepare the supper,
+leaving the two friends together; and it presently appeared that Rose
+Townley was not the only one who was frightened.
+
+The Parson watched her as she went down the garden, brushing the pink
+blossoms from the boughs of a peach tree or two that grew on the lawn.
+There was an old moss-grown stone sundial close to the house; she
+paused for a moment beside it to pick up a scarf which was laid on the
+top and so passed through the window, whence in a moment or two a
+lamp-light shone. The Parson seemed sunk in a reverie.
+
+'I am afraid, Nick,' he said slowly. 'I am afraid.'
+
+'What! You too?' exclaimed Wogan. 'Afraid of the wars?'
+
+'The wars--no, no,' replied Kelly scornfully dismissing the
+interpretation of his fears, and then following out his own train of
+thoughts, 'you have known her a long time, Nick?'
+
+'Six years.'
+
+'I would that I too had known her six years ago,' said the Parson with
+a remorseful sigh.
+
+'She has changed in those six years.'
+
+'How?'
+
+'Why, she has grown a foot, and grown a trifle shy.'
+
+'Ah, but that's only since--' began the Parson with a nod, and came to
+a sudden stop. Rose's shyness was the outcome of her pride. She was
+shy just because she knew that she loved a man who had breathed no
+word of love to her. Mr. Kelly sat for a little longer in silence.
+Then,
+
+'But I am afraid, Nick,' he repeated, and so went down into the house
+leaving Nick in some doubt as to what he was afraid of.
+
+The Parson repeated his remark the next morning after breakfast. Mr.
+Wogan was smoking a pipe upon the wall; the Parson was walking
+restlessly about as he spoke.
+
+'I am afraid,' said he, and looks towards the house. As soon as he
+looked, he started. So Wogan looked too. Rose Townley had just come
+from the window and was walking across the lawn more or less towards
+them with an infinite interest and attention for everything except the
+two figures on the city wall.
+
+'She comes slowly,' said Kelly in a great trepidation, as though he
+had screwed up his courage till it snapped like a fiddle-string. 'She
+is lost in thought. No doubt she would not be disturbed,' and he
+glanced around him for means of escape. There was, however, only one
+flight of narrow steps from the wall down to the garden; and if he
+descended that he would be going to meet her.
+
+Wogan laughed. 'She comes very slowly,' said he. 'No doubt she saw you
+from the window.'
+
+'It is plain she did not,' replied the Parson, 'for, as you say, she
+comes very slowly.'
+
+'The vanity of the creature!' cried Wogan. 'D'ye think if she saw you
+she would run at you and butt you in the chest with her head?'
+
+'No,' says Kelly quickly. 'I do not. But--well, if she saw us here she
+would at the least look this way.'
+
+'Would she?' asked Wogan. ''Faith, my friend, you'll have to go to
+school again. Your ignorance of the ways of women is purely
+miraculous. She does not look this way, therefore she does not know
+you are here! She looks to every other quarter; observe, she stops and
+gazes at nothing with the keenest absorption, but she will not look
+this way. Oh, indeed, indeed, my simple logician, she does not know
+you are here. Again she comes on--in this direction, you'll observe,
+but how carelessly, as though her pretty feet knew nothing of the path
+they take. See, she stops at the dial. Mark how earnestly she bends
+over it. There's a great deal to observe in a dial. One might think it
+was a clock and, like herself, had stopped. There's a peach tree she's
+coming to. A peach tree in blossom. I'll wager you she'll find
+something very strange in those blossoms to delay her. There, she
+lifts them, smells them--there's a fine perfume in peach blossoms--she
+peers into them, holds them away, holds them near. One might fancy
+they are the first peach blossoms that ever blossomed in the world.
+Now she comes on again just as carelessly, but perhaps the
+carelessness is a thought too careful, eh? However, she does not look
+this way. Watch for her surprise, my friend, when she can't but see
+you. She will be startled, positively startled. Oh, she does not know
+you are here.'
+
+The girl walked to the steps, mounted them, her face rose above the
+level of the wall.
+
+'Oh,' she cried, 'Mr. Kelly!' in an extremity of astonishment. Wogan
+burst out into a laugh.
+
+'What is it?' asked Rose.
+
+'Sure, Mr. Kelly will tell you,' said Wogan, and he strolled to the
+end of the walk, turned, walked down the steps and so left them
+together.
+
+'What was it amused Mr. Wogan?' asked Rose of Kelly as soon as Wogan
+had vanished. The Parson left the question unanswered. He balanced
+himself on one foot for a bit then on the other, and he began at the
+end, as many a man has done before.
+
+'I can bring you nothing but myself,' said he, 'and to be sure myself
+has battered about the world until it's not worth sweeping out of your
+window.'
+
+'Then I won't,' said she with a laugh. The laugh trembled a little,
+and she looked out over the river and the fields of Provence with eyes
+which matched the morning.
+
+'You won't!' he repeated, and then blundered on in a voice of intense
+commiseration. 'My dear, I know you love me.'
+
+It was not precisely what Rose expected to hear, and she turned
+towards the Parson with a look of pride. 'And of course I love you
+too,' he said lamely.
+
+'You might almost have begun with that,' said she with a smile.
+
+'Was there need?' he asked. 'Since I thought every blade of grass in
+your garden was aware of it.' Then he stood for a second silent.
+'Rose,' said he, savouring the name, and again 'Rose,' with a happy
+sort of laugh. But he moved no nearer to her.
+
+Rose began to smile.
+
+'I am glad,' said she demurely, 'that you find the name to your
+liking.'
+
+'It is the prettiest name in the world,' cried he with enthusiasm.
+
+'I am much beholden to my parents,' said she.
+
+'But, my dear,' he continued, 'you put it to shame.'
+
+The girl uttered a sigh which meant 'At last!' but Mr. Kelly was in
+that perturbation that he altogether misunderstood it.
+
+'But you mustn't believe, my dear, it's for your looks I love you,' he
+said earnestly. 'No, it's for your self; it's for the shining
+perfections of your nature. Sure I have seen good-looking women before
+to-day.'
+
+'I have no doubt of that,' she said, tapping with her foot on the
+pavement.
+
+'Yes, I have,' said he. 'But when I looked at them 'twas to note the
+colour of their eyes or some such triviality, whereas when I look at
+your eyes, it's as though a smiling heart leaned out of them as from a
+window and said, "How d'ye do?" Sure, my dear, I should love you no
+less if you had another guess nose, and green eyes.' (He reflectively
+deformed her features.) 'It's your shining perfections that I am on my
+knees to.'
+
+'Are you?' she interrupted with a touch of plaintiveness. He was
+standing like a wooden post and there was at the least a couple of
+yards between them.
+
+'Just your shining perfections. 'Faith, you have the most
+extraordinary charm without any perversity whatever, which is a pure
+miracle. I am not denying,' he continued thoughtfully, 'that there's
+something taking in perversity when it is altogether natural, but, to
+be sure, most women practise it as though it were one of the fine
+arts, and then it's nothing short of damnable--I beg your pardon,' he
+exclaimed waking up of a sudden. 'Indeed, but I don't know what I am
+saying at all. Rose,' and he stepped over to her, 'I have no prospects
+whatever in the world, but will you take them?'
+
+Well, she did. Mr. Kelly had come to his meaning in a roundabout
+fashion enough, as he acknowledged that same day to Nicholas Wogan.
+
+'Upon my conscience, but I made a blundering ass of myself,' said he.
+
+'You would,' said Wogan. 'My dear man, why didn't you tell me of your
+intention and I would have written you out a fine sort of speech that
+you could have got by heart?'
+
+'Sure I should have stammered over the first sentence and forgot the
+rest,' said Kelly with a shake of the head. 'To tell the truth, the
+little girl has sunk me to such a depth of humility and diffidence
+that I find it wonderful I said anything at all.' Then he grew silent
+for a minute or so. 'Nick,' said he secretly, drawing his chair a
+trifle closer. 'There's a question troubles me. D'ye think I should
+tell her of My Lady Oxford?'
+
+'It would be entirely superfluous,' replied Wogan with decision,
+'since the thing's done with.'
+
+'But is it?' asked Kelly. 'Is it, Nick? Look you here. We thought it
+was done with a year ago, and up springs Mr. Scrope at Avignon. Mr.
+Scrope does his work and there's not the end of it. For I am carried
+here and so my very betrothal is another consequence. It is as though
+her ladyship had presented me to Rose. Well, how are we to know it's
+done with now? If it ends here it is very well. But, d'ye see, Nick,
+it was after all not the most honourable business in the world, and am
+I to make this great profit out of it? Well, perhaps my fears confuse
+my judgment. I am all fears to-day, Nick,' and he stopped for a moment
+and clapped his hand into his pocket.
+
+'I'll confess to you a very childish thing,' said he. 'Look!' and out
+of his pocket he drew a pistol.
+
+'What's that for?' asked Nick.
+
+'It's loaded,' replied Kelly. 'I went up to my room, after the little
+girl had taken me, and loaded it and slipped it into my pocket,' and
+he began to laugh, perhaps something awkwardly. 'For, you see, since
+she prizes me, why I am grown altogether valuable.' He put back the
+pistol in his pocket. 'But don't misunderstand me, Nick. The new fears
+are quite overbalanced by a new confidence. Sure, it's not the future
+I am afraid of.'
+
+'I understand,' said Wogan gravely. 'It's what's to come.'
+
+'Yes, that's it,' said Kelly.
+
+Being afraid, and being a man of honour, Kelly did nothing, said
+nothing on the head of his old love affair, and trembled with
+apprehension of he knew not very well what. A path of flowers
+stretched before him, but a shadow walked on it, a tall, handsome
+shadow, yet unfriendly. It is Mr. Wogan's firm belief, based on
+experience, that a woman always finds everything out. The only
+questions are, when, and how will she take it? Sometimes it is a
+letter in the pocket of an old coat which the dear charitable creature
+is giving to a poor devil of a chairman. Sometimes it is a glance at a
+rout, which she shoots flying. Now it is a trinket, or a dead flower
+in a book, or a line marked in a poem, but there is always a trail of
+the past, and woman never misses it.
+
+George's wooing seemed as flowery as the meadows about Avignon, white
+with fragrant narcissus, or as the gardens purple with Judas trees in
+spring. Rose was all _parfait amour_, and, in her eyes, Mr. Kelly was
+a hero, a clerical Montrose, or a Dundee of singular piety. Wogan has
+known women more zealous for the Cause, such as her Grace of
+Buckingham, or Madame de Mézières, who had ever a private plot of her
+own running through the legs of our schemes, like a little dog at a
+rout, and tripping us up. To Miss Townley George was the Cause, and
+the Cause was George, so that, in truth, she was less of a Jacobite
+than a Georgite.
+
+There never had been such a George as hers for dragons. Why did he
+fight Mr. Scrope? She was certain it was all for the Cause! Indeed,
+that _casus belli_, as the lawyers say, proved a puzzle. Why, in fact,
+did the Parson come to be lying on the flags, in receipt of a
+sword-thrust of the first quality? George was the last man to brag of
+his services, but he was merely obliged to put the sword-thrust down
+to his credit with the Cause. His enemy had been a Whig, a dangerous
+spy, which was true, but not exactly all the truth, about as much of
+it as a man finds good for a woman.
+
+Rose clasped her hands, raised her eyes to Heaven, and wondered that
+it did not better protect the Right. What other deeds of arms had her
+warrior done? She hung on George imploring him to speak of deadly
+'scapes, and of everything that it terrified her to hear. Mr. Kelly,
+in fact, had never drawn sword in anger before; he was, by profession,
+a man of peace and of the pen. If ever he indulged a personal
+ambition, it would have been for a snug Irish deanery, and he
+communicated to Miss Townley a part of his favourite scheme, for
+leisure, a rose-hung parsonage, and Tully, his Roman friend.
+
+But the girl put this down to his inveterate modesty, remarked by all
+Europe in his countrymen.
+
+'Nay, I _know_ you have done more,' she said one day alone with him in
+a bower of the garden. 'You have done something very brave and very
+great, beyond others. You helped to free the Queen from the Emperor's
+prison at Innspruck!'
+
+'I!' exclaimed Mr. Kelly in amazement. 'What put that notion into the
+prettiest head in the world? Why, it was Nicholas's brother Charles,
+with other Irish gentlemen, Gaydon, Misset, and O'Toole, who did that
+feat; the world rings of it. I was in Paris at that time.'
+
+'Then you did something greater and braver yet, that is a secret for
+State reasons, or else, why does the King give you such rich
+presents?'
+
+Mr. Kelly blushed as red as the flower after which his lady was named.
+
+'Now,' he thought, 'how, in the name of the devil, did she hear of the
+box the King gave me, and I gave to Lady Oxford?'
+
+That trinket was lying on Lady Oxford's table, but the face behind the
+mirror was now that of a handsomer man than either his Majesty, or Mr.
+Kelly, or Colonel Montague. Kelly knew nothing about that, but he
+blushed beautifully when Miss Townley spoke of a rich royal present.
+
+'You blush,' cried the girl, before he could find an answer. 'I know
+you are hiding something, now.' (And here she added to his pleasure
+without taking anything from his confusion), 'Tell me why you blush to
+find it fame?'
+
+'Troth, isn't my face a mirror, and reflects your rosy one, my Rose?'
+answered Mr. Kelly, putting on a great deal of the brogue, to make her
+laugh. For, if a woman laughs, she is apt to lose sight of her idea.
+
+'I must be told; I cannot trust you to show me how brave you are.'
+
+Mr. Kelly was upon dangerous ground. If he was expected to talk about
+the box given by the King, and if Rose wished to see, or to know what
+had become of it, Kelly had not a fable ready, and the truth he could
+not tell. He made a lame explanation:
+
+'Well, then, I blushed, if I did, for shame that the King has to
+borrow money to help better men than me.'
+
+'I don't care if he borrowed the money or not, for he could not have
+borrowed for a better purpose than to give you--what I have seen.'
+
+Mr. Kelly was pale enough now. What in the wide world had she seen?
+Certainly not the snuffbox.
+
+'Seen in a dream, my dear; sure the King never gave me anything but my
+little pension.'
+
+'Then you know other kings, for who else give diamonds? Ah, you are
+caught! You have the Queen's portrait set with diamonds.'
+
+'The Queen's portrait?' cried Kelly in perplexity. He was comforted as
+well as perplexed. 'Twas plain that Rose knew nothing of the royal
+snuffbox, now the spoil of Lady Oxford's spear and bow.
+
+'Yes,' cried Rose. 'Whose portrait but the Queen's should it be that
+lies on your table? So beautiful a lady and such diamonds!'
+
+Mr. Kelly groaned in spirit. The snuff-box was not near so dangerous
+as this new trail that Rose had hit. She had seen, in his possession,
+the miniature of Smilinda, and had guessed that it was a royal gift;
+the likeness of the Princess Clementina Sobieska, who had but lately
+married the King.
+
+'I saw it lying on your table the day we brought you home from the
+seat on the boulevard, when we thought'(here Miss Rose hid her face on
+her lover's shoulder, and her voice broke) 'that--you--would--die.'
+
+Now was this rose wet with a shower, and when Kelly, like the glorious
+sun in heaven, had dried these pretty petals, what (Mr. Wogan puts it
+to the casuists) was the dear man to say? What he thought was to curse
+Nick for holding his hand when he was about throwing Smilinda's
+picture into the sea.
+
+What he said was that, under Heaven, but without great personal
+danger, he had been the blessed means of detecting and defeating a
+wicked Hanoverian plot to kidnap and carry off from Rome the dear
+little Prince of Wales, and Mrs. Hughes, his Welsh nurse. This
+prodigious fable George based on one of the many flying stories of the
+time. It satisfied Miss Townley's curiosity (as, indeed, it was very
+apt to do) and George gave her the strictest orders never to breathe a
+word of the circumstance, which must be reckoned a sacred mystery of
+the royal family. He also remarked that the portrait flattered her
+Majesty (as painters will do), and that, though extremely pretty and
+gay, she had not that air of dignity and command, nor was so dark a
+beauty. 'In fact, my dear,' said George, 'you might wear that portrait
+at the Elector's Birth Night rout (if you could fall so low) and few
+people would be much the wiser. These Roman painters are satisfied
+with making a sitter pretty enough to please her, or him.'
+
+George was driven to this flagrant incorrectness because, though Miss
+Townley had not yet seen the Queen's portrait (her father having
+changed sides) she might see one any day, and find Mr. Kelly out.
+
+The girl was satisfied, and the thing went by, for the time. But, on
+later occasions, his conscience gnawing him, the good George very
+unwisely dropped out general hints of the unworthiness of his sex, and
+of himself in particular, as many an honest fellow has done. In Mr.
+Wogan's opinion, bygones ought to be bygones, but it takes two to that
+bargain. Meanwhile Miss Rose might make as much or as little of her
+lover's penitences as she chose, and, indeed, being a lass of gold,
+with a sense of honour not universal in her sex, and perfectly sure of
+him, she made nothing whatever, nor thought at all of the matter.
+
+But there was another dragon in the course that never yet ran smooth.
+The excellent surgeon, who had not recovered the fright of Preston,
+was obdurate. He had no dislike for Mr. Kelly, but a very great
+distaste for Mr. Kelly's Cause. Rose might coax, the Parson might
+argue, Wogan might use all his blandishments--the good man was iron.
+In brief, Kelly must cease to serve the King, or cease to hope for
+Rose. This was a hard choice, for indeed Mr. Kelly could not in honour
+leave hold of the threads of the plot which were then in his hands.
+
+So much Dr. Townley was at last brought to acknowledge, and thereupon
+a compromise was come to. Mr. Kelly was to go over to England once
+again, on the last chance. The blow was to be struck in this spring of
+the year 1722. If it failed, or could not be struck, Mr. Kelly was to
+withdraw from the King's affairs and earn his living by writing for
+the booksellers, and instructing youth.
+
+The Parson was the more ready to agree to this delay, because of a
+circumstance with which he was now acquainted. The Doctor and his
+daughter were themselves on the point of returning to England. Mr.
+Kelly and Rose had no great difficulty in persuading the surgeon that
+he would find it more convenient to live in London than in the
+country, of the miseries of which they drew a very pathetic and
+convincing picture; and so, being assured that the delay would not
+mean a complete separation, they accepted the plan and fell to mapping
+out their lives.
+
+They chose the sort of house they would live in and where, whether in
+Paris or in England: they furnished it from roof to cellar.
+
+'There must be a room for Nick,' said the Parson, 'so that he can come
+in and out as if to his own house.'
+
+Mr. Wogan had borne his part in persuading Dr. Townley, without a
+thought of the great change which the Parson's marriage meant for him.
+But these words, and the girl's assent, and above all a certain
+unconscious patronage in their voices, struck the truth into him with
+something of a shock.
+
+Mr. Wogan escaped from the room, and walked about in the garden. These
+two men, you are to understand, had been boys together, George being
+by some years the older, and had quarrelled and fought and made
+friends again twenty times in a day. Mr. Kelly bore, and would bear
+till his dying day, a little scar on his cheek close to his ear, where
+he was hit by a mallet which Wogan heaved at him one day that he was
+vexed. Wogan never noticed that scar but a certain pleasurable
+tenderness came over him. His friendship with the Parson had been, as
+it were, the heart of his boyhood. And in after years it had waxed
+rather than diminished. The pair of them could sit one on each side of
+a fire in perfect silence for an hour together, and yet converse
+intelligibly to each other all the while. Well, here was Mr. Wogan
+alone in the darkness of the little garden at Avignon now. The Rhone
+looked very cold beneath the stars, and the fields entirely desolate
+and cheerless. Yet he gazed that way persistently, for if he turned
+his head toward the house he saw a bright window across which the
+curtains were not drawn, and a girl's fair hair shining gold against a
+man's black periwig. Mr. Wogan had enough sense to strangle his
+jealousy that night, and was heartily ashamed of it the next morning
+when he bade the couple good-bye and set out for Paris.
+
+Mr. Kelly took his leave a few days later, being now sufficiently
+recovered to travel. The precise date was the eighth of April. To part
+from Rose you may well believe was a totally different matter from his
+adieus to Smilinda. Nothing would serve the poor girl, who had no
+miniature and diamonds to give, but to sacrifice what she prized most
+in the world after her father and her lover.
+
+'You cannot take me,' she said with a tearful little laugh, 'but you
+shall take Harlequin, who made us acquainted. That way you will not be
+altogether alone.'
+
+Harlequin wagged his tail, and sat up on his hind legs as though he
+thoroughly approved of the proposal, and Mr. Kelly, to whom the poodle
+could not but be an inconvenience, had not the heart to refuse the
+gift.
+
+George had to give as well as to take, and felt even less blessed in
+giving than in receiving. For Miss Rose must have a souvenir of him,
+too, and what should it be but that inestimable testimony to her
+lover's loyalty and courage, the Portrait of the Queen! There was no
+way of escape, and thus, as a memorial of Mr. Kelly's singular
+attachment to the best of Causes and of Queens, Miss Townley was
+treasuring the likeness of the incomparable Smilinda. The ladies, in
+the nature of things, could never meet, George reckoned, for the
+daughter of the exiled country physician would not appear among the
+London fashionables.
+
+In Paris, on his road to London, Mr. Kelly visited the Duke of Mar,
+who most unfortunately took notice of the dog, and asked him what he
+purposed to do with it.
+
+'My Lord,' replied Kelly, 'when I am on my jaunts Harlequin will find
+a home with the Bishop of Rochester, whose wife has a great liking for
+dogs. The poor lady is ill, and, alas, near to her death; the Bishop
+is fretting under the gout, and his wife's sickness, and the
+jealousies among the King's friends. Moreover, he is much occupied
+with building his tomb in the Abbey, so that, altogether, their house
+is of the gloomiest, and Harlequin may do something to lighten it.'
+
+For the poodle had more accomplishments than any dog that ever the
+Parson had met with, and this he demonstrated to the Duke of Mar by
+putting him through his tricks. The Duke laughed heartily, and
+commended the Parson's kindliness towards his patron. But in truth the
+Parson never did a worse day's work in the whole of his life.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIV
+
+ OF THE GREAT CONFUSION PRODUCED BY A BALLAD
+ AND A DRUNKEN CROW
+
+
+From this time until Saturday, May 19, the world seemed to go very
+well for those concerned in the Bishop of Rochester's plot, which was
+a waiting plot; and in the other scheme, the scheme for an immediate
+rising, which was a hurrying scheme, and not at all known to the good
+Bishop. There was a comforting air of discontent abroad; the losses
+from the South Sea made minds heavy and purses light. Mr. Walpole had
+smoked nothing of what was forward, so far as a man could see; and
+within a month the country was to rise. Mr. Wogan from Paris travelled
+to Havre-de-Grace, whence James Roche, an Irishman, settled in that
+port, and a noted smuggler upon the English coast, set him across the
+Channel, and put him ashore at the Three Sheds and Torbay near
+Elephant Stairs in Rotherhithe. Mr. Wogan took his old name of Hilton,
+and went about his business, paying a visit now and again to the Cocoa
+Tree, where amongst other gossip he heard that Lady Oxford was still
+on the worst of friendly terms with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and the
+best of loving terms with Colonel Montague. There was more than one
+jest aimed at Mr. Kelly on this last account, since a man who has been
+fooled by a woman is ever a fair mark for ridicule; and when James
+Talbot began to talk of the Parson with a mock pity, Wogan could no
+longer endure it.
+
+'Sure your compassion is all pure waste, Crow,' said he. 'I could tell
+you a very pretty tale about the Parson were I so minded.'
+
+Of course he _was_ minded, and he told the story of the Parson's
+betrothal with a good many embellishments. He drew so tender a picture
+of Rose, that he became near to weeping over it himself; he clothed
+her in high qualities as in a shining garment, and you may be sure he
+did not spare Lady Oxford in the comparison. On the contrary, he came
+very near to hinting that it was the Parson jilted Lady Oxford, who
+therefore fell back upon Colonel Montague to cover her discomfiture.
+At all events that was the story which soon got about, and Mr. Wogan
+never said a word to correct it, and in due time, of course, and in a
+way not very agreeable, it came to her Ladyship's ears.
+
+The Parson arrived in London on a Wednesday, the 13th of April. The
+weather had been terrible on the sea, and the unhappy dog Harlequin
+had contrived to slip his leg by a fall on deck. However, he soon
+recovered of his injury, thanks to the care of Mrs. Barnes, and Mr.
+Kelly carried him to the Bishop's house at Bromley, where his lady lay
+a-dying. There, too, as he had good cause afterwards to remember, he
+wrote certain letters for the Bishop, to the King, the Duke of Mar,
+and General Dillon, and put them in the common post. They did but
+carry common news, and excuses for delay. The Bishop's lady died on
+the 26th of April, and on that very day Harlequin's hurt broke out
+again, and the poor creature went whining lugubriously about the
+gloomy house, as though it was mourning for its mistress. This fact
+should be mentioned, because the Duke of Mar had made an inquiry in a
+letter as to how Harlequin fared, and whether _Mr. Illington_, as the
+Bishop was called, had as yet received the dog. Kelly replied that
+'_Illington_ is in great tribulation for poor Harlequin, who is in a
+bad way, having slipped his leg again,' which was true, for since the
+dog by his tricks greatly lightened his lady's sickness, the Bishop
+grew very fond of him, though at the Bishop's trial, when these things
+were brought up to prove that Illington and he were the same man, it
+was said 'he never loved a dog.' So much for Mr. Kelly.
+
+Rose and her father reached London a fortnight or more after the
+Parson. Wogan had no knowledge of her arrival, for since he left
+Avignon he had not so much as clapped his eyes upon the Parson, who,
+what with the Bishop's grief for his wife, and what with the Bishop's
+gout, was much occupied at Bromley. It was not until that calamitous
+day, the 19th of May, that the two friends met again. Events moved
+very quickly upon that same day. It seemed they had been hatching this
+long while out of sight, like thunderclouds gathering on a clear day
+under the rim of the sea. Seven breathless hours saw the beginning and
+the end. For it was not until six o'clock of the afternoon that Mr.
+Wogan chanced upon the ballad, that was our ruin, and by three of the
+morning all was over.
+
+Now, on the 19th of May, in the morning, Mr. Wogan found himself far
+enough from London, at the seat of Sir Harry Goring, a gentleman of
+Sussex, and a very loud friend of the Cause.
+
+This noisy Sir Harry drove Mr. Wogan back to town, in very great state
+and splendour, and drew up before Burton's coffee-house, at an hour
+when the streets had lost the high sun of the day. Mr. Wogan alighted,
+thinking to seek his letters at Burton's, and the baronet's carriage
+rolled off to his town house. Wogan entered the coffee-house; the
+great room was extraordinary full, and there was an eager buzz of
+talkers, who dropped their voices, and looked oddly at Mr. Wogan as he
+passed through, and so upstairs to a little chamber kept private for
+himself and his friends.
+
+As he went he heard roars of laughter, and a voice chanting in the
+deplorable, lamenting tone of the street ballad-singer. Mr. Wogan
+caught a name he knew in this ditty, and knocking hastily in the
+manner usual and arranged, was admitted. The room was thick with
+tobacco smoke, and half-a dozen empty bottles made mantraps on the
+floor. Through the Virginia haze Wogan saw two men; one was Tyrell, a
+friend of the Cause, the other was a tall man, very black, in whom he
+recognised his friend Talbot, of his own country and politics,
+nicknamed the Crow from his appearance. The Crow was swaying on his
+legs as he steadied himself by the table, and he sang:--
+
+
+ Let Weapons yield them to the Gown,
+ The Latin Singers say:
+ Ye Squires and Ladies of renown,
+ The tune is changed to-day!
+ A Lady loved a Parson good,
+ And vowed she'd still be true,
+ Alas, the Sword goes o'er the Hood,
+ The Sword of Montague!
+
+
+'What ribaldry have you got now?' said Wogan, but the Crow hastily
+embraced him in the French manner, holding the paper of the ballad
+over his shoulder, and still chanting.
+
+'The little Parson is made immortal,' quoth he. 'Here is the newest
+ballad, all the story of his late amorous misfortune. Why do you look
+so glum?'
+
+For Wogan had gently disengaged himself from Mr. Talbot's embrace, who
+exhaled a perfume of wine and strong waters.
+
+'Crow, you fool, be quiet,' said Wogan; 'this is miching mallecho! Who
+wrote that rant?'
+
+'We think it is Lady Mary Montagu, from the Latin tags; it is headed
+_Cedat Armis Toga_.'
+
+But Lady Mary was not the writer, though she got the credit of the
+mischievous nonsense, as was intended, and 'hence these tears,' as the
+Parson said.
+
+Mr. Wogan had snatched the ballad into his hands by this time, where
+he intended to keep it.
+
+'Gentlemen,' he asked, 'are you entirely sober?'
+
+'Does my speech betray me? 'said Tyrell, who, to do him justice, was
+wholly in his right mind.
+
+'That is no answer; but, if it were, and if you don't care for a
+lady's name--'
+
+'She jilted the Parson!' cried the Crow.
+
+'Have you no thought of the reputation of--Mr. Farmer?'
+
+'Mr. Farmer?' exclaimed Tyrell. Mr. Farmer was the cant name for the
+Chevalier, and Tyrell scratched his head, wondering what on earth the
+Chevalier had to do in the same galley with the Parson's love affairs.
+
+'Mr. Farmer!' replied the Crow, blinking his eyes reproachfully.
+'Indeed, it is yourself has been drinking, Nick. What has the ballad
+of poor George's misfortune to do with Mr. Farmer, a gentleman of
+unbleb--upblem--I repeat, sir,' said the Crow with solemnity, 'a
+gentleman of unblemished reputation?'
+
+'Mark how a long word trips you up, and the evening so young!'
+
+'Mr. Farmer's health! I buzz the bottle!' cried the Crow, putting out
+his hand to the bottle, that was nearly empty.
+
+Mr. Wogan stopped his hand.
+
+'I tell you, Crow, the Affair hangs on your nonsense. We may all hang
+for it,' he said in a certain tone of voice, which made Tyrell open
+his mouth.
+
+Wogan read through the ballad, which was full of insults enough to
+drive any woman mad, let alone Lady Oxford. He knew what a woman wild
+with anger can do, and blessed his stars that for so many months her
+Ladyship had not met Kelly, and could know nothing of the inner plot
+for an immediate rising. Still, she knew enough to do a power of
+mischief. The ballad was written in a feigned hand, which Wogan did
+not know.
+
+'James,' he said to Talbot,' where did you get this thing? You are not
+haunting the fine ladies who pass these wares about? Where did you get
+it?' he said, shaking the Crow, who had fallen half asleep, as he
+spoke.
+
+'Got it from my friend Mr. Pope,' answered the Crow drowsily.
+
+'You got it from Mr. Pope! _You!_ Where did you meet Mr. Pope?'
+
+'At the Little Fox under the Hill, down by the water.'
+
+This tavern was precisely the shyest meeting-place of the party, where
+the smugglers came to arrange crossings and receive letters.
+
+'Mr. Alexander Pope at the Fox under the Hill! Crow, you are raving!
+What kind of man is your friend Mr. Pope?'
+
+'Who's Mr. Pope? Don't know the gentleman. Hear he's poet.'
+
+'The gentleman who gave you the ballad.'
+
+'Didn't say Pope, said Scrotton,' answered the Crow. 'Very honest man,
+my friend Mr. Scrotton. Met him often. Exshlent judge of wine, Mr.
+Scrotton. Exshlent judge of plots. Mr. Scrotton applauded our scheme.'
+
+'You told him about it? What plot did you tell him of? Not of the
+rising? Not of this immediate Blow? Crow, you should be shot!'
+
+'I told him! You inshult me, sir. Very good plot, very good wine. Mr.
+Scrotton told me about plot. Often talked it over a bottle. I'm a most
+cautious man. I don't drink except with very honest men. Dangerous!'
+murmured the Crow.
+
+'You are sure his name is Scrotton?'
+
+'Quite certain. Said "Pope" because of poetry. Soshiation of ideas.
+Mr. Pope's poet. You'd know that, but you are drunk, Mr. Wogan.'
+
+There was nothing more to be got out of the Crow. Invited to give a
+personal description of Mr. Scrotton, he fell back on his moral
+character as 'a very honest man.' He might be, or, again, he might be
+a spy. In any case, here was the ballad, and there was the furious
+woman ready for any revenge.
+
+'Go home; go to bed! Tyrell and I will walk with you to your rooms,'
+said Mr. Wogan, who, stepping to the letter-rack, picked up an epistle
+for Mr. Hilton. The handwriting of the superscription made him look so
+blank that the others noticed his face and were silent. The letter was
+in Lady Oxford's hand. He put it in his pocket.
+
+They led the Crow to his door in Germain Street. He behaved pretty
+well on the whole, only insisting that his fortune would be made if
+Wogan would but give him the ballad and let him sing it at the corner
+of St. James's.
+
+'Affluence would be mine,' he said, and dropped a tear. 'Oh,
+Wilton--Hogan, I would say--'tis a golden opportunity!'
+
+But if the opportunity was golden, Wogan was of iron, and they did not
+leave the debased Crow till he slept in the sheets, which on the night
+before it was probable that his limbs had never pressed.
+
+When the Crow was slumbering like a babe, Mr. Wogan and Tyrell stepped
+out, turning the key of his chamber on the outside and entrusting it
+to his landlady.
+
+'Mr. Talbot has a fever,' Wogan told her, 'and will see nobody. He
+must on no account see anyone except Mr. Tyrell, nor must he be
+disturbed before his physician calls.'
+
+Accompanied by the gift of a crown, the key was pocketed by the woman
+of the house, who expressed anxiety for the health and repose of so
+quiet a gentleman as Mr. Talbot.
+
+'And now, what is all this pother about?' Tyrell asked when they were
+got into the street.
+
+'Come towards the Park and I will instruct you. I need quiet for
+thought, and sylvan repose. What have you been doing all day?'
+
+'Watching the Crow play the fool at Burton's.'
+
+'You have no news?'
+
+'I have seen nobody.'
+
+They walked for a hundred yards or so in silence, Wogan frowning, and
+Tyrell much perturbed with Wogan's perturbation.
+
+'The new ballad is a true ballad,' said Wogan after a pause.
+
+'Devil a doubt of it; but what then?'
+
+'The greater the truth, the greater the libel.'
+
+'_Et après?_'
+
+'And the greater is the rage of the libelled. This ballad must have
+run through all the boudoirs before it reached the Crow.'
+
+'And yet I do not smoke you. Where does this touch the affair?'
+
+'The lady that's libelled knew George very well.'
+
+Tyrell nodded his head.
+
+'George knew everything,' continued Wogan.
+
+Tyrell stopped and caught Wogan by the elbow.
+
+'Then, what George knew the lady knows?'
+
+'No. Thank God, she knows nothing of what is immediately intended. It
+is a year and more since George and she have spoken. She knows nothing
+of the Blow. But she knows the men who are directing it.'
+
+'May be she's staunch,' said Tyrell.
+
+Wogan quoted Lady Mary:
+
+'Politics are nothing more to her than pawns in the game of love.'
+
+The two men stood looking at each other for a moment. The matter was
+too serious for them even to swear. Then they walked on again.
+
+'Do you think,' asked Nick, 'she will be in the best of tempers when
+she hears she is sung about in coffee-houses? Do you think she will
+blame anybody but Kelly for blabbing? She will give the ballad to Lady
+Mary Wortley Montagu, and isn't Kelly of Lady Mary's friends? No, he
+did not blab, but never mind. She will think he did. And do you know
+that she is a kinswoman of the minister, Mr. Walpole? Let her say a
+word, and she _will_ say it, and where is Mr. Farmer's affair?'
+
+'Where the Elector's hat and wig often are--in the fire,' answered
+Tyrell, looking serious enough.
+
+'That letter which I took up was from her; I know her hand. She is
+stirring.'
+
+Wogan opened the scented letter as he walked. It was but to say that
+Lady Oxford had heard that Mr. Hilton was in town, and begged the
+favour of his company at her rout that night.
+
+He told Tyrell what there was to tell, both of them looking very
+unlike a May sunset as they walked under the trees. Since he left
+Brampton Bryan, Mr. Wogan had not been favoured with any compliments
+from Lady Oxford. Why did she begin her favours to-day?
+
+'She is stirring,' he said again.
+
+By this time they were got within the Park.
+
+There much was stirring. Carts were streaming in and out with soldiers
+driving, soldiers lounging among the burdens of planks, tents, picks,
+and spades. Beside the Walnut Walk soldiers in their shirt sleeves
+were digging, trenching, measuring; a child could see what was
+toward--they were meting out a camp.
+
+Mr. Wogan looked at Mr. Tyrell, Mr. Tyrell looked at Mr. Wogan.
+
+'The lady _has_ stirred,' said Tyrell in dismay. 'And what is more she
+knows of the Blow.'
+
+'Or Mr. Scrotton is not a very honest man,' said Wogan, and whistled
+"Lilliburlero." He was disposed on the whole to agree with Tyrell.
+Somehow Lady Oxford had got news of the inner plot; perhaps through
+this mysterious Mr. Scrotton.
+
+The Walnut Walk was all astir and agape with evening loungers; it
+hummed with gossip. The two gentlemen went to the Cake House, sat
+down, and called for glasses of ratafia. Studying the face of Mr.
+Tyrell, of which his own was no doubt the very likeness, Mr. Wogan
+inferred that they needed this refreshment.
+
+They listened, with conscious grins of innocence, to the talk at the
+tables, being a little comforted to hear many questions, but no
+certain answers. The soldiers, it seems, being asked, could or would
+give no answer but that they had orders to make a camp. Fair ladies,
+smiling on private men, could get no other reply. It might be only for
+practice. It might be that the French were expected. Mr. Wogan
+heartily wished that they were, but nobody was expected, so far as he
+knew, save these same ragged regiments of his countrymen with the
+Duke. And, lo! a welcome was being got ready for them. As for the
+regiment that had been tampered with in the Tower, they were pitching
+tents in the Park. The two gentlemen, who had been conversing on faro
+and Newmarket, and laying each other fantastic odds, arose and walked
+eastwards.
+
+'I think the air of the waterside would be wholesome,' remarked Mr.
+Tyrell.
+
+'I have to see a friend,' said Mr. Wogan, and they shook hands and
+parted.
+
+'You will warn the Crow to be on the wing?' said Wogan over his
+shoulder, and the other nodded. Mr. Wogan could not but smile to think
+of the Crow winging an unsteady flight across the Channel. He managed
+to steer across, after all, thanks to Tyrell. Then Wogan read Lady
+Oxford's _billet_ again, and he walked to Bury Street.
+
+He knocked, and the door was opened by Mrs. Barnes.
+
+'Mr. Johnson at home?'
+
+'It would appear, Mr. Hilton, that I did not give satisfaction,' said
+Mrs. Barnes, whose aspect was of a severity.
+
+'Give satisfaction?'
+
+'Mr. Kelly has thought to better himself, and if he prefers
+bed-fellows such as shall be nameless, and the coals disappearing, and
+his letters pryed into, and if he thinks that I ever mention my
+gentlemen's affairs...!'
+
+Here Mrs. Barnes threw her apron over her head, but gulps of
+lamentation escaped aloud, though her emotion was veiled like that of
+the Greek gentleman in the picture.
+
+Mr. Wogan was not unpractised in the art of consoling Mrs. Barnes. He
+led her within, she was slowly induced to unshroud her pleasing
+features, and, at last, revealed the strange circumstance that Kelly
+had left her rooms two days before without giving in any sound
+justifying plea for this treason. Mr. Wogan, who was well aware of
+Mrs. Barnes's curiosity and the fluency of her tongue, was in no doubt
+as to the cause which had led the Parson to leave her, and thought the
+step in this posture of their affairs altogether prudent.
+
+'But he will return,' he reassured her. 'What!--you know Mr. Johnson,
+he will never desert you.'
+
+'So he said. He would come back in a month, and paid in advance to
+reserve the rooms, but it would seem that I do not give satisfaction.
+And here's all his letters to all manner of names. Look at them! Look
+at them! And how many of them are signed Ugus? Oh, I know what that
+will end in, and I'm just going to send the girl round with them--'
+
+'I'll carry them myself, Mrs. Barnes,' said Wogan, interrupting her.
+He picked up the letters from the table, and glanced about the room,
+if by chance Mr. Kelly had left anything inconvenient behind him. But,
+except the letters, there was not so much as a scrap of paper about to
+show that ever he had lodged there. Wogan looked at the scrutoire on
+which the strong-box he had given to his friend at Paris was used to
+rest. It had held Lady Oxford's letters in the old days, but of late
+it had lain unused, and the dust had gathered thick upon the lid, so
+that in his haste the Parson might well have forgotten it. But he had
+carried it away, and with it his big Bible, which had stood beside it
+in such an incongruous juxtaposition.
+
+'I'll carry them myself,' said Wogan, and putting the letters in his
+pocket he went down the steps. He marched some twenty yards down the
+street and then came to a stop. He looked round. Mrs. Barnes was
+watching him from the doorway with as grim a smile as her cheery face
+could compass.
+
+'But, my dear woman, where will I carry them to? 'asks Wogan, coming
+back.
+
+'That's it,' cried she with a triumphant toss of her head. 'One minute
+Mrs. Barnes is a tattling, troublesome woman, and, if you please,
+we'll not take so much trouble as to say good-bye to her, and the next
+it's Mrs. Barnes that must help us, and tell us where we are to go.
+Mr. Johnson lodges at Mrs. Kilburne's in Ryder Street.'
+
+'Mrs. Kilburne's! Why, she's your bosom friend, Mrs. Barnes.'
+
+Mr. Wogan was a trifle surprised that the Parson should leave Mrs.
+Barnes because of her curiosity and take a lodging with Mrs. Barnes's
+bosom friend, who, to tell the truth, was no less of a gossip.
+
+'Well,' said Mrs. Barnes, firing up. 'D'ye think I would let him go to
+those I know nothing of, who would rob him and starve him of his last
+crust of bread. No, for all that he scorns and despises me! No, he
+asked me where he should go and I told him to Mrs. Kilburne.'
+
+'Oh, he asked you,' said Wogan. 'Well, it is a very Irish proceeding.
+I'll go to Mrs. Kilburne's and find him.'
+
+'You may go to Mrs. Kilburne,' said she as Wogan turned away, 'but as
+to finding him,' and she shrugged her shoulders.
+
+'Why, what do you mean?'
+
+'A man in that moppet's livery, for moppet she is, my Lady or not my
+Lady, brought a note yesterday and he that had been hiding from her,
+like the honest man he used to be before she came trapesing after
+him.'
+
+'A note? Was it anything like this?' asked Wogan, pulling from his
+pocket his own invitation to Lady Oxford's rout.
+
+'It was very like that,' said Mrs. Barnes. 'I sent the fellow on with
+the scented thing.'
+
+A note from Lady Oxford to George, an heroic epistle from Ariadne to
+Theseus! An invitation too! Ariadne invites Theseus to her rout, and
+for something more, conjectured Wogan, than the pleasure of winning
+his money at cards. Wogan's anxiety concerning Lady Oxford's attitude
+was much increased. There was the ballad, the camp in Hyde Park, there
+were the letters of invitation. Mr. Wogan thought it high time to see
+Theseus, and leaving Mrs. Barnes with a becoming blush on her features
+that laughed through their tears, he walked to Ryder Street.
+
+Mr. Wogan knocked at the door in the deepening dusk. The landlady
+opened. She knew Wogan, who, indeed, had occupied her chambers at one
+time. She smiled all over her jolly face:
+
+'Mr. Hilton! Taller than ever, and welcome as ever.'
+
+'Thank you, Mrs. Kilburne, I shall soon rival the Monument, but I can
+still get under your lintel by stooping. Where is Mr. Johnson?'
+
+'Mr. Johnson? Oh, sir, what a life that poor gentleman lives. Out all
+night, home in the morning with mud or dust on him to the shoulder,
+and so to bed all day.'
+
+'Then Mr. Johnson must be wakened. I can do it, were he one of the
+seven sleepers. George!' cried Mr. Wogan, lifting up his voice.
+
+'Oh, sir, be quiet! A very dainty gentleman has my first floor, and he
+will be complaining of the noise. You always were that noisy, Mr.
+Hilton!' She walked down the passage as she spoke and threw open a
+door upon the right. 'Mr. Johnson, he has my ground floor, but you
+can't waken him, loud as you are, nor any man, so be quiet, Mr.
+Hilton.'
+
+'Have I to weep for my poor friend's decease?' asked Wogan, as he
+entered the room.
+
+'No, sir, or I would not be laughing at your nonsense.'
+
+There was no doubt this was the Parson's lodging. For as Wogan stood
+just within the door, he saw by the window Mr. Kelly's scrutoire. It
+was the first thing indeed on which his eyes fell. He stepped across
+the room and threw open the lid. He saw a dispatch-box, and from the
+lock he knew it to be that in which Kelly kept safe the papers of the
+Bishop's plot.
+
+'So there's another lodger in the house,' said Nick thoughtfully. He
+took up the box and tried the lid. It was locked. But Mr. Wogan would
+have preferred that the Parson should have kept the papers in the box
+which he had given him at Paris, of which the lock was stouter. That
+box he saw further back in the scrutoire, half hidden in news-sheets.
+But that too he found to be locked, and shaking it in his hand, was
+aware that, like the other, it held papers. The lid of the box was
+covered with dust, as though it had not been touched for months. Lady
+Oxford's letters had been locked up there. No doubt they were there
+still. Mr. Wogan wondered for a little at the strange sentiment which
+makes a man keep such dead tokens of a dead passion. He put the box
+back amongst the news-sheets, and turning to Mrs. Kilburne,
+
+'But where is the man?' he cried. 'George!' and he rapped on the table
+with his cane.
+
+'You can't waken Mr. Johnson,' said Mrs. Kilburne 'because he awoke an
+hour ago, and dressed in a hurry, but braver than common, with his
+silver-hilted sword, Alençon ruffles, black coat and satin lining,
+silver shoulder-knots, and best buckles, and out he goes. He was
+summoned by a man in the livery of my Lord, the good Bishop of
+Rochester.'
+
+'Will you tell him, when he returns, that Mr. Hilton waited on him,
+and greatly desires to see him in his best before he goes to bed?'
+Wogan pulled the letters from his pocket and laid them on the table
+which stood in the centre of the room.
+
+'I will, sir, but, if you call again, pray, sir, be very quiet. My
+first floor gentleman is such a dainty gentleman.'
+
+'A mouse shall be noisy in comparison. I have a great tenderness, Mrs.
+Kilburne, for the nerves of fine gentlemen.'
+
+Mrs. Kilburne grinned in a sceptical sort.
+
+'But,' Wogan added suddenly, 'it is very like I shall fall in with Mr.
+Johnson before then.' He took some half-a-dozen of the letters again
+into his hand and looked them over. They were inscribed to such cant
+names as Illington, Hatfield, Johnson, Andrews, and were evidently
+dangerous merchandise. Mr. Wogan thought they would be safer in his
+pocket than on Mr. Kelly's table. He picked up the rest, but as he put
+them back into his pocket, one fell on to the floor. Wogan caught
+sight of the handwriting as it fell. Then it stared up at him from the
+floor. The letter was written in a woman's hand, which Mr. Wogan was
+well enough acquainted with, although it was neither Lady Oxford's nor
+the hand of Rose. It was in the handwriting of Lady Mary Wortley
+Montagu. Wogan stooped down and picked it up. For a letter, it was
+extraordinary light. Wogan weighed it in his hand for a second,
+wondering what it might be. However, there was no answer to be got
+that way, and Mr. Wogan had weightier matter to engage his thoughts.
+He put it into his pocket and marched to his own lodgings, which were
+hard by in the same street.
+
+Several problems, a swarm of skirmishing doubts, trooped through his
+mind.
+
+'What did my Lady Oxford mean by writing to Kelly?'
+
+To this Wogan answered that she meant the same thing by Kelly as by
+himself, and for some reason had bidden him to her rout. As to her
+motive for that act of unexpected hospitality, Wogan had his own
+thoughts, which he afterwards confided to his friend. 'But who,' he
+pondered, 'can answer for a woman's motives when the devil of
+perversity sits at her elbow?'
+
+Next, why had Kelly made himself such a beau? It could not be merely
+to do honour to a mourning prelate who would never glance at his
+secretary's satin and point d'Alençon.
+
+Mr. Wogan inferred that his first guess was right, that Lady Oxford
+had bidden Kelly to her rout, and that, by the token of his raiment,
+Mr. Kelly meant to accept the invitation.
+
+Kelly knew nothing of the camp, and the discovery which it seemed to
+speak of, when he left the lodgings where he had slept all day. Of the
+ballad, too, it was like that Kelly knew nothing, and, in Wogan's
+opinion, the ballad was the cause of the military stir. Lady Oxford,
+inflamed with anger, blaming Lady Mary for the ballad, and blaming
+Kelly for blabbing her fault to her enemy, Lady Mary; had doubtless
+visited Mr. Walpole. The innocent Kelly, innocent of all these things,
+would be going to Lady Oxford's to fathom the causes of her renewed
+friendship.
+
+Mr. Wogan puzzled his brains over these matters while he supped in
+solitude at his lodgings. His friends have hinted that his mental
+furnishing is not in a concatenation with his bodily stature. He has
+answered that, if it were so, he would be Shakespeare and the Duke of
+Marlborough rolled into one. Though refreshed with Burgundy, his head
+felt weary enough when he turned to the question, 'What was he, Wogan,
+to do next?' In his opinion, the boldest plan is ever the best;
+moreover, he had a notion that there was no safer place in London for
+him, that night, and perhaps for Mr. Kelly, than Queen's Square in
+Westminster which Lady Oxford had taken for a permanence. For
+if Lady Oxford had blabbed, the last place in London where the
+Messengers would be like to look for the Parson was her ladyship's
+withdrawing-room. Unless of course she was laying a trap, which did
+not seem likely. In the face of this new ballad, Lady Oxford would not
+dare to have the Parson arrested within, or even near her house. It
+would provoke too great a scandal. He decided, therefore, first to go
+to the Dean's house, at Westminster, where the Bishop of Rochester
+stayed, see Mr. Kelly, if he could, and unfold his parcel of black
+news. Next, he would take Kelly to Lady Oxford's, if Kelly would come,
+for Wogan not only deemed this step the safest of his dangers, but
+expected to enjoy a certain novelty of the emotions, in which he was
+not disappointed. He therefore, imitating the clerical example, began
+to decorate himself in his most seductive shoulder knots to do honour
+to Lady Oxford.
+
+It may be that Wogan's mind, already crowded by a number of
+occurrences and dubitations, had exhausted its logical powers, for
+there was one idea which should have occurred to him earliest, and
+which only visited him while he was shaving. Who was the first person
+he was likely to encounter at Lady Oxford's? Why, the very last person
+whom at this juncture it was convenient for him to meet--namely,
+Colonel Montague. Wogan heartily wished he had left the Colonel
+between two fires at Preston barricade. But now there was no help for
+it, go he must. The Colonel, like other people, might not remember the
+boy in the man and under a new name, or, if he did--and then a fresh
+idea occurred to Wogan which made him smile.
+
+'I was born,' he said, 'to be a lightning conductor!'
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XV
+
+ AT THE DEANERY OF WESTMINSTER
+
+
+Wogan finished the work of adorning his person, and stepped into the
+street. The night was serene, with a full moon, the air still, the
+pavements were clean as the deck of his ketch. He thought that he
+would walk from his rooms to the Dean's by way of St. James's Park,
+and consequently he passed through Ryder St. and in front of Mr.
+Kelly's new lodgings. Just as he came to Mr. Kelly's lodgings, the
+door opened. A gentleman came forth; the moonlight was full on his
+face. Mr. Wogan muffled his face in his cloak, and stepped stealthily
+back.
+
+The gentleman was Colonel Montague. He bade the chairmen carry him to
+Queen's Square; Mr. Wogan heard the word of command with an
+inexpressible confusion of dismay. He had hardened his heart to
+encounter the enemy whose life, in a youthful indiscretion, he had
+saved at the risk of his own, but what was the Colonel doing in
+Kelly's lodgings?
+
+By this time the warrior and his chair had turned the corner, and Mr.
+Wogan abandoned himself to meditation. Up and down Ryder Street he
+paced, puzzling over the Colonel's visit to Kelly, whom, at all
+events, he could not have found at home. Was he Was he carrying a
+cartel to his predecessor in Lady Oxford's heart? In that case it was
+all the more necessary to meet him and play the part of Dr. Franklin's
+kite, which had not at that time been flown, but is now making talk
+enough for the learned. On this point Mr. Wogan's mind was constant.
+Should he question Mrs. Kilburne, he asked himself? Mr. Wogan crossed
+the road. But the Colonel was little likely to have told her a word of
+his business. Mr. Wogan stopped.
+
+There was another point: for whatever reason the Colonel had called at
+George's lodgings, George must be told of the visit. Here was
+something which pressed, without question. Mr. Wogan marched towards
+the Dean's house in Westminster, where the Bishop of Rochester lay. He
+knew the road very well, being himself an old Westminster boy. It was
+but seven years since he had run away to join his brother Charles and
+raise the North for King James. He could not tell, at this moment,
+whether he had deserted his studies for King James's sake, or to
+escape his dull task of writing out my Lord Clarendon's weary history
+in a fair hand.
+
+As he entered the precincts, Wogan felt much like a truant boy, and it
+was as if Time had stood still while _he_ ran. Nothing was changed,
+except that the new dormitory, which Bishop Atterbury had just built,
+shone white among the black old stones. There were lights in the
+windows that suddenly went out: the lads were abed. Wogan looked up at
+the blank windows, and thought of seven years agone, and of his life
+since then, an unprofitable contemplation, which his mind gladly
+deserted. He marched up under the arch, through the darkling cloister,
+and tapped, gently but firmly, at the Dean's door. He must see Mr.
+Kelly. As it chanced, and by the merest accident in the world, Wogan
+timed his taps thus: 1--2, 3, 4, 5, 6--7.
+
+There were stealthy steps within, with a movement of yellow light, and
+then a voice that Mr. Wogan knew very well came through a judas.
+
+'Is it my father's knock?'
+
+'Is it your granny's knock, Sam?' asked Wogan through the judas. The
+voice was that of Sam Wesley, a young usher in Wogan's time, one whom
+he had always liked and tormented.
+
+The steps moved away, and the light.
+
+'Sam!' whispered Mr. Wogan, very loud for a whisper, through the
+judas. 'Sam, you remember me. Nick Wogan.'
+
+The steps were silent.
+
+'Sam, remember Lord Clarendon! Remember Nick, who kicked the bully for
+beating your little brother Jack.'
+
+The steps shuffled back to the door.
+
+'You have not the password,' said the voice through the judas.
+
+'Damn the password,' whispered Wogan. 'I want George Kelly. I must see
+him in the name of the Blackbird. Hawks are abroad.'
+
+'It is clean against all rules,' came the voice from within.
+
+'Open, in the name of the cobbler's wax I once put on your chair, or
+I'll break the windows. You know me, Sam!'
+
+Mr. Wesley knew Mr. Wogan. He undid the lock, Mr. Wogan smuggled
+himself within, and nearly choked Mr. Wesley in his embrace.
+
+'It is a giant!' said Mr. Wesley, putting up his candle to Wogan's
+face. The wind blew on the light that flickered in the absolute
+darkness, all the house being hung with black for Mrs. Atterbury's
+death.
+
+'A son of Anak, Sam, who would have battered down your old door in a
+minute.'
+
+'I verily believe you would, Nick,' said Sam, leading the way up the
+black stairs to a den of his own, where he was within call of the
+Bishop. On tiptoe he marched, placing his finger on his lips.
+
+When they were got among Sam's books and papers of the boys'
+exercises, the usher said, 'It is a very extraordinary thing, purely a
+Providence.'
+
+'I deserve one; the purity of my life deserves one,' said Mr. Wogan.
+'But wherein do you see the marvel?'
+
+'You did not know it, but you gave my father's knock,' said Sam
+in a voice of awe. 'It is Old Jeffrey's doing--directed, of
+course--directed.'
+
+'Old Jeffrey? Is it a cant name for an honest man?'
+
+'For a very honest spirit,' said the usher, and explained to Mr. Wogan
+that the particular knock and the passwords to follow (which Mr. Wogan
+did not know) were his own invention. His father's house at Epworth,
+in the year 1716, had been troubled, it seems, by an honest goblin
+that always thumped and routed with a particular malevolence when the
+Elector was prayed for as 'the King.' Old Mr. Wesley's pet knock,
+though, the sprite could not deliver. Mr. Wesley had a conceit that
+the goblin might be the ghost of some good fellow who died at Preston.
+
+'He keeps his politics in the next world,' said Mr. Wogan.
+
+'Wit might say much on that head, wisdom little,' whispered the usher,
+wagging his kind head. 'You have special business with Mr. Johnson?'
+he asked. 'He is with my Lord, hard by. The Bishop's voice was raised
+when Mr. Johnson entered. I caught angry words, but now for long they
+have been quiet.'
+
+'Mr. Johnson has a way with him,' said Wogan, who had learned from
+Goring that the reverend Father in God was of a hasty temper. 'How
+doth his Lordship?'
+
+'Very badly. I never saw him in a less apostolic humour. I know not
+what ill news he has had from France, or elsewhere, but he has been
+much troubled about Mr. Johnson's dog, Harlequin. The poodle has been
+conveyed out of town as craftily as if he were the Chevalier, I know
+not why, and is now skulking in the country, I know not where.'
+
+It was, indeed, Mr. Wesley's part to know nothing. He was the Bishop's
+man, and as honest as the day, but had no more enterprise than another
+usher.
+
+Wogan, he has said, knew Harlequin, second of that name, and had seen
+him coddled by Mrs. Barnes. He was cudgelling his brains for
+Harlequin's part in the Great Affair, when a silver whistle sounded,
+thin and clear.
+
+Mr. Wesley beckoned to Wogan to be still, crept out of the room, and
+returned on tiptoe with Kelly. The Parson's elegant dress was a trifle
+disarranged; his face and hands were somewhat stained and blackened as
+with smoke, but the careful man had tucked up his Alençon ruffles
+beneath his sleeves. On seeing Wogan George opened his eyes and his
+mouth, but spoke never a word. He carried a soft bundle wrapped in a
+tablecloth, and when the door was shut he handed this to Mr. Wesley.
+
+'You have the key of the Dean's garden?' he whispered.
+
+'Yes; but wherefore?' answered Sam.
+
+'His Lordship bids me ask you to have the kindness to bury the
+contents of this--'
+
+'I know not what is in the bundle,' said Mr. Wesley, with an air of
+alarm.
+
+'And you need not be told,' said George. 'But can you let me and my
+friend Mr. Hilton--'
+
+'Mr. Hilton?' gasped Sam, as Kelly put his hand out to Wogan.
+
+'I must present you to Mr. Hilton,' George said, and Wogan bowed and
+grinned.
+
+'I was about to entreat you, Mr. Wesley, while you are playing the
+sexton, to permit me and Mr. Hilton the convenience of a few moments
+of privacy in your chamber.'
+
+'With all my heart,' said the puzzled Sam, hospitably opening a
+cupboard in his bookcase, whence he lugged out glasses and a bottle of
+Florence. Then he put list shoes over his own, and stole forth on his
+errand like a clerical cat.
+
+All this while Wogan had said not one word to Kelly, nor Kelly to
+Wogan.
+
+Mr. Wogan had sat down to sample the bottle, and Kelly stared at him.
+
+'How did you make your way in here?' he asked at length.
+
+'Old Jeffrey,' said Wogan airily. 'I drink Old Jeffrey's health,
+wherever he is.'
+
+'I believe you are the devil himself. That password is known to no
+mortal but Mr. Wesley and me. The Bishop does not know it. His
+servants never see me come or go--only Sam. Whence got you the word?'
+
+Mr. Wogan very gently tapped 1--2, 3, 4, 5, 6--7 on the table.
+
+'I know many things,' he said. 'But, George, what do _you_ know?'
+
+'I know you should be aboard, Nick, and down to the waterside you step
+from this house.'
+
+'I am already promised,' said Mr. Wogan with an air of fashion. 'I sup
+with Lady Oxford.'
+
+'You are mad.'
+
+'Nay, _you_ are mad. I know many things. When you were carried hither
+in your chair, you knew nothing. George, what did the Bishop tell you?
+Why was he wroth with you? In brief, George, what do you know?'
+
+'The Bishop angry with me! Nick, you know too much. You are the
+devil.'
+
+'I want to know a great deal more. Come, unpack, and then it is my
+turn. But first step into Mr. Wesley's bedchamber and wash these
+hands, which go very ill with silver shoulder-knots; and pour the
+blackened water out of window. Any man or messenger could see that you
+have been burning a mort of papers.'
+
+Mr. Kelly hastily adopted Mr. Wogan's precautions. When he entered the
+room again the conspirator had vanished, the clerical beau remained.
+
+'Now,' said Wogan, 'you are fit to carry out your worldly design of
+pleasure, and I shall not be ashamed to sup in your company at Lady
+Oxford's.'
+
+'I have changed my mind; I shall not go. But, Nick, how did you know
+my mind? 'Twas the last of minds you expected to take me in.'
+
+'I am the devil. Have you not guessed it yourself?' replied Mr. Wogan,
+who was enjoying himself hugely. Perhaps it was the Florence, coming
+a-top of the Burgundy. He was quite easy about the discovery. 'But
+unpack,' he said. 'What befell you with the Bishop?'
+
+'He received me oddly. The room was as dark as a wolf's mouth, being
+hung with black bombazine. There was a low fire in a brazier, that
+shone red on his Lordship's polished poll, for he wore no perruque.
+His eyes blazed, his teeth grinned white. I was put in mind of a
+fierce old black panther in the French King's gardens.'
+
+'Remote from the apostolic,' said Mr. Wogan.
+
+'So were his first words,' said Kelly:
+
+'"You Irish dog, come here!" quoth the Bishop.
+
+'I offered a conjecture that, in the mournful light, his Lordship did
+not precisely see whom he was addressing. On that the little old man
+sprang out at me, seized me by the collar, and then fell back on his
+couch with a groan that was a curse. I put a cordial that stood by him
+to his lips, and was about to call Mr. Wesley, when he forbade me with
+his eyebrows, and cried:
+
+'"Answer me this question before we part for ever. Did you despatch my
+letters of April 20 to the King and the others?"
+
+'"My Lord," I said, "my duty to you ended with that episcopal laying
+on of hands, and with that expression which you were pleased to use
+when I entered."
+
+'He groaned, and said:
+
+'"I apologise. I am mad with pain" (which was plainly true), "and
+grief, and treachery. I beg your pardon, Mr. Kelly, as a Christian and
+a sick old man."
+
+'"My Lord, you honour me. I enclosed the letters, as you directed, in
+a packet addressed to Mr. Gordon, the banker in Boulogne, and I sent
+them by the common post, your Lordship not having forbidden the
+ordinary course."
+
+'"Then, damn it, sir, you have ruined us!" said the sick old
+Christian. "Did I not bid you write to Dillon that nothing of
+importance should go by the post?"
+
+'"But your Lordship did not seem to reckon these letters of
+importance, for you did not discharge me from sending them in the
+common course."
+
+'The Bishop groaned again more than once, and there was a whole
+Commination Service in the sounds. You know Harlequin, Wogan?'
+
+Mr. Wogan nodded and wondered.
+
+''Tis Harlequin has ruined us,' said Kelly; 'Harlequin and the Duke of
+Mar.'
+
+'I am devilish glad to hear it,' said Mr. Wogan.
+
+'Glad to hear it!' exclaimed Kelly, rising from his chair. 'You are
+told of the discovery of the Great Affair, and the probable ruin of
+the Cause, and the danger of your friends and yourself, and you are
+glad to hear it!'
+
+'Faith, I am,' replied Wogan easily, 'for I knew of the discovery
+before you told me, but I put it down to a lady of your acquaintance.'
+
+The Parson very slowly sat himself down again on his chair.
+
+'In Heaven's name, why?' he asked, with a certain suspense.
+
+'Tell your tale first, then I'll tell mine. This is very excellent
+Florence.'
+
+'The tale is too long, but the short of it is this: The Bishop had by
+him a letter of Mar's, dated May 11, in which Mar, addressing the
+Bishop as Illington, denounced him as plainly to anyone who read the
+piece as if he had used the Bishop's own style and title. He condoled
+on Mrs. Illington's recent death, he referred to Mr. Illington's high
+place in the Church, and to his gout. The three circumstances combined
+left no doubt as to who Illington is. There was no need such a letter
+of pure compliment should be written at all, except for the purpose of
+being opened in the post, and fixing the Bishop as Illington. Then,'
+Kelly went on, 'I remembered a letter of Mar to myself, of last week,
+in which he spoke of the dog Harlequin as Mrs. Illington's. If these
+letters were opened in the post,--and the Bishop knows for certain
+that they were opened,--a blind man could see that Rochester and
+Illington are the same man, and own the same dog. The beast saved my
+life, but he has lost the Cause,' said Kelly with a sigh. 'Mar has
+sold us. It is known he holds a pension from the Elector. The Bishop
+knows it in a roundabout way, through Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and
+so the Bishop and I have burned his papers in the brazier. Sam is
+interring their ashes in the garden.'
+
+Mr. Wogan poured out another glass of Florence.
+
+'Was there anything very pressing in these same letters of April 20,
+George? Was there anything to put fear on the Elector's Ministers? Did
+they say, for instance, that the Blow was to be dealt, you and I know
+when?'
+
+'Not a word of that,' replied Kelly, and his face lightened. On the
+other hand, Wogan's fell, which Kelly no doubt remarked, for he
+continued eagerly, 'D'ye see, there is a chance still, for the Cause,
+for us, if the Blow be struck quickly. We must strike quickly. So may
+we retrieve Mar's treachery. The Bishop in his letter made excuses to
+the King for the delay of any blow. He is not in favour of anything
+immediate, and in the letters he made his disposition plain. The
+letters only compromised his Lordship in general, they did not
+reveal--the Blow.'
+
+Mr. Wogan, however, only shook his head.
+
+''Faith, now, I'm sorry to hear that,' said he.
+
+'You are glad and sorry on very strange occasions,' said Kelly,
+sourly. 'First you are pleased that Mar sold us, and then you are
+displeased that he did not sell the last secret.'
+
+Mr. Wogan leaned his elbows on the table, and bent across towards his
+friend.
+
+'I am sorry because the last secret has been sold, and it was not Mar
+that sold it. Therefore somebody else sold it; therefore I am at the
+pain of being obliged to suspect a lady who probably knows her late
+lover's cypher.'
+
+Mr. Kelly blanched.
+
+'And how do you know that the last secret is sold?'
+
+'As any man would know who had not lain abed all the day. George, the
+Park is full of soldiers. The Tower regiment that we thought Layer had
+bought is there with the rest under canvas. Ministers would not make
+an encampment in the Park because they knew that the Bishop had
+advised the King that nothing was to be done. Therefore Mar is not the
+only traitor.'
+
+'And why should my Lady Oxford be the Judas?'
+
+'Mainly to punish a certain nonjuring clergyman, for whose sake she is
+the burden of a ballad, and sung of in coffee-houses.'
+
+'A ballad? Of what sort?'
+
+'Of the sort that makes a good whipping-post for a fine lady. Ridicule
+is the whip, and, by the Lord, it is laid on unsparingly. Perhaps you
+would like to hear it,' and Mr. Wogan recited, in a whisper, so much
+of the poem as he judged proper. It closed thus:--
+
+
+ 'Oh, happy ending to my rhymes,
+ Consoled for all his woes,
+ The Parson flies to foreign climes,
+ And dwells--beneath the Rose!'
+
+
+Mr. Kelly swore an oath and took a turn across the room. He came to a
+stop in front of Sam's bookcase. 'Rose,' said he, in a voice of
+tenderness, 'sure they might have left the little girl out of it.'
+
+'The barb was venomed, you see,' said Mr. Wogan. 'It was not enough to
+make a scoff of the lady. She must be stripped of that last
+consolation, the belief that the discarded Parson wastes in despair.
+Now she knows that the Parson is consoled. There was spark to powder.
+The Parson may be putting on flesh. There's an insult to her beauty.
+Faith, but she must feel it in her marrow, since she risks her Lord's
+neck for the pleasure of requiting it.'
+
+'No,' said Kelly, 'she could do what she would, for her Lord's neck is
+not in this noose. Oxford had withdrawn before.'
+
+This was news to Mr. Wogan, who had been concerned only with the
+actual plan of attack, and sufficiently concerned to have no mind for
+other matters.
+
+'Oxford withdrawn,' he cried rising and coming across to the Parson.
+'Damn him, 'twas pure folly to trust him. Do you remember what Law
+said that night in Paris? He would trust him no further than he would
+trust a Norfolk attorney.'
+
+Kelly was silent for a moment, thoughtfully drawing a finger to and
+fro across the backs of Sam's books.
+
+'I have good reason to remember that night,' he said very sadly. 'Have
+you forgotten what I said? "May nothing come between the Cause and
+me!" Why, it seems the Cause goes down because of me, and with the
+Cause my friends, and with my friends, Rose.'
+
+Mr. Wogan had no word to say. Whatever excuses rose to his tongue
+seemed too trivial for utterance.
+
+Kelly's finger stopped on one particular book, travelled away and came
+back to it. Wogan saw that the book was a Bible. The Parson took it
+from the shelf and turning over the leaves read a line here and there.
+Wogan knew very well what was passing through his mind. His thoughts
+had gone back to the little country parsonage and the quiet life with
+no weightier matter to disturb it than the trifling squabbles of his
+parish.
+
+'You warned me, Nick,' he said, 'you warned me. But I was a fool and
+would not heed. Read that!' and with a bitter sort of laugh he handed
+the open Bible to Mr. Wogan, pointing to a verse. 'There's a text for
+the preacher.'
+
+The Bible was open at the Book of Proverbs, and Mr. Wogan read. 'The
+lips of a strange woman drop as a honey-comb and her mouth is smoother
+than oil. But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged
+sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps take hold on hell.'
+
+Mr. Wogan read the text aloud.
+
+'The strange woman, Nick,' said Kelly, 'the strange woman,' and then
+in a fierce outburst, 'If I live the man who wrote that ballad shall
+rue it.'
+
+'They give it to Lady Mary.'
+
+'She never wrote it. Nick, who wrote the ballad? How did you get hold
+of it?'
+
+'I found the Crow, quite tipsy, singing it to Tyrell, at Burton's, in
+the little room upstairs.'
+
+'And where did the Crow get the ballad?'
+
+'That is another uncomfortable circumstance. You know Talbot?'
+
+'An honest man, and a good officer, at Preston or in Spain, but a
+sponge for drink. A pity he was ever let into the plot!'
+
+'Well, he got the ballad from someone with whom he had been drinking
+at the Little Fox under the Hill, not a fashionable resort.'
+
+'Did he name his friend?'
+
+'He was drunk enough to begin by calling him Mr. Pope.'
+
+'Mr. Pope, the poet?'
+
+'He took that back; and said the poetry put Mr. Pope into his head.
+The man's real name, he remembered, was Scrotton. I can't guess who he
+was, friend or spy, but we may take it that he knows what the Crow
+knows.'
+
+'Thank God for that!' cried Kelly.
+
+'You rejoice on very singular occasions, and are grateful for very
+small mercies,' said Mr. Wogan, who found it his turn to be surprised.
+'What are you so thankful for?'
+
+'Thankful that a woman need not have done this thing, and that
+my folly may not be the cause of this disaster. Another knew
+everything--Pope--Scrotton--the ballad! Who wrote the ballad? Who of
+our enemies knew a word about Rose? Are you blind? Who was at Avignon,
+spying on me, when I first met Rose? Who hates Lady Oxford no less
+than he hates me? Whose name was the unhappy tippler trying to
+remember? Scrotton? Pope?'
+
+'Scrope!' cried Wogan, cursing his own stupidity. 'Scrope it must have
+been, and the Crow swore that the man told him about the plot, and
+often talked it over.'
+
+'That means, of course, that Scrope made him talk. The old curse of
+the Cause, that lost us Edinburgh Castle in the Fifteen, when the
+Scots stopped at the tavern to powder their hair. Our curse, Nicholas.
+Wine!'
+
+'And Woman,' Mr. Wogan thought, but George ran on,
+
+'Scrope it was who wrote the ballad, for no enemy but Scrope knew what
+the writer knew. Lady Mary is a friend. Lady Oxford is innocent, thank
+God--I say it with a humble heart--and I am not the cause of the
+ruin.'
+
+George's eyes shone like those of a man reprieved. Wogan shook his
+friend's hand; his own eyes were opened.
+
+''Tis you are the devil,' he said. 'Scrope has hit everyone he hates,
+and blown up the plot.'
+
+'His time will come,' said Kelly; 'but I hear Sam on the stair.'
+
+Mr. Wesley, tapping lightly, entered his room.
+
+'Gentlemen,' he said, 'the outer door is open.'
+
+Mr. Wesley's anxiety was plainly to be read in his face.
+
+The two gentlemen bade him farewell, with many thanks for his
+hospitality. He accompanied them to the door, and they heard the bolt
+shot behind them as they stood in the cloister.
+
+'Whither should they go?' both men reflected, silent.
+
+Mr. Wogan has remarked on a certain gaiety and easiness of mind caused
+on this occasion, he considers, by Mr. Wesley's Florence coming after
+his own Burgundy at supper. He was also elated by George's elation,
+for to find innocence in one whom he had suspected elevated Mr.
+Kelly's disposition. They were betrayed, true, but the bitterness of a
+betrayal by the woman he had loved left him the lighter when the
+apprehension of it had passed.
+
+One little point rankled in Mr. Wogan's mind in spite of all. Why had
+Lady Oxford bidden both of them to her rout?
+
+He came at an answer by a roundabout road.
+
+'I must hurry home and burn my papers,' said Kelly, as soon as they
+were out in the cloister, with the door of the Dean's house shut
+behind them.
+
+Mr. Wogan, who had other notions, gripped his arm.
+
+'By the way, did you burn my lady's invitation to her rout to-night?
+What did she say, George? Why did she invite you? And did you burn the
+note?'
+
+Mr. Kelly smote his hand on his brow. 'My wits were wool-gathering.'
+
+'On Cupid's hedges,' said Wogan.
+
+'But I locked the note up.'
+
+'With the rest of the lady's letters in my dispatch box?'
+
+''Faith, Nick, you are the devil. How did you know that?'
+
+'Oh, I have divined your amorous use of my box.'
+
+'But you are wrong. I had the box with the dangerous papers of the
+plot open on the table when I was reading the letter. Mrs. Kilburne
+knocked at the door. I did not know who it might be. I slipped the
+letter in on the top of the papers of the Plot, and locked the box
+before I opened the door.'
+
+'There it remains then? Well, her Ladyship's note is in the better
+company. But what did she say? Did she give a reason for your
+meeting?'
+
+'The chief thing, after the usual compliments, was that she had most
+important news, that might not be written, to give me about Mr.
+Farmer's affairs. Probably she may have had an inkling of the
+discovery and wished to warn me.'
+
+'We must see her,' said Wogan, whose curiosity was on edge from the
+first about this party of pleasure.
+
+'But my papers--I must burn my papers.'
+
+'George, you are set, or you are not set. If you had been set the
+messengers would have been at your lodgings before I went thither; in
+fact, before you were out of bed. Therefore, either you have the whole
+night safe or, going home now, you go into a mousetrap, as the French
+say, and your papers are the cheese to lure you there. Now, they
+cannot know of my lady's invitations, and if they by any accident did
+know, a Minister would hardly take a man at a lady's house. That were
+an ill use for the hostess.'
+
+'That's true,' said Mr. Kelly, after reflecting. 'Nicholas, I knew not
+that you had so much of the syllogism in your composition.'
+
+'Another thing, and an odd thing enough,' added Wogan. 'Perhaps
+nothing is laid against _you_ at all. Did Scrope lay information when
+he found us at Brampton Bryan?'
+
+'No!' cried Kelly. 'And at Avignon, when a proper spy would have
+stopped the Duke's gold, he was content with the sword in his own
+hand.'
+
+'Precisely,' said Wogan; 'Scrope has blown the plot, that's business;
+but he deals with you himself, that's pleasure. He tried to meet you
+at Brampton Bryan--he did not have us laid by the heels. He nearly did
+for you at Avignon, while he let the Duke's business alone, quite
+content. Now you are alive and he wants a meeting, 'tis clear he did
+not inform on you, otherwise the messengers would have been with you
+when the soldiers began the camp in the morning. 'Faith, you may meet
+Mr. Scrope tonight in St. James's Park. He is a kind of gentleman, Mr.
+Scrope! But we must see her ladyship first; sure, nothing's safer.'
+
+'Nicholas, thou reasonest well,' said the Parson.
+
+Mr. Wogan towed off his prize, and the pair moved out of the dark,
+musty cloister into the moonlight.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVI
+
+ MR. WOGAN ACTS AS LIGHTNING-CONDUCTOR
+ AT LADY OXFORD'S ROUT
+
+
+Mr. Wogan steered his captive through Petty France. It was about ten
+of the clock, a night of moonlight and young spring, a night for poets
+to praise and lovers to enjoy. Mr. Wogan was not, at the moment, a
+lover, and poetry was out of his mind.
+
+'One trifle I forgot to mention,' he said. 'I saw Montague come out of
+your new lodgings this evening. He bade his chairmen go to Queen's
+Square.'
+
+'Montague? How could he know where to look for me? What can he want
+with me?'
+
+'I misdoubt he was not very well pleased with the ballad, and would
+have you explain it.'
+
+'Montague,' sneered Mr. Kelly, with a touch of temper; 'I am grieved I
+missed him.'
+
+'You need not grieve, for you will see him to-night. So there's balm
+for your grief, and another reason why you should sup with Lady
+Oxford.'
+
+The Parson stepped out more briskly after that, and Wogan could not
+refrain from remarking upon his new alacrity.
+
+'It is after all a very human sort of a world, as worlds go,' said he.
+'Here's a man with all his hopes crumbling to grave-dust about him,
+and the mere prospect of a quarrel with another man whom he has never
+spoken to, on account of a woman he has a great contempt for, will
+make all his blood flow quicker.' For it was evident that, though the
+Parson no longer cared a straw for Smilinda's favours, he had not
+forgiven the man who had supplanted him in them.
+
+At the further end of the street along which they walked, one house
+threw out into the night a great blaze of light, and a noise of many
+voices. As Wogan perceived it, a certain improvement upon his plan
+came into his head.
+
+'George,' said he, as he directed his captive towards the house, 'will
+you resolve me a theological quandary? Do the doctors of your sect
+consider as binding a promise given to a person of a different faith?'
+
+'Assuredly they do,' cried Kelly. 'Dr. Hooker plainly writes--'
+
+'I shall take your word for it, without Hooker's bond. Next, does your
+Reverence reckon it immoral to shake an elbow on occasion?'
+
+'Even the very Puritans, at the height of their power, doubted if they
+could proceed against dicers by way of the greater excommunication. We
+read that the Chosen People themselves cast lots--whence I argue for a
+permitted latitude.'
+
+'Well, then, we are opposite the doors of Le Queux's Temple of Hazard;
+you may hear through the windows how the devout are calling the main.
+Now I must take your promise, as you say it is binding, to wait here
+in obedience to your commanding officer. A wise leader will ever send
+out scouts to inspect a dangerous pass. I shall reconnoitre at Lady
+Oxford's: proper precautions should never be neglected, even in a
+friendly country. If I do not return, or send, in forty minutes by
+your watch, you must follow. All will seem safe.'
+
+'But, Nick, what if they take you? Sure we had best go together.'
+
+'They will not arrest me alone. You don't loose your gun at a rabbit
+when you are stalking a deer. I am not the keeper of secrets, but the
+King's mere servant, to give knocks and to take them. I write no
+letters, and none write them to me. It is Mr. Johnson they will be
+stalking, if anyone at all, never fear, and they will not shoot at the
+rabbit whilst Mr. Johnson is out of gunshot. In the meantime, have you
+any money?'
+
+'Just enough to pay my chairmen.'
+
+Mr. Wogan turned his pockets inside out.
+
+'Then here are ten guineas. In my belief our luck must be somewhere,
+if a man would look for it, and it may very well be lurking in the
+cavern of a dice-box. Lose or win, if you hear nothing of me, you
+march forwards and occupy Queen's Square in forty minutes. It is ten
+o'clock now. And if you do not join me in forty minutes I walk
+straight to your lodgings and take my chance.'
+
+'So be it,' said Kelly, pocketing Mr. Wogan's gold, and stepping
+reluctantly into the house of Le Queux. Mr. Wogan waited until the
+door closed upon him, and then went on his way alone to Queen's
+Square.
+
+He had not displayed the whole face of his purpose to the Parson. It
+was not merely to reconnoitre that he pushed forward. The Parson might
+desire an occasion with the Colonel, but Wogan, for Miss Townley's
+sake, meant to meet the Colonel first. Betrothed men should not be
+brawlers, and George was hardly a match for the Colonel.
+
+The Colonel was not, in the nature of things, likely to feel
+well-disposed towards the Parson. The ballad would have turned that
+ill-disposition into a genuine hostility. So here was one of the
+reasons, besides the wish to reconnoitre, why Wogan left his
+friend behind him in Le Queux's gaming-rooms. He would be the
+lightning-conductor; he would pick a quarrel with the Colonel before
+Mr. Kelly arrived, if by any means that could be brought about.
+
+Mr. Wogan stopped in the shadow a few yards from Lady Oxford's house,
+and watched. It was a night of triumph for Lady Oxford. A score or so
+of link-boys yelled and flashed their torches about the portico;
+carriages and chairs pressed towards the door. Gentlemen with stars
+upon their velvet coats, and ladies altogether swaddled in lace and
+hoops thronged up the steps. But of the possible messengers for whom
+Mr. Wogan looked, not one was to be seen in any corner. Timidity
+itself might have slept secure. Only a few ragged loiterers stood
+about in the roadway on the look-out for a lace handkerchief or a
+convenient pocket. Wogan crossed the road and joined the throng upon
+the stairs.
+
+He had carried it off boldly enough at the Deanery, and in the street
+with Kelly, but, as he walked on alone, the fumes of the Florence wine
+escaped from the seat of his reasoning faculties. His logic did not
+seem so conclusive, and he felt an ugly double-edge on some of his
+arguments. Thus, the plot had certainly been discovered, yet Kelly had
+not been pounced upon. This might be a generosity of Mr. Scrope's (who
+had behaved as handsomely before), but again, what if Mr. Kelly's
+first suspicions were true? What if Lady Oxford had learned something?
+What if this rout were intended to enable her to savour her revenge
+for the ballad? The thing was not beyond Wogan's power of belief, and
+the more he gazed on this perspective, the less he enjoyed it. Under
+her roof, however, for the sake of her own credit, Kelly and he must
+be safe from arrest. Besides it might be that her Ladyship was
+ignorant of the ballad. Reflecting on these doubts, and thankful for
+this tender mercy, Wogan's heart was ill at ease, though he put on a
+face of brass. The chatter which buzzed at his inattentive ears seemed
+the most impertinent thing in the world. At each step a flowered
+petticoat swung against his legs, or a fan, held by a hand in a
+perfumed glove, knocked against his elbow, and somehow the fine
+gentlemen and ladies in their fine clothes seemed to him at that
+moment as incongruous as a nightmare. Scraps of gossip of which he
+took no note at the time, for no reason whatever stuck in his mind,
+and he remembered them quite clearly afterwards; how that Lady
+Holderness was sunk in all the joys of love, notwithstanding she
+wanted the use of her two hands by a rheumatism; and Mrs. Hervey,
+_revenue_ from such bagatelles as honour and reputation, had taken to
+herself two most fascinating lovers, and all the envy of her sex. A
+shrill lady behind Mr. Wogan's shoulder was proposing a general act
+for divorcing all the people of England, so that those who pleased
+might marry again, whereby many reputations which stood in dire peril
+would be saved from exposure. Mr. Wogan had much ado not to shout
+'Hold your tongues, will you? Here, maybe, is life and death in the
+balance.'
+
+He had got about half-way up the stairs when the shrill voice changed
+its tune, and now Mr. Wogan pricked up his ears.
+
+'You have heard the new ballad? Oh, the sweetest, most malicious
+thing. You must certainly hear it. Smilinda, the Parson, and the
+Colonel. You know who Smilinda is? The Parson and the Colonel make a
+guess easy.' She quoted a line or two. 'It appears that the Parson has
+consoled himself with Rose, and snaps his fingers at Smilinda. Who
+wrote it? No one but Smilinda's dear friend, Lady Mary Wortley
+Montagu, that I will wager. 'Tis the most ingenious thing; and most
+ingeniously given to the town just at the time when it will sting
+most. Poor Smilinda.' The voice went off into a giggle, in the midst
+of which Mr. Wogan distinguished a name--Lord Sidney Beauclerk's. Mr.
+Wogan would hardly have heeded the name had he not heard it again
+twice before he reached the stairhead, and each time in that same
+conjunction with the Parson and the Colonel, and the malicious aptness
+of the ballad. Even then he gave but scanty heed to Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk, for the knowledge that the ballad was indeed become the
+common talk occupied his thoughts, and so thoroughly, that it was the
+nearest thing imaginable but he gave his name as Mr. Wogan to the
+lackey who announced him.
+
+Mr. Hilton, however, was announced, and Mr. Hilton stepped through the
+great doorway into the room, and made his bow. At the first he was
+sensible only of a great blaze of light spotted here and there with
+the flames of candles; of a floor polished like a mirror, of a throng
+of misty faces, a hubbub of voices, and a gorgeous motley of colours
+like the Turkish bazaars Lady Mary was used to describe. Then the
+faces grew distinct. Mr. Wogan noticed one or two of the _honest_
+party, who, knowing his incognito, threw a startled glance at him, and
+like the rats from the sinking ship, scuttled away as soon as his eyes
+met theirs.
+
+He looked around him for Lady Oxford. He could not see her in the
+crowd which ebbed and flowed about the floor. There were card tables
+set against the walls; doubtless she would be seated at one of them.
+He glanced down the line of tables to his left. He did not see Lady
+Oxford, but his attention was seized by one particular table. It stood
+empty; a few packs of cards waited upon it for the players to handle,
+but by some strange chance it stood empty. It was the one vacant table
+in the room.
+
+Mr. Wogan was an Irishman, and now and again had his visionary
+moments, though he said little about them. As he looked at that one
+empty table a queer sort of fancy crept into his head, and, to be
+frank, struck something of a chill into his veins. It came upon him
+slowly that the table was not in truth empty at all; that in the midst
+of this velvet company, all jewels and compliments, there sat at this
+table a grey shrouded figure which silently awaited its player.
+
+Mr. Wogan was roused by a touch on his elbow.
+
+'Mr. Hilton?'
+
+Mr. Hilton saw a dapper, young gentleman at his side who looked like
+nothing so much as a tangle of ribbons swept up from a milliner's
+shop.
+
+'To be sure,' said Wogan.
+
+'Her ladyship sits yonder.'
+
+Mr. Wogan looked. Her ladyship sat with her back towards him at the
+table nearest to that which stood empty. She had been screened from
+his sight by the young gentleman now at his elbow. As Wogan looked,
+Lady Oxford turned with an anxious smile and a glance beyond his
+shoulder. The smile, the glance braced Mr. Wogan. For doubtless her
+ladyship looked to discover whether the Parson followed in his steps.
+
+He approached Lady Oxford. By her side sat Colonel Montague, black as
+thunder, and with a certain uneasy air of humiliation, like a man that
+finds himself ridiculously placed, and yet has not the courage to
+move. Mr. Wogan was encouraged; he could have wished the Colonel in no
+other mood. Mr. Wogan suddenly understood that it was himself who was
+cast to play with the shrouded figure, and the stake was the privilege
+of crossing swords with Montague.
+
+From the Colonel his eye strayed to a youth who stood by Lady Oxford's
+chair, and the sight of him clean took Wogan's breath away. It was not
+merely his face, though even in that bright company he shone a planet
+among stars. Nature, indeed, thought Wogan, must have robbed a good
+many women of their due share of looks before she compounded so much
+beauty in the making of one man. But even more remarkable than his
+beauty was his extraordinary likeness to Wogan's King. At the first
+glance Wogan would have sworn that this youth was the King, grown
+younger, but that he knew his Majesty was at Antwerp waiting for the
+Blow to fall. At the second, however, he remarked a difference. The
+youth had the haunting eyes of the Stuarts, only they were lit with
+gaiety and sparkled with success; he had the clear delicate features
+of the Stuarts, only they were rounded out of their rueful length, and
+in place of a sad gravity, were bright with a sunny contentment.
+Misfortune had cast no shadows upon the face, had dug no hollows about
+the eyes.
+
+Lady Oxford spoke to this paragon, smiled at him, drooped towards him.
+The Colonel shifted a foot, set his lips tight and frowned.
+
+Wogan placed a hand upon his guide's sleeve.
+
+'Will you tell me, if you please, the name of her ladyship's new
+friend?'
+
+The young gentleman stared at Wogan.
+
+'Let me perish, Mr. Hilton, but you are strangely out of the fashion.
+Or is it wit thus to affect an ignorance of our new conqueror, for
+whom women pine with love and men grow sour with envy? But indeed it
+is wit--the most engaging pleasantry. 'Twill make your reputation, Mr.
+Hilton.'
+
+'It is pure ignorance,' interrupted Wogan curtly.
+
+'Indeed? But I cannot bring myself to believe it.' He stared at Wogan
+as though he was gazing at one of Dr. Swift's Yahoos. 'Slit my weazand
+if I can. Sir, he is the gold leaf upon the pill of the world. For his
+sake dowagers mince in white and silver, and at times he has to take
+to his bed to protect himself from their assiduities.'
+
+'He has a dangerous face for these times,' again Mr. Wogan broke in.
+
+'Blame his grandmother for that, Mr. Hilton; he is of the royal blood.
+Nell Gwynn of pious memory gave his father birth. Our last Charles was
+his grandsire; he hath Queen Mary's eyes. It is Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk.'
+
+'I thought as much. He is a very intimate friend of her ladyship's?'
+
+'Mr. Hilton, the world is very _grossier_,' remarked his guide, with a
+smirk.
+
+Mr. Wogan could have laughed. He understood why the Colonel looked so
+black, why the ballad was so maliciously apt, why my Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk was coupled with the Parson and the Colonel in the common
+talk. Her ladyship was taking a new lover. Colonel Montague was the
+crumpled ribbon that has done good service but is tossed into the
+cupboard to make way for fresher colours. The ballad was apt indeed.
+Mr. Wogan's spirits rose with a bound. Sure here was an occasion for
+picking a quarrel with the Colonel ready to his hand. He bowed very
+low to her ladyship. Her ladyship went on punting.
+
+Colonel Montague looked at him, and then looked at him again with the
+same perplexity which Mr. Wogan had found so distasteful one evening
+in St. James's Street three years before; but he said nothing. Her
+ladyship laid down a card and gave Mr. Wogan a hand, which he kissed
+with proper ceremony.
+
+'You have come late, Mr. Hilton,' she said; 'and you have come, it
+seems--alone?'
+
+'Madam,' replied Wogan, with a glance of great sympathy towards the
+Colonel, and in his softest brogue, 'men are born to loneliness as the
+sparks fly upward.'
+
+The Colonel took his meaning, and his face flushed. Wogan's spirits
+rose higher. If only Montague was strung to the same pitch of
+exasperation and injury as the Parson had been in the like
+circumstances! The supposition seemed probable. Mr. Wogan could have
+rubbed his hands in sheer content. The Colonel, however, made no
+rejoinder, and Mr. Wogan had to amuse himself by watching the play.
+
+It was little amusement, however, that Mr. Wogan got; on the contrary,
+as he watched, his fears returned to him. Her ladyship was evidently
+in something of a flutter. She did not show her usual severe attention
+to the game. Now she called her black boy Sambo to bring her fan; now
+she would pat her spaniel; now she would gaze through the crowd of
+perruques and laces towards the door. Her smile was fixed even when
+she paid her losses, and that was not her way, she being a bad loser.
+She was watching for someone, and that someone without a doubt was Mr.
+Kelly. Wogan could not but ask himself with what intention she
+watched. Her ladyship was taking a new lover, and for that reason the
+ballad struck her hard--if she knew of it. Smilinda was not the
+woman to forgive the blow. She would assuredly blame Kelly for the
+ballad--if she knew of it. Had she lured him here to strike back? She
+turned once more to Mr. Wogan, as though she would put some question
+to him; but, before she could open her lips, a name was bawled up the
+stairs, and a sudden hush fell upon the room. The throng in the
+doorway dissolved as if by magic, and between the doorway and Lady
+Oxford's chair a clear path was drawn. The name was Lady Mary Wortley
+Montagu's. Everyone then knew of the ballad and laid it at Lady Mary's
+door. Everyone? Mr. Wogan asked himself. Did Lady Oxford know?
+
+Montague frowned and drummed with his knuckles on the table; it was
+the only sound heard in the room. Then Lord Sidney noisily thrust back
+his chair, and, stepping past Lady Oxford, stood in the open space
+between her and the door with a frank boyish championship for which
+Mr. Wogan at once pitied and liked him.
+
+The name was passed up the stairs from lackey to lackey, growing
+louder with each repetition. The silence was followed by a quick
+movement which ran through the room like a ripple across a pool, as
+each head was turned towards Lady Oxford to note how she would bear
+herself. She rose, the radiant goddess of hospitality.
+
+'There is no striving, Colonel Montague, against this run of luck,'
+she said, with the most natural ease; 'but my dear Lady Mary is come
+to save me from ruin. Mrs. Hewett,' she turned to her opposite, 'will
+you be tallier to our table? The bank is open to a bidder. No? Ah!'
+and she took a step forwards to where her champion was standing apart,
+his hand on his hip, his face raised, ready to encounter even so
+dangerous an antagonist as Lady Mary, 'my Lord Sidney Beauclerk, you
+are not afraid?' He looked at her, from her to the door. 'I am your
+servant,' said she, with her eyelids half-closed over her eyes, 'your
+grateful servant,' and she motioned him to the table; 'for, being a
+woman, I positively die to hear what new scandal dear Lady Mary has
+set on foot.'
+
+She spoke with an affectionate compassion for Lady Mary's foible and
+an air of innocence which quite took aback the most part of her
+guests. Mr. Wogan, however, was better acquainted with her ladyship's
+resources, and, wishing to know for certain whether Lady Oxford knew
+of the ballad;
+
+'I can satisfy your ladyship's curiosity,' he said bluntly; and with
+that the noise of the room sank to silence again. He was still
+standing by the card-table. Lady Oxford turned about to him something
+quickly. It may be she was disconcerted, or that anger got the upper
+hand with her. At all events, for an instant she dropped the mask. She
+gave Wogan one look; he never remembers, in all the strange incidents
+of his life, to have seen eyes so hard, so cold, and so cruel, or a
+face so venomous. In a second the look was gone, and the prettiest
+smile of inquiry was softening about her mouth. 'There is a new poem,
+is there not, from Lady Mary's kind muse?' said Wogan.
+
+'A new poem!' cried she. 'Let us hear it, I pray. It would be the
+worst of ill-breeding had I not knowledge enough to congratulate my
+friend. The happy subject of the poem, Mr. Hilton?'
+
+Lady Oxford took a step towards him. She was all courtesy and
+politeness, but Mr. Wogan, while he recognised her bravery, had her
+look of a second ago very distinct before his eyes, and was in no mood
+for pity. He bowed with no less courtesy.
+
+'It is thought to be an allegory,' he said, 'wherein the arm of flesh
+is preferred before a spiritual--Blade.
+
+The rejoinder, as it seemed, was approved, for the ladies whispered
+behind their fans, and here and there a man checked a laugh. Lady
+Oxford met the thrust with all the appearances of unconcern.
+
+'And tagged with Latin, Mr. Hilton?' she asked. That was enough for
+Mr. Wogan. Lady Oxford knew the ballad, and gave it to Lady Mary.
+Without a doubt she must believe Mr. Kelly supplied Lady Mary with the
+matter of it. 'Of a truth the ballad will' be tagged with Latin. Sure
+Lady Mary has scholars enough among her friends who would not let her
+wit go naked when a scrap of Latin could cover it decently--indeed,
+too decently at times, for, though we always see the Latin, one is
+hard put to it now and then to discover the wit. Do you not think so,
+Mr.--Hilton?' She paused ever so slightly before the name, and ever so
+slightly drawled it, with just a hint of menace in her accent. Mr.
+Hilton, none the less, got a clear enough knowledge of the dangerous
+game he was playing. Lady Oxford had but to say 'Mr. Wogan,' and it
+would not be Mr. Wogan who would have the chance of playing a hand
+with the figure at the empty table.
+
+Lady Mary's name was now called out from the doorway, and Mr. Wogan
+was glad enough to leave the encounter to her worthier hands. Lady
+Mary sailed into the room; Lady Oxford swam forwards to meet her. The
+two ladies dissolved almost in smiles and courtesies.
+
+'We were in despair, dearest Lady Mary; we feared you would baulk us
+of your company. France, they said, was happy in your sunshine.'
+
+'France, madam?' asked Lady Mary.
+
+'It was your dear friend, Mr. Pope, who said you had withdrawn
+thither--la, in the strangest hurry!'
+
+'Indeed, very like! I denied Mr. Pope my door two days ago, and his
+vanity could only conceive I was gone abroad.'
+
+'Your ladyship was wise. A poet's tongue wags most indiscreetly. Not
+that anyone believes those fanciful creatures. A romance of a--a M.
+Rémond for whom you should have placed money in the sinking South Sea;
+the Frenchman arriving in London in a hurry; Lady Mary in a hurry
+arriving in France; a kind of country dance figure of partners
+crossing. A story indubitably false, to the knowledge of all your
+ladyship's friends, as I took occasion to say at more than one house
+where the rumour was put about.'
+
+Lady Oxford had scored the first point in the game, as Wogan reckoned
+and marked 'Fifteen--love' with chagrin. However, he took some
+comfort from Lady Mary's face, which was grown dangerously sweet and
+good-natured. Nor was his confidence vain, for Lady Mary did more than
+hold her ground.
+
+'Your ladyship's good will,' said she, 'is my sufficient defence. My
+Lord Oxford is here? It is long since I paid him my respects.'
+
+'Alas, my dear Lord has lain these last six weeks at Brampton Bryan,'
+sighed Lady Oxford, 'with a monstrous big toe all swathed in flannel.
+Your ladyship, I fear, can only greet my husband by proxy.'
+
+There was just a sparkle of triumph in Lady Mary's eyes.
+
+'By proxy!' she said; 'with all the willingness in the world;' and she
+swept a courtesy to Colonel Montague, who was coming forward to join
+them.
+
+Lady Oxford flirted her fan before her face.
+
+A murmur almost of applause ran from group to group of the company.
+
+Mr. Wogan, who loved the game of tennis, marked 'Fifteen--all.'
+
+At that moment a clock upon the mantelshelf chimed the half-hour. In
+fifteen minutes the Parson would arrive, and Mr. Wogan had not played
+his hand. He moved a few yards from the table at which Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk, with his eyes upon Lady Oxford, was dealing the cards, and
+stood apart by the empty table, wondering how he should do. He picked
+up a pack of cards idly, and Lady Mary spoke again to Lady Oxford:
+
+'I interrupted your ladyship's game.'
+
+'Nay, your coming was the most welcome diversion. Colonel Montague,'
+said Lady Oxford, as she was gliding back to her table, 'shared my
+bank, and played with the worst of luck. I declare the Colonel has
+ruined me;' and so retired out of range of Lady Mary's guns.
+
+The Colonel followed Lady Oxford. Lady Mary turned to Mr. Wogan, and
+in a voice loud enough for others than Mr. Wogan to hear:
+
+'What!' said she, 'was Lady Oxford ruined by Colonel Montague? I did
+not think their acquaintance was of so old a standing.'
+
+'Thirty--fifteen,' said Mr. Wogan in an abstraction.
+
+Lady Mary stared.
+
+'I was but marking the game and scoring points to your ladyship,'
+Wogan said.
+
+Colonel Montague had heard Lady Mary's sally, for he stopped. Lord
+Sidney Beauclerk had heard it, for he rose as though to mark his
+disbelief, and handed Lady Oxford to her chair with a sort of air of
+protection very pretty in the boy. It seemed, indeed, as though even
+Lady Oxford was touched, for her face was half turned towards Mr.
+Wogan, and he saw it soften with something like pity and her eyes swam
+for an instant in tears. It was new, no doubt, for the spider to feel
+compassion for the fly, but Mr. Wogan was not altogether surprised,
+for he began to find the fly very much to his own taste. It was a
+clean-limbed, generous lad, that looked mighty handsome in the bravery
+of his pink satin coat, and without one foppish affectation from his
+top-knot to his shoe-buckles.
+
+Mr. Wogan was still holding the pack of cards in his hands.
+
+'You have a mind to play? 'asked Lady Mary.
+
+Wogan looked at the clock. He had only fifteen minutes for his
+business as lightning conductor. In fifteen minutes the Parson would
+be here.
+
+'If you will present me to the player I have a mind to play with,'
+said he, dropping the pack on the table.
+
+'With all my heart,' said she; 'name him.'
+
+'Colonel Montague.'
+
+Her ladyship looked at Wogan doubtfully, and beckoned the Colonel with
+her fan. The Colonel, who had his own feud with Lady Mary over the
+supposed authorship of the ballad, made as though he had not seen her
+summons. Lady Mary repeated it with no better result, and finally took
+a step or two towards him. Montague could no longer affect to
+misunderstand.
+
+'I wish to present you to a friend,' she said, as Colonel Montague
+joined her.
+
+'If your ladyship will excuse me,' said the Colonel coldly, 'I have no
+taste for the acquaintance of Irish adventurers.'
+
+Mr. Wogan was not out of earshot, and laughed gleefully as he caught
+the insult. Here was his opportunity, come in the nick of time.
+
+'Did anyone mention me?' he said pleasantly, as he came round the
+card-table. But before the Colonel could answer, or Lady Mary
+interfere, the servant at the door announced:
+
+'Dr. and Miss Townley!'
+
+Wogan's heart gave a leap. He swore beneath his breath.
+
+'Miss Townley?' asked her ladyship, who had caught his oath.
+
+'Is Rose, _the_ Rose,' replied Wogan.
+
+Lady Mary knew the ballad, knew who Rose was, and looked perplexed as
+to why Lady Oxford had asked the girl. Mr. Wogan, on the other hand,
+was no longer perplexed at all. His doubt was now a certainty. Lady
+Oxford had prepared a scenic revenge, a _coup de theater_. To this
+end, and to prove her ignorance of the ballad, she had invited Kelly,
+Montague, and Rose.
+
+Of the _coup de theater_ her ladyship had got more than she bargained
+for. On her bosom Miss Townley wore diamonds that caught the eye even
+in that Aladdin's treasure house of shining stones, and among the
+diamonds the portrait of Lady Oxford. Her ladyship saw it, and grew
+white as marble. Miss Townley saw Lady Oxford, knew the face of the
+miniature that she had thought was the Queen's, and blushed like the
+dawn. Her hand flew to her neck as she courtesied deep to Lady
+Oxford's courtesy; when she rose, by some miracle of female skill, the
+miniature and the diamonds had vanished. Rising at the same moment,
+Lady Oxford looked herself again. But the women understood each other
+now, and, as they purred forth their _politesses_, Wogan knew that the
+buttons were off the foils.
+
+He had his own game to play, that would brook no waiting, and he
+played it without pause. Lady Mary had moved towards the door. Colonel
+Montague was gliding back to his old position near Lord Sidney. Wogan
+followed Colonel Montague and stopped him.
+
+'Sir,' said he, in a low brogue, 'I fancied that I caught a little
+word of yours that reflected on me counthry and me honour.'
+
+'For your country, sir,' replied the Colonel politely, 'your speech
+bewrayeth you, but the habitation of your honour is less discernible.'
+
+''Faith, Colonel,' said Wogan, who found his plan answering to his
+highest expectations, 'you are so ready with your tongue that you
+might be qualifying for an Irishman. Doubtless you are as ready to
+take a quiet little walk, in which case I shall be most happy to show
+you where my honour inhabits. But, to speak the plain truth, it is
+somewhat too near the point of my sword to make Lady Oxford's
+drawing-room a convenient place for the exhibition.'
+
+Colonel Montague smiled at the pleasantry in an agreeable way which
+quite went to Wogan's heart.
+
+'With all the goodwill imaginable,' said he, 'I will take that walk
+with you to-morrow,' and he made a bow and turned away.
+
+'But Colonel,' said Wogan in some disappointment, 'why not to-night?'
+
+'There are certain formalities. For instance, I was not fortunate
+enough to catch your name.'
+
+''Tis as ancient as any in Ireland,' cried Wogan, in a heat, quite
+forgetting his incognito. 'My forefathers--'
+
+'Ah, sir, they were kings, no doubt,' interrupted Montague with the
+gravest politeness.
+
+'No, sir, viceroys only,' answered Wogan with indifference, 'up to
+Edward I.'
+
+'Your Highness,' said the Colonel, and he bowed to the ground, 'I
+reckon to-morrow a more suitable time.'
+
+Mr. Wogan was tickled out of his ill-humour, and began to warm to the
+man.
+
+'Sure, Colonel, you and I will be the best of good friends after I
+have killed you, and for the love of mercy let that be to-night.
+Look!' and stepping to the window he drew aside the curtain. 'Look,'
+said he, peering out, 'it is the sweetest moonlight that ever kissed a
+sword-blade! Oh, to-night, Colonel!' Then he dropped the curtain
+something suddenly. He had seen a face in the street. 'You prefer
+sunlight? Very well, sir. But you will acknowledge that to-morrow I
+have the _earliest_ claims on your leisure.'
+
+Colonel Montague bowed.
+
+'The word, you will remember, was an Irish adventurer.' Wogan
+impressed it upon him.
+
+'Sir, I am wedded to the phrase. You will send your friend to my
+lodgings at Mrs. Kilburne's, in Ryder Street.'
+
+'Mrs. Kilburne's!' exclaimed Wogan.
+
+Wogan might have guessed as much had he used his brains. It was at the
+corner of Ryder Street that he had plumped upon Montague when he came
+down to London from Glenshiel. It was under a portico in Ryder Street
+that the Parson and he had seen Montague on the night they had driven
+out on the first journey to Brampton Bryan. It was at Mrs. Kilburne's
+door that Wogan had seen Montague that afternoon. The Colonel was her
+fine gentleman upon the first floor. Sure, the Parson had the worst
+luck in the world. At all events, the Colonel was a gentleman. Wogan
+consoled himself with that reflection as he thought of Mr. Kelly's
+despatch box in the scrutoire of his parlour below the Colonel's
+rooms.
+
+That thought led Wogan's eyes again to the clock. It was half an hour
+past ten. The Parson was due in ten minutes.
+
+'Good-bye t'ye, Colonel,' he said hastily to Montague, as he turned
+towards the door. He almost knocked against Rose, who was standing
+close by his elbow. She made an effort to detain him; he breathed a
+word of apology. It did not occur to him then that she might have
+overheard his conversation with the Colonel. He hurried past Lady
+Oxford and Dr. Townley, who was talking of his schooldays, when he
+knew Lord Oxford.
+
+'Mr. Hilton,' cried her ladyship. Mr. Hilton was deaf as a bed-post.
+For when he had looked out of the window at the moonlight he had seen
+a face in the roadway of which the Parson should have knowledge before
+he reached the house. It was that face which had made him drop the
+curtain so quickly and fall in so quickly with the Colonel's
+objections. A link-boy's torch had flashed for a second upon a man on
+the other side of the road, and his face was Scrope's. Scrope was
+watching the house.
+
+Wogan pressed through the throng towards the door, but before he could
+reach it a firm hand closed upon his arm. He looked round. Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk was standing by his side with a flushed, angry face.
+
+'A word with you, Mr. Hilton!'
+
+'A hundred, my lord, in half an hour,' said Wogan, and shook himself
+free. He must warn the Parson and turn him back from the house. But he
+was too late. In the doorway of the house he met Mr. Kelly, whose face
+wore a singular air of content. And on the other side of the road
+stood Scrope with his head turned towards the doorway. Scrope knew
+that the Parson had come.
+
+Mr. Wogan took Kelly's arm, and led him to the shady side of the
+street, out of the noisy crowd of lackeys and link-boys.
+
+'Those divines err,' said Kelly, 'who condemn the occasional casting
+of lots. It is not an ill game.'
+
+'Then you found our lurking luck?'
+
+'Six rouleaux of gold,' said Mr. Kelly, tenderly caressing his pocket.
+
+'The sinews of war, and we are like to need them.'
+
+'Then the coast is not clear?'
+
+'Clear!' said Wogan, 'there is every sign of thunder, wind, and
+earthquake. First, Montague is here!'
+
+'And here is his Capulet!' said Kelly smiling.
+
+Wogan smiled too, having secured his duel with the Colonel.
+
+'Then Miss Townley is here, and, George, she was wearing my lady's
+miniature. The women know each other.'
+
+George's mouth opened, and his utterance was stayed. Then,
+
+'It is a trap. I go home,' he said. Despair spoke in his voice.
+
+'No!' Mr. Wogan's plans had changed.
+
+'Why not? I have no more to lose, and my duty to do.'
+
+'You do not go home, for Scrope is watching the house. He has seen you
+come. He is behind us now.' Mr. Kelly's hand went to his sword, but
+Wogan checked him. 'Don't let him think you know. We must leave the
+house together, and your duty is to be just now where Miss Townley is.
+Be quick!'
+
+The argument had weight with Mr. Kelly. Wogan had his reasons for
+advancing it. If they went away together, later, Wogan could engage
+Mr. Scrope's attentions while the Parson went safely on to Ryder
+Street. The two passed out of the shade, but not before George had
+placed his hand in Wogan's. His hand was cold as ice.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVII
+
+ LADY OXFORD'S 'COUP DE THÉÂTRE.'
+
+
+The Parson, when the two friends had climbed the crowded stairs, began
+making his way towards his fate and Lady Oxford's table, with a smile
+on his face. He did not see Rose, who was a little apart, hidden from
+him by a group of strangers. Wogan was about joining her, when a
+woman's voice whispered in his ear:
+
+'You are mad!'
+
+The voice was Lady Mary's.
+
+'You are mad, both of you! He should be halfway to the coast by now.
+What brings him here? I wrote, or rather I sent to him.'
+
+'True,' said Wogan, remembering the letter which he had picked up in
+the Parson's lodging, and slipped into his pocket. It had been thrust
+clean out of his mind at the Deanery by those more pressing questions
+as to how the Blow had been discovered, and how they were to escape
+from the consequences of the discovery. He drew it out, still sealed
+up.
+
+'He has not opened it?' she asked.
+
+'He has not seen it,' replied Wogan, who began to fear from her
+ladyship's discomposure that the letter held news of an urgent
+importance. She took the letter from his hands, and broke the seal.
+
+'This was my message,' she said. There was no scrap of writing in the
+letter, but a feather from a bird's wing: it meant "Fly!"
+
+'The feather is white,' said Wogan. He could not have mounted it.'
+
+'He loses his life.'
+
+'Perhaps, but he keeps his honour. There is something that he must do
+in London if by any means he can. He must burn the papers at his
+lodgings and the best hope lies in audacity.'
+
+Mr. Wogan tore up the sheet on which her ladyship had written Mr.
+Johnson's name into fragments too minute for anyone to piece them
+together again.
+
+'This proof of your good will,' said he, 'shall not rise in judgment
+against you.'
+
+'But you?' said Lady Mary. 'Why do you stay?'
+
+Wogan laughed.
+
+'For one thing, I have a little business of my own to settle,
+and--well--'
+
+'And,' said she, 'your friend's in danger.'
+
+She spoke with so much kindliness that Mr. Wogan felt a trifle
+awkward, and turned his eyes from her face. He saw that Rose still
+stood alone, though many of the gallants eyed her through their
+quizzing-glasses.
+
+'Lady Mary,' he said, 'you have the kindest heart!'
+
+'Hush! Whisper it,' she replied, 'or you will destroy my reputation.
+What service would you have me do now?'
+
+'You see Miss Rose? You have read a certain ballad which the ignorant
+give to your ladyship? And you know Lady Oxford. It is Miss Rose
+Townley's first visit to this house, and one cannot believe that Lady
+Oxford asked her with any amiable intention.'
+
+'And I am to be Lady Oxford's spoil-sport?'
+
+'It has gone beyond sport. At this moment her ladyship has murder in
+her mind. The girl entered the room wearing our hostess's portrait in
+diamonds,' and he told her shortly how she came to wear it.
+
+Lady Mary looked her horror.
+
+'She has hidden it, but you will not leave the girl?'
+
+Lady Mary nodded, her lips tight closed.
+
+Wogan presented the girl. Lady Mary made room for her at her side, and
+Wogan only heard her say, 'My dear, be brave, you tremble.'
+
+What else passed, Wogan did not desire to hear. Lady Mary had faults,
+they say, as a woman, but she was of a manlike courage, and her's was
+the friendship of a man. Never did woman need it more than Miss
+Townley, and never, sure, was counsel and comfort wiser and kinder
+than that which, Wogan knew later, Lady Mary gave to the angry,
+frightened, and bewildered girl.
+
+Lady Mary's credentials were Wogan's name; the girl could not suspect
+them. How had she come hither? Lady Oxford had invited her father,
+Rose said, as a schoolfellow of my lord's, and had asked, too, for the
+daughter's company. Then the young lady was lured, her new friend
+said, by a wicked woman for a cruel purpose. That purpose, whatever it
+was, and neither Wogan nor Kelly nor Lady Mary could do more than
+guess, must be defeated at any cost--at all costs. Lady Mary glanced
+at the guilt and guilelessness of our sex. Kelly, too, had been
+entrapped, before he knew Rose, but that was ended. Lady Mary
+certainly knew it was ended, however things appeared. According to
+men's notions, he was compelled to lie to Rose about the miniature.
+Now Miss Townley might, if she chose, give Kelly his _congé_
+to-morrow. To-night she must know nothing, see nothing, bear no
+grudge, be staunch; she owed it to her honour, to the honour of her
+sex, to Kelly's very life, and to her revenge, if she craved for one,
+on the false enchantress. That was Lady Mary's sermon. And the lesson
+was needed. She reported it later to Wogan who, at this moment, was
+following the Parson with all his eyes.
+
+Lady Oxford at the card-table was greeting Kelly with a conspicuous
+kindness. Her smile was one wide welcome.
+
+'My dear Mr. Johnson,' she said, 'you are grateful as flowers worked
+on the very finest Alençon. Sure you bring me those laces for which I
+gave you a commission in Paris, and the lutestring from my Lady Mar.'
+
+Mr. Kelly murmured a word that the laces were below, and he hoped her
+ladyship would be satisfied. But his eyes searched the room all the
+time for Rose, whom he could not see.
+
+'You shall show me them!' cried Lady Oxford; 'but first you must bring
+me luck. Mr. Johnson and I were always lucky before he went abroad.'
+She spoke with a provoking smile at Colonel Montague, and then shot a
+quick glance at Lord Sidney Beauclerk, who was now risen from the
+table, and stood in a window watching her.
+
+The glance said plain as writing, 'You understand. I have to face out
+the ballad. I can trust you.' Wogan's blood boiled as he noticed and
+read the look, for it was just that tender appeal to her lover's faith
+which always brought about the lover's undoing. Lord Sidney's young
+face flushed with pride at the trust she reposed in him, and she
+continued to Kelly:
+
+'Look over my hand, Mr. Johnson; you must not leave me. What card
+shall I choose? You, Colonel Montague, I discard you. I appoint you to
+the Commissariat, run and see that Lady Rich does not starve. She is
+leaving her party with the air of a loser, and needs the comforts of
+chicken and champagne. But first let me make you better acquainted
+with the gentleman who supersedes you. Mr. Johnson, the right-hand man
+of my dear Bishop of Rochester.' There she stopped short in a pretty
+confusion, as though the words had slipped from her lips against her
+will.
+
+'Who should be thrown to the lions,' growled the Colonel to himself,
+and added gruffly, 'Mr. Johnson and I have met before.'
+
+The Colonel turned his broad scarlet back with the ghost of a bow, and
+went reluctantly to Lady Rich, a mature matron, dressed to kill, in
+virginal white. Wogan watched them out of the door, and was again
+turning back to the card-table, when again Lord Sidney Beauclerk's
+hand was laid on his sleeve.
+
+'A word with you, Mr. Hilton,' said he in a hard voice.
+
+'When the half-hour is past, my lord,' said Wogan, looking at his
+watch. 'There are still eight minutes and a few seconds.'
+
+'I will set my watch by yours,' said the lad with great dignity; which
+he did, and went back to his corner.
+
+Mr. Johnson's welcome, meanwhile, was as that of the prodigal swain.
+He made more than one effort to slip from her side and go in search of
+Rose, but Lady Oxford would not let him go. She had eyes only for him,
+eyes to caress. Many curious people watched the scene as at a play.
+All the town knew the ballad, and here was Lady Oxford's reply. Mr.
+Johnson and Lady Oxford were to all seeming the best of friends, and
+no more than friends, for was not Miss Townley in the room to testify
+the limits of their friendship?
+
+A shifting of the groups gave Wogan suddenly a view of Rose Townley.
+She was still talking with Lady Mary, or rather she was still
+listening to her, and threw in now and again a short reply. But she
+spoke with an occupied air, and her eyes were drawn ever towards the
+card-table at which Lady Oxford was practising her blandishments on
+the Parson. Then to Wogan's relief a few ladies and gentlemen stepped
+between, and the living screen hid him from her view.
+
+At this moment Lady Oxford lost heavily.
+
+'An ace? Sonica! I am bankrupt!' she cried, and rising from the table
+she addressed the Parson. 'Mr. Johnson, you bring me no better luck
+than did the Colonel. I must console myself with private talk, and
+news of lace and lutestring. What have you brought me? Come, I
+positively die to see,' and so, with her sweetest smile, she carried
+off the Parson.
+
+It was thus she had wrought on that first night when Kelly met the
+Colonel, but there was a mighty difference in Kelly's demeanour. Then
+he had given her his arm with the proudest gallantry. Now her ladyship
+went out of her way to lead him past Rose, where she sat with Lady
+Mary. He threw an imploring glance at the girl, and followed in Lady
+Oxford's wake, the very figure of discomfort.
+
+Fine smiles rippled silently round the company as the pair made their
+way to the door. Rose watched them, her face grown very hard and
+white, but she said no word until they had gone. She stood motionless,
+except that her bosom rose and fell quickly. Then she turned to Lady
+Mary.
+
+'I must bid your ladyship good-night,' she said; 'I have stayed too
+long.'
+
+Pride kept her voice clear, her words steady, but it could not mask
+the pain of her face.
+
+'What ails you, child? You must smile. Smile!' whispered Lady Mary.
+But Rose was struck too hard. She lowered her eyes and fixed them on
+the floor to hide the humiliation they expressed, but she could not
+smile. She tried, but no more came of it than a quiver at the corners
+of her lips, and then she set her mouth firmly, as though she could
+not trust herself.
+
+'I thought I had persuaded you,' whispered Lady Mary. 'It is for
+honour, it is for life, his life. Appearances are nothing. You _must_
+stay.'
+
+'I thank your ladyship, who is most kind. I will stay,' said the girl.
+Her face flushed purely with a delicate, proud anger.
+
+Lady Mary presented her to some of her friends, with whom Rose bore
+herself bravely. Wogan saw that she had taken her part, and blessed
+Lady Mary.
+
+He had followed Lady Oxford and the Parson out of the room, and leaned
+over the balusters while they descended the stairs. It was an ominous
+business, this summons of Lady Oxford. Why must she carry him off
+alone with her? What blow had she to strike? Mr. Wogan was not
+surprised that Kelly had turned pale, and though he held his head
+erect, had none the less the air of one led to the sacrifice. To make
+the matter yet more ominous, Lady Oxford herself seemed in a flutter
+of excitement; her colour was heightened; she sparkled with even more
+than her usual beauty; her tongue rattled with even more than its
+usual liveliness.
+
+Half-way down the stairs she met Lady Rich and Colonel Montague
+mounting. Lady Oxford stopped and spoke to the Colonel. Mr. Wogan
+caught a word or two, such as 'Miss Townley--the poor girl knows no
+one.' Kelly started a little; the Colonel sullenly bowed. Lady Oxford,
+leaning upon Mr. Kelly's arm in order to provoke the Colonel, must
+needs in pity bid the Colonel wait upon Rose in order to provoke Mr.
+Kelly. There Wogan recognised her ladyship's refinements.
+
+The pair passed down to the foot of the stairs. To the right of the
+staircase a door gave on to that little room into which Kelly had led
+Lady Oxford on the night of the Masquerade. Lady Oxford left his arm
+and went towards it.
+
+Kelly remained standing by the stairs, very still. It was in this room
+that Lady Oxford had discovered the Chevalier's likeness in the lid of
+the snuff-box, and had deceived George into the belief that she was,
+heart and soul, as deep in the Cause as he. It was that room which had
+witnessed the beginnings of the history. Now it seemed it was like to
+see the end.
+
+Kelly looked up the stairs and saw Wogan's face. He smiled, in a
+quiet, hopeless way, and then Lady Oxford threw open the door. She
+turned back to Kelly, a languorous smile upon her lips, a tender light
+in her eyes. Neither the smile nor the look had power to beguile the
+two men any longer. Kelly stepped forwards to her like a man that is
+tired. Wogan had again the queer sense of incongruity. Behind him
+voices laughed and chattered, in some room to his left music sounded;
+and here at the foot of the stairs was a woman all smiles and graces
+playing with Life and Death as a child with toys.
+
+The pair passed into the room. The door shut behind them. The click of
+the latch is one of the things Wogan never will forget.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ WHEREIN A NEW FLY DISCOURSES ON THE
+ INNOCENCE OF THE SPIDER'S WEB
+
+
+Wogan was still leaning on the rail of the balustrade when a watch was
+held beneath his nose.
+
+'The half-hour is gone, Mr. Hilton,' said Lord Sidney Beauclerk.
+
+'True,' said Wogan, 'it is now a quarter past eleven.' His eyes moved
+from the watch to the closed door. 'Half an hour, my lord,' he mused,
+'a small trifle of minutes. You may measure it by grains of sand, but,
+if you will, for each grain of sand you may count a life.'
+
+'You hit my sentiments to a nicety.'
+
+Lord Sidney spoke with a grave significance which roused Wogan from
+his reflections. The lad's face was hard; his eyes gloomy and fierce.
+Wogan remembered that, when Lord Sidney had spoken before, he had not
+seemed in the best of good humour.
+
+'My lord,' he said, 'we can hardly talk with comfort here in the
+doorway.' He led the way back into the inner withdrawing-room and
+across the room to the recess of a window.
+
+'Here we shall be private,' he said.
+
+'Mr. Hilton, you spoke a little while ago of a ballad, wherein, to use
+your words, the arm of flesh was preferred to a spiritual Blade. That
+may have been wit, of which I do not profess to be the judge. But you
+aimed an insult at a woman, and any man may claim to be the judge of
+that.'
+
+'My lord,' answered Wogan gently, 'you do not know the woman. I could
+wish you never will.'
+
+Lord Sidney laughed with a sharp scorn which brought the blood into
+Wogan's face. It was plain the remark was counted an evasion.
+
+'At all events I know an insult when I hear it. Let us keep to the
+insult, Mr. Hilton. It reaped its reward, for here and there a coward
+smirked his applause.' Lord Sidney's voice began to tremble with
+passion. 'But it has yet to be paid for. You must pay for it to me,'
+and, since Wogan kept silence, his passion of a sudden got the upper
+hand, and in a low quick voice--there was as much pain as anger in
+it--'It hurts me,' he said, clenching his hands, 'it positively hurts
+me. Here is a woman'--he stopped in full flight, and blushed with a
+youthful sort of shame at his eloquence--'a woman, sir, in a word, and
+you must torture her with your brave sneers and she must wear a
+smiling face while her heart bleeds! Mr. Hilton, are you a man? Why,
+then, so am I, and it humiliates me that we should both be men. The
+humiliation will not pass even after,' and he drew a breath in through
+his shut teeth, 'after I have killed you.'
+
+Mr. Wogan had listened to the outburst with all the respect he thought
+due to a boy's frank faith. A boy--Wogan's years were not many more
+than his, but he had seen mankind, and marvelled how they will trust a
+woman who, they know, has fooled one man, if but a husband. But, at
+Lord Sidney's talk of killing him, Wogan sank the philosopher and
+could not repress a grin.
+
+'Kill me, my young friend; _ne fait ce tour qui veut_,' he said; 'but
+sure you may try if you will. You will not be the first who has
+tried.'
+
+'I have no doubt of that,' said Lord Sidney gravely, 'and you will
+oblige me by using another word. I may be young, Mr. Hilton, but I
+thank God I am not your friend.'
+
+There was a dignity, a sincerity in his manner which to Mr. Wogan's
+ears robbed the speech of all impertinence. Wogan simply bowed and
+said:
+
+'If you will send your friend to Burton's Coffee House in the
+morning----'
+
+'To Burton's Coffee House.'
+
+Lord Sidney turned away. Mr. Wogan drew aside the curtain of the
+window and stared out into the night with an unusual discontent.
+Across the road Mr. Scrope was still lurking in the shadow--a hired
+spy. Very like, he had once been just such another honest lad, with
+just the same chivalry, before my lady cast her covetous eyes on him.
+Downstairs in the little room the Parson was fighting, for the Cause,
+for his sweetheart, for his liberty, and maybe for his life, with
+little prospect of a safe issue. It seemed a pity that Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk should be wasted too.
+
+'My lord,' said Wogan, calling after Lord Sidney. And Lord Sidney came
+back. Wogan was still holding the curtain aside; he had some vague
+thought of relating Scrope's history, but his first glance at Lord
+Sidney's face showed to him it would not avail. Lord Sidney would
+disbelieve it utterly. Wogan dropped the curtain.
+
+'How old is your lordship?' he asked.
+
+Lord Sidney looked surprised, as well he might, and then blushed for
+his youth.
+
+'I am twenty,' he said, 'and some months,' with considerable emphasis
+on the months as though they made a world of difference.
+
+'Ah,' replied Wogan, 'I am of the century's age, twenty-two and some
+more months. You are astonished, my lord. But when I was fifteen I
+fought in battles.'
+
+'Was it to tell me this you called me back?'
+
+'No,' said Wogan solemnly, 'but you meet me tomorrow. I am not sure
+that I could do you better service than by taking care that you meet
+no one afterwards. It was that I had to tell you,' and he added with a
+smile, 'but I do not think I shall bring myself to do you that
+service.'
+
+Lord Sidney's face changed a little from its formal politeness. He
+eyed Mr. Wogan as though for a moment he doubted whether he had not
+mistaken his man. Then he said:
+
+'In a duel, Mr. Hilton, there are two who fight.'
+
+'Not always, my lord. Sometimes there is one who only defends,' and
+with that they parted. Clamorous dames took Lord Sidney captive. Wogan
+looked at his watch. Five minutes had passed since that latch had
+clicked. He strolled out of the room to the stairs. The door was still
+shut. He came back into the room and stood by Lady Mary, who was
+describing to Rose the characters of those who passed by. She looked
+anxiously at Wogan, who had no comforting news and shook his head, but
+she did not cease from her rattle.
+
+'And here comes Colonel Montague with a yellow bundle of bones tied up
+in parchment, 'she cried. Lady Rich was the bundle of bones in
+parchment. 'Colonel Montague--well, my dear, he is a gallant officer
+in the King's guards who fought at Preston, and he owes his life to a
+noisy Irish boy who has since grown out of all recognition.'
+
+Here Rose suddenly looked up at Wogan.
+
+'It was this Colonel Montague you saved!' said she.
+
+'Hush,' whispered Wogan, who had his own reasons for wishing the
+Colonel should discover nothing upon that head. 'Remember, if you
+please, that my name is Hilton.'
+
+Colonel Montague led Lady Rich to the sofa.
+
+'Colonel, has fortune deserted you that you look so glum?' asked Lady
+Mary.
+
+'I am on the losing hand indeed, your ladyship, to-night,' said
+Montague bitterly.
+
+'Well, _malheureux en jeu_,' said her ladyship maliciously, 'you may
+take comfort from the rest of the proverb.'
+
+Lady Rich shook her rose-coloured ribbons, a girlish simpleton of
+forty summers.
+
+'I am vastly ashamed of being so prodigiously ignorant,' said she. 'I
+daresay I ask a mighty silly question, but what is the rest?'
+
+'French, my dear, and it means that fifteen years is the properest age
+for a woman to continue at, but why need one be five?'
+
+Colonel Montague smiled grimly. Mr. Wogan stifled a laugh. Lady Rich
+looked somewhat disconcerted.
+
+'Oh, is that a proverb?' said she with a _minauderie_. 'I shall dote
+on proverbs,' and so she simpered out of range.
+
+Lady Mary lifted up her hands.
+
+'_Regardez cet animal!_' she cried; '_considérez ce néant_. There's a
+pretty soul to be immortal.'
+
+'Your ladyship is cruel,' said Rose in remonstrance.
+
+'Nay, my dear, it is the only way to keep her quiet. My Lady Rich is
+like a top that hums senselessly. You must whip it hard enough and
+then it goes to sleep and makes no noise. Mr. Hilton, are you struck
+dumb?'
+
+Mr. Hilton's ears were on the stretch to catch the sound of a door,
+and making an excuse he moved away. Suspense kept him restless; it
+seemed every muscle in his body clamoured to be doing. He walked again
+to the window. Scrope was still fixed at his post. Wogan sauntered out
+of the room to the stairs, and down the stairs to the hall. The hall
+was empty. The door of the little room where Kelly and Lady Oxford
+were closeted was shut, and no sound came through it, either of word
+or movement. Wogan wished he had been born a housemaid, that he might
+lean his ear against the keyhole without any shame at the
+eavesdropping. He stood at the stair-foot gazing at the door as though
+his eyes would melt the oak by the ardour of their look. Above the
+voices laughed, the smooth music murmured of all soft pleasures. Here,
+in the quiet of the hall, Wogan began to think the door would never
+open; he had a foolish fancy that he was staring at the lid of a
+coffin sealed down until the Judgment Day, and indeed the room might
+prove a coffin. He looked at his watch; only a poor quarter of an hour
+had passed since the door had closed. Wogan could not believe it; he
+shook his watch in the belief that it had stopped, and then a hubbub
+arose in the street. The noise drew nearer and nearer, and Wogan could
+distinguish the shouts of newsboys crying their papers. What they
+cried as yet he could not hear. In the great room at the head of the
+stairs the voices of a sudden ceased; here and there a window was
+thrown open. The ominous din rang through the open windows and floated
+down the stairs, first the vague cries, then the sound of running
+feet, and last of all the words, clear as a knell:
+
+'Bloody Popish Plot! A Plot discovered!'
+
+So Lady Oxford had played her cards. The plot was out; Scrope was in
+the street; the Parson was trapped. Wogan determined to open that
+door. He took his hand from the balustrade, but before he had advanced
+a step, the door was opened from within. Her ladyship sailed forth
+upon Mr. Kelly's arm, radiant with smiles; and, to Wogan's
+astonishment, Kelly in the matter of good humour seemed in no wise
+behind her.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIX
+
+ STROKE AND COUNTER-STROKE
+
+
+Those fifteen minutes had none the less proved a _mauvais quart
+d'heure_ for Mr. Kelly. As he entered the room, the memories of the
+grey morning when first he stood there were heavy upon his thoughts. A
+cheerful fire burnt upon the hearth now as then. There was the settee
+on which her ladyship had lain in her pretended swoon. The text which
+he had read in the Deanery recurred to him: 'Her ways are the ways of
+Death; her feet take hold on Hell.' Through the open door came the
+sound of music and the words jangled through Kelly's mind to the tune.
+
+Lady Oxford closed the door; as the latch caught, Kelly lifted his
+head and faced her. On that first occasion her ladyship had worn a
+mask, and in truth she wore no mask now. A cruel smile played about
+her lips; a cruel light glittered in her eyes. She looked him over
+with triumph, as though he were her captive bound hand and foot. The
+look braced Mr. Kelly. He started from his memories as a man starts up
+from sleep; he lived alert and complete in the moments as they passed.
+Rose, the King's papers, his own liberty--this was his new text. Her
+ladyship could be trusted to give a sufficient exposition of the
+other.
+
+She seated herself, and with her fan beckoned him to a chair.
+
+'We have much to speak of, sir. I hear that I have to make you my
+congratulations, and to pay you my thanks. You may conceive with what
+sincerity.'
+
+Mr. Kelly remained standing by the fireside.
+
+'For what services does your ladyship thank me?'
+
+'You have made me a tavern-jest. I have to thank you for a ballad.'
+
+Mr. Kelly did not deny or argue the point. His pressing business was
+to know what Lady Oxford intended.
+
+'And on what fortunate event does your ladyship congratulate me?'
+
+'Are there so many fortunate events in the life of an Irish runagate
+and traitor? On your happy marriage, sir, with the starving
+apothecary's daughter.'
+
+Mr. Kelly laughed pleasantly.
+
+'Your ladyship is pleased to be facetious. Upon my honour, I know no
+such woman,' he said, thinking thus to provoke her to disclose her
+purposes.
+
+Lady Oxford, to his surprise, rose up with a joyful air. 'I knew it,'
+she cried. 'I knew the story of the girl was the idle talk of the
+Cocoa Tree. And Lady Mary thought to stab me with the cruel news. Ah,
+if the honour of my Strephon be pledged, his Smilinda's anger
+vanishes.'
+
+Here she threw her arms about Kelly's neck, in a very particular
+embrace, as if she would kiss him. But she refrained from such a
+caress. Her arms were clasped tighter and yet more tight till Kelly
+could scarcely breathe, and her cold whispering mouth touched his ear.
+
+'There was, then, no starving apothecary?'
+
+'None, madam. You have been misinformed.'
+
+The embrace grew deadly tight. He could not have thought that a woman
+had such strength in her arms.
+
+'No man named Townley? No daughter Rose? No wound? No nursing? No
+love-vows? No dog Harlequin? No betrothal? Liar!' she whispered in a
+strange voice, 'I see your miss's ring upon your finger. I saw my
+portrait upon her breast. Did she steal it? 'Tis like enough. But 'tis
+likelier that you lie!'
+
+'Your ladyship misunderstands,' said Kelly. 'I denied that there was a
+starving apothecary's daughter. I did not deny that there was a man
+named Townley, who, by the way, is your ladyship's guest. I did not
+deny there was a daughter Rose----'
+
+'Go!' she cried suddenly, releasing Kelly, and pushing him off. 'I
+know everything, everything. Go, traitor to your King and to your
+word! And when you are hanged, but _not till you are dead_, remember
+that you have made a toy and jest of _me_, babbling to your Lady Marys
+and your Wogans.'
+
+She flung herself back on a settee panting and tearing her laced
+handkerchief into shreds. Kelly waited a little for her to recover her
+composure.
+
+'Madam,' he said, 'in the fatal circumstances you mention with such
+relish, it is certainly not of you that I shall think, though in less
+painful moments I shall ever do so with honour and gratitude. As for
+what you say of my babbling, I protest my innocence before Heaven.
+Your ladyship forgets that you have an enemy from whom it was my good
+fortune once to defend you.'
+
+Lady Oxford dropped her handkerchief and sat forward staring
+doubtfully at Kelly, who at once pressed his advantage.
+
+'It was into this room that I then had the honour of escorting your
+ladyship. Upon that occasion, if I may be pardoned for reminding you,
+what appears now to be treachery in me, seemed more akin to loyalty.
+But though the sentiments of your ladyship have suffered a change
+since then, those of Mr. Scrope have not. It was he who had attacked
+you then; it is he who attacks you now, and, believe me, it is my
+regret that I was not again at hand to defend you.'
+
+The Parson should have stopped before those last few words were
+spoken. He spoke them in all sincerity, but they lost him the
+advantage he had gained, for it was not in Lady Oxford's nature to
+believe them. She made her profit out of her lovers' sincerity, yet
+could not comprehend it. It seemed almost as though some instinct led
+her to choose them for that very quality, with which her judgment
+could not credit them.
+
+'A fine story,' she exclaimed with a sneer, 'and no doubt the
+apothecary's daughter would be entirely content with it, but I know
+you lie.'
+
+Kelly bowed in silence.
+
+'Wait,' she said, mistaking the bow, for Mr. Kelly had a certain
+question to ask before he returned to the company; 'we must appear
+together.'
+
+She took in her hand a box of lace which had been placed ready in the
+room.
+
+'Your hand, if you please, Mr. Johnson, for the last time. You are
+going, sir, to your death by rope and knife, or by point of sword.'
+
+Mr. Kelly gave Lady Oxford his hand, and put his question:
+
+'Your Ladyship has no fear that I shall escape?'
+
+Her ladyship had none whatever, as her smile clearly showed.
+
+'Then perhaps your ladyship will inform me how much liberty I have
+still left to me.'
+
+'You have to-night free,' she answered, and as he heard the words
+Kelly's heart gave a great leap within him. 'So much reprieve you
+have. But you must not go till I dismiss you. Enjoy yourself.' She
+took Kelly's hand with a low courtesy.
+
+He had to-night free! At all events, the King's papers would be saved.
+If all else went down, the papers would be saved. So it came about
+that he met Wogan at the stair-foot with a smiling face.
+
+In the withdrawing-room the clatter of tongues had begun again, so
+that neither Lady Oxford nor the Parson distinguished the shouts of
+the newsboys, as they mounted the stairs. To Mr. Wogan, indeed, who
+followed upon their heels, the words no longer rose clear and audible.
+But as they entered the room, it was plain something was stirring. The
+windows stood open, gentlemen leaned out, ladies asked questions;
+about each window there was a restless, noisy group. The candles
+guttered in the wind; the card-tables were deserted; and straight in
+front of him Mr. Wogan saw Rose, her hands clasped in an extremity of
+apprehension. Colonel Montague stood beside her chatting easily and
+making as though he remarked nothing of her uneasiness.
+
+Then the hoarse cries again rang through the room.
+
+'Bloody Popish Plot.' 'A Plot discovered.'
+
+'What, yet another Plot?' said Mr. Wogan smiling to Lady Oxford.
+
+'Mr. Walpole discovers plots by the dozen; he is the most active of
+our guardians, 'said Kelly easily. He dared not look at Rose.
+
+'We must hear more of it,' said Lady Oxford pleasantly, and calling
+her black boy: 'Run, Sambo, bring this late-flying night-bird of ill
+omen.'
+
+The boy grinned, and ran away upon his errand. Lady Oxford came up to
+my Lady Mary Montagu.
+
+'See, madam,' she cried, opening the box of lace with the air of a
+child that has a new toy.
+
+'See what this kind obliger has brought me from the looms of the Fairy
+Queen. All point d'Alençon of the finest. Yes, you may well look
+envious. Here is meat for a Queen.'
+
+The other ladies, deserting the windows when they heard that magical
+word 'lace,' crowded round, and Kelly was, where many a pretty fellow
+would have loved to be, in the centre of a perfumed world of fans and
+hoops, of sparkling eyes and patched faces. Kelly, however, had other
+business on hand, and, slipping through the group while Lady Oxford
+was praising her lace, he drew Wogan aside to a window now deserted.
+There he told him of his conversation with Lady Oxford.
+
+'So you see, Nick, I have to-night free. I mean to run to my lodging,
+burn the papers, and then--why one has a night free. I may yet outwit
+my lady. Besides, the papers once burned, there's little proof to
+condemn me. Speak to Rose, Nick! She will believe _you_; you never
+lied to her. Tell her there's no need to despair. Then make speed to
+the coast. I must go to Ryder Street.'
+
+As he turned, Nick caught him by the arm.
+
+'You must not go yet.'
+
+'Why?'
+
+For answer Wogan turned to the window.
+
+'Stand here in the shadow of the curtain. Across the street; there, in
+the corner.'
+
+Kelly put his hands to his face to shut out the light of the room, and
+peered into the darkness.
+
+'There is a man. Who is it?'
+
+'I told you! Scrope. I saw him an hour ago. A link-boy's torch showed
+me his face. You have to-night free. An hour or so more will make
+little difference to you, and may tire out our friend there--or he may
+mean another bout with the sharps.'
+
+'I hope so,' said Kelly.
+
+At this moment Sambo returned with a little damp sheet of the _Flying
+Post_, and the laces were forgotten. Sambo carried the sheet to Lady
+Oxford.
+
+'Faugh,' said she, 'I dare not touch the inky thing!'
+
+Wogan came out from his window, where he left his friend, and took the
+sheet from the boy's black paw.
+
+'Does your ladyship wish to alarm us all by reading out the news?
+These Papists are terrible fellows.'
+
+'Read! Read!' said Lady Oxford, with a contented laugh.
+
+Wogan ran his eyes over the print.
+
+'It is scarce fit for ladies' ears,' he said meaningly. 'Some nonsense
+out of Grub Street. The wretch should be whipped from Temple Bar to
+Westminster,' and Wogan made as if he would tear the sheet.
+
+Her ladyship hesitated. But she could not guess what the sheet
+contained, and she knew Mr. Wogan would try to screen his friend.
+
+'Nay, read sir,' she said boldly, 'or must I imperil my own fingers
+with the foul thing?'
+
+Wogan folded the paper, and with a bow held it out to her ladyship;
+again she hesitated; she did not take the sheet; she looked into
+Wogan's face as though she would read the news-sheet there. Curious
+smiles began to show upon the faces about her, heads to nod, lips to
+whisper.
+
+'Shall I oblige your ladyship?' asked Mr. Methuen, who stood by.
+
+'If you please,' replied Lady Oxford, but in a less certain tone than
+she had used before.
+
+Mr. Methuen took the sheet from Wogan's hand, unfolded it, and glanced
+at it.
+
+'It is indeed scarce fit for your ladyship's ears,' he said; and in
+his turn he folded it.
+
+The smiles broadened, the whispers increased. Lady Oxford was
+altogether disconcerted.
+
+'I will read it,' a young voice rang out. Lord Sidney Beauclerk
+stepped forward, took the sheet from Mr. Methuen, and at once read it
+aloud. He began defiantly, but towards the end his voice faltered. Mr.
+Kelly did not turn round, and seemed to pay no heed whatever.
+
+
+'They write from Paris that a foul Plot against the Throne, and even
+the sacred Person of His Most Gracious Majesty hath been discovered.
+In Town, it is thought that a Lady of great Beauty who has a Tory Lord
+of advanced years and gouty Habit to her Husband, and a young Whig
+Officer of great Promise for her Friend, hath given the Intelligence
+to the Minister. Nobody has yet been taken, but the Gentry of the
+Silver Greyhound are thought to have their eyes on a certain Reverend
+Nonjuror. We say no more for the present.'
+
+
+Lord Sidney crumpled up the sheet, and retiring from the circle,
+slowly tore it in pieces.
+
+'To be sure, they say quite enough,' murmured Lady Mary, and no one
+else spoke, but all looked to Lady Oxford.
+
+Lady Oxford was brave.
+
+In the silence of the company who were gathered round she spoke.
+
+'Too scurrilous to need a contradiction! Doubtless it is I and my kind
+lace-dealer who are aimed at. Now Mr. Johnson is here, and is my
+guest. The inference is plain.'
+
+Mr. Johnson turned from the window and came up to the group.
+
+'My confidence in her ladyship is as great as my certainty that there
+is no Plot in which I am concerned,' said Kelly, bowing to the lady,
+and letting his jolly laugh out of him to the comfort of the company
+who did not smoke his jest. Mr. Wogan admired his friend.
+
+It was now become impossible for Kelly to leave the house. Should he
+go now, his going would wear all the appearances of a hasty flight,
+and who knew but what some of Mr. Walpole's spies might be within the
+room as well as in the street? Kelly must remain and brave it out, as
+he clearly recognised. For,
+
+'There are ears to be cut for this,' he went on, 'but we had better be
+cutting the cards.'
+
+'Mr. Johnson holds the bank with me!' cried Lady Oxford. 'After this
+terrible false alarm I am ready to risk all, and brave everything. I
+must win enough to pay for my laces; I am much in Mr. Johnson's debt.
+Sambo, my money box.'
+
+The black boy ran out of the room. Mr. Kelly walked towards the
+card-table, and as he went, a light hand was laid upon his arm, and
+Rose's trembling voice whispered in his ear:
+
+'George, you will go. Yes, now, to-night. There may yet be time for
+you to cross to France.'
+
+Mr. Kelly was comforted beyond words, beyond belief. Rose knew, and
+she forgave; he had not thought it was in woman's nature. But he was
+also tempted to fly; his papers unburned, the Cause deserted. The hand
+upon his sleeve had its fingers on his heart-strings, and was twanging
+them to a very pretty tune. A few strides would bring him to the
+doorway, a couple of leaps to the foot of the stairs, and outside was
+the night.
+
+'You will go,' she repeated, seeing how her voice weakened him.
+'Now--now.'
+
+'Yes 'trembled on his lips. It seemed to Rose in her great longing
+that she heard the word breathed upon the air. But he did not speak
+it; he spoke no word at all. He started, his mouth dropped, his blue
+eyes stared, the blood was drained from his cheeks. He stood amazed,
+like one that sees a ghost. Rose followed the direction of his eyes;
+she saw the guests, the tables, the candles, but nothing that should
+so startle her lover.
+
+'What is it?' she asked, fearing any delay that checked the assent she
+had seen tremble on his lips. 'You will go! You will go!' But even as
+she spoke she knew that he would not go. His face kept its pallor, but
+grew resolute, ennobled. He had ceased to think of his own safety.
+
+'I cannot go,' he said.
+
+'Why?'
+
+'Mr. Johnson,' Lady Oxford's voice broke in. Sambo had returned with a
+casket curiously enamelled. 'Mr. Johnson,' said she, looking into the
+casket: 'Some five hundred pounds.'
+
+'And six rouleaux,' added Kelly, bringing out the spoils of Hazard
+with an air.
+
+Rose turned away, her face of a sudden grown very white and hard. She
+had done her best to make Kelly seek safety, and he would not: could
+she do more?
+
+The Parson crossed suddenly to Wogan, his face very pale, but with a
+wonderful bright light in his eyes.
+
+'Nick, I have seen the King, here, in this room, young, happy. The
+shadow of the hundred years of sorrow of his race has lifted from his
+forehead.'
+
+'The King is at Antwerp, George. You have not seen him.'
+
+'Then it is his spirit, which has taken form to hearten us,' Kelly
+whispered in a voice of awe.
+
+'George, you have seen Lord Sidney Beauclerk.' It needed no more than
+a word to make him understand. He had not seen the King nor the King's
+appearance, only the King's cousin, Lord Sidney. But now he could not
+forget any longer that the King's papers were in his lodgings; that at
+all costs he must reach his lodgings unfollowed; that at all costs
+those papers must be a little pile of ashes before the morning came.
+
+'The bank is open,' said Lady Oxford. 'Colonel Montague, will you find
+a lady and be our opposite?'
+
+The glum Colonel bowed in silence, and allied himself with silly
+smiling Lady Rich. The play was high. The luck had not deserted Kelly,
+while Lady Oxford paid him a hundred flattering compliments and
+bantered her military lover, who was not ready at repartee or was not
+ready then.
+
+'_Malheureux en jeu_,' said Lady Oxford, repeating the proverb Lady
+Mary had already quoted that evening. 'How fortunate, Colonel, must be
+your affections!'
+
+'It is only your ladyship who has all the luck and wins, or wins back
+if she loses,' answered the Colonel, looking at Mr. Kelly with an evil
+favour, and her ladyship laughed in pure delight.
+
+There was another game besides Quadrille played at that table. Lady
+Oxford was setting Colonel Montague and the Parson by the ears. Did
+she wish to embroil them in a quarrel to make Kelly's ruin doubly
+sure? Wogan watched the Colonel; he had the first claim upon the
+Colonel's sword. Mr. Kelly kept smiling and raking in the rippling
+golden stakes. The company stood round; they had left their tables to
+see this great battle of Quadrille. At times Wogan caught a glimpse of
+Rose Townley through a gap in the circle. She could not know why her
+lover had not fled. She only knew that, in her despite, he stayed in
+the house of the woman of whom he had told her at Avignon, though his
+life was in peril; she only saw that woman fawning upon him, and him
+smiling back to the woman. Lady Mary had stolen her hand into the
+girl's, that no doubt was cold as marble, and in his heart Wogan
+blessed her kind ladyship. At last all the tide of gold had turned to
+Lady Oxford's side of the table. The Colonel rose and confessed
+defeat.
+
+People began to say their good-byes. Dr. Townley crossed the room to
+his daughter, who rose at once with a word of thanks to Lady Mary. Mr.
+Kelly remarked her movement, and with an imploring look bade her wait
+until Lady Oxford released him.
+
+'Mr. Johnson,' said her ladyship, dividing the winnings, 'short
+accounts make long friends. I think when you reckon up the night you
+will find that all my great debt to you is fully paid.'
+
+Mr. Kelly bowed, and took the money, his eyes on her flushed face and
+glittering serpent's eyes. Lady Oxford turned to Colonel Montague.
+
+'Your revenge is waiting for you, Colonel, whenever you are pleased to
+claim it. To-morrow if you will.'
+
+'Madam, I may claim my revenge to-night,' said the Colonel, and
+stepped back with his full weight upon Kelly's foot. There was no
+mistaking the deliberate movement. Lady Oxford made as though she had
+not seen it, but as she turned away her face had a look of pleasure,
+which Mr. Kelly remarked.
+
+'Nay, Colonel,' said Wogan, 'you and I have a game to play, you
+remember. Le Queux's is still open and I claim the first call on your
+leisure at Hazard.'
+
+Colonel Montague answered Mr. Wogan with a good-nature which the
+latter did not comprehend.
+
+'I have indeed some words to say to you, sir.'
+
+'But, Colonel,' said the Parson, 'you trod upon my foot. I shall be
+happy to consult you on the bruise to-morrow.'
+
+'To-morrow?' said Montague, his face hardening instantly. 'I may
+inquire after it before then,' and so making his bow he got him from
+the room.
+
+Lady Oxford gave her hand to Wogan and dismissed him with a friendly
+word. She was so occupied with the pleasure of her revenge that she
+had altogether forgotten his jest about the ballad. Wogan on his side
+made his leave-taking as short as could be, for out of the corner of
+his eye he saw Kelly offering his arm to Miss Townley, and Kelly must
+not leave the house without Wogan at his side. For, in the first
+place, Colonel Montague was for a sure thing standing sentinel within
+ten paces of the door, and after he had run the gauntlet of the
+Colonel, there was Scrope for him to make his account with, should
+Scrope attempt to follow in his tracks. Mr. Wogan had a mind to insist
+upon his first claim to Colonel Montague's attentions, and, once they
+were rid of him, it would not be difficult to come to a suitable
+understanding with Scrope should he attempt to follow them to Ryder
+Street.
+
+Mr. Wogan was indeed already relishing in anticipation the half-hour
+that was to come, and hurried after the Parson, who was by this time
+close to the door with Rose upon his arm and Dr. Townley at his heels.
+
+'Good night, Mr. Johnson,' said her ladyship in a lazy voice. 'Take
+care of yourself, for they tell me the streets are not too safe.'
+
+Kelly dropped Rose Townley's arm and turned back towards Lady Oxford.
+
+'But surely,' said he with some anxiety, 'tonight the streets are
+safe. Your ladyship assured me of their safety to-night.'
+
+Lady Oxford made no reply for a few seconds, she stood watching Kelly
+with an indolent smile. A word of Lady Mary's came back to Wogan's
+mind--a word spoken two years since in Paris, 'She will play cat to
+any man's mouse.'
+
+'To-night?' said Lady Oxford, lifting her eyebrows, and she glanced
+towards the clock. It was five minutes to one. Kelly stared at the
+clock, his mouth open and his eyes fixed. Then he drew his hand across
+his forehead, and, walking slowly to the mantelpiece, leaned his hands
+on it in a broken attitude and so stared at the clock again. Lady
+Oxford had struck her last blow, and the last was the heaviest. Kelly
+had the night free, but the night was gone--and the streets were not
+safe. Nothing could be saved now--not even the King's papers. Then
+Wogan saw a change come over his face. The despair died out of it and
+left it blank as a shuttered window. But very slowly the shutter
+opened. He was thinking; the thought became a hope, the hope a
+resolve. First his knees straightened, then the rounded shoulders rose
+stiff and strong. In his turn Kelly struck.
+
+'Your ladyship,' he said, 'was kind enough some time ago to entrust me
+with your own _brocades_. Those brocades are in the strong box in my
+lodgings.'
+
+Wogan understood. Brocades was the name for letters in the jargon of
+the Plot. Lady Oxford's love-letters were in that box which he had
+handled that very afternoon. If Kelly was seized in the street his
+rooms would be searched, the King's papers found, and, with the King's
+papers, Lady Oxford's love-letters. Lady Oxford understood too. Her
+ingenious stratagems of the evening to discredit the ballad and save
+her fair fame would be of little avail if the world once got wind of
+those pretty outpourings of Smilinda's heart. Her face grew very
+white. She dropped her fan and stooped to recover it. It was
+noticeable, though unnoticed, that no one of those who were still
+present stepped forward to pick up the fan. Curiosity held them in
+chains, not for the first time that evening. It was as though they
+stood in a room and knew that behind locked doors two people were
+engaged in a duel. Now and then a clink of steel would assure them
+that a thrust was made; but how the duel went they could not tell.
+
+When Lady Oxford rose her colour had returned.
+
+'My brocades?' she said. 'Indeed, I had purely forgotten them. You
+have had them repaired in Paris?'
+
+'Yes, madam,' answered Kelly deliberately. 'I do not think the streets
+are so unsafe as your ladyship supposes; but I should be sorry for
+them to fall into any hands but your own if by any chance footpads end
+my days to-night.'
+
+He bowed and walked towards Rose Townley and her father, who stood in
+the doorway at a loss what to make of the scene. He had crossed half
+the distance before Lady Oxford moved. Then, it seemed with one swift
+step, she stood at Kelly's side.
+
+'Mr. Johnson, you are my prisoner!' she exclaimed. 'My dear brocades!
+Mr. Johnson, you are surely the most attentive of men. You must tell
+me how they have been repaired; I shall not close my eyes unless you
+take pity on my impatience.'
+
+Had Kelly been the man to care for triumphs wrested from a woman, he
+would have found his occasion now. A minute before, Lady Oxford's eyes
+glittered with menaces, her face was masterful; now, her eyes besought
+pity, her face was humbled.
+
+'If your ladyship will permit me,' said Kelly, 'I will return when I
+have seen Miss Townley to her chair.'
+
+It was a difficult moment for Miss Townley. For to those who looked on
+it seemed that by some means here was Mr. Johnson brought back into
+bondage before the very eyes of his betrothed. But Rose was patient of
+Lady Mary's lesson. 'Tomorrow give him his _congé_ if you will;
+to-night be staunch! It is for life and honour!' She knew no more, but
+she was loyal. Wogan had seen men go, for the Cause, to a shameful
+death by torture. But he never saw courage so unfaltering, or loyalty
+so true, as this girl's. She was not herself in that hour; she had
+taken up a part as an actress does, and she played it clean, and
+played it through. To-morrow she might be a woman again, a woman
+wronged, deceived, insulted; to-night, with the astonishing valour and
+duplicity of her sex, she was all in her part, to see nothing, to know
+nothing, to be staunch.
+
+To the smiles, the simpered sarcasms, the quizzing glances, she paid
+no heed. She said, with a simple dignity, to Lady Oxford:
+
+'I will not keep Mr. Johnson long. It is but a few steps to your
+ladyship's door, where my chair waits for me,' and she held out her
+hand to Kelly. She had her reward. Kelly's face put on a look of pride
+which no one in the room could mistake. He took her hand with a laugh,
+and threw back his chest.
+
+'I will return, your ladyship,' he said gaily, and with Rose passed
+out of the door. The whispers were stilled; the couple went down the
+stairs in a great silence. Rose bore herself bravely until she had
+stepped into her chair; showed a brave face then at the window.
+
+'I shall hear of you from France,' she whispered. 'Good-night.'
+
+The chair was carried off; Dr. Townley followed. The Parson returned
+slowly up the stairs. His heart was full; in Rose's eyes he had seen
+the tears gathering; no doubt in the darkness of her chair they were
+flowing now. She would hear of him from France! Well, he had his one
+weapon--Lady Oxford's letters. If he used that weapon aright, why
+should she not hear of him from France? By the time he reached the top
+of the stairs, he was already putting together the words of the letter
+he should write.
+
+When he re-entered the withdrawing-room, the last few guests, of whom
+Wogan was one, were taking their departure. Wogan saw Kelly move
+towards the little card-table which had stood empty. Kelly sat down,
+and with the fingers of one hand he played with the cards, cutting
+them unwittingly as though for a deal. It was, after all, he and not
+Wogan who had to play the hand with the shrouded figure. Wogan had
+already made his adieux. As he passed out of the door Lady Oxford was
+standing in the middle of the room plucking at her fan. As he went
+down the stairs, the door was flung to with a bang. Lady Oxford and
+Kelly were left alone.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XX
+
+ MR. SCROPE BATHES BY MOONLIGHT AND IN HIS
+ PERUKE
+
+
+Wogan had heard two doors shut that evening, and with very different
+feelings. One had been latched gently, and the sound had filled him
+with apprehensions; one had been flung to with an angry violence, and
+the sound soothed him like the crooning of music. For Kelly, it
+seemed, after all held the trumps in his hand; he had but to play them
+aright and the game was his.
+
+'The longer he takes to play them the better,' murmured Wogan, as he
+stood on the steps of Lady Oxford's house and looked briskly about
+him. For to his left, standing openly in the moonlight, he saw a tall
+martial figure wrapped in a cloak, and the end of a scabbard shining
+beneath the cloak, while across the road his eyes made out a hunched
+form blotted against the wall. The figure in the cloak was Colonel
+Montague; the skulker would no less certainly be Mr. Scrope. If the
+Parson would only take time enough to deploy his arguments like a
+careful general! Mr. Wogan would have liked to have run back and
+assured Kelly that there was no need whatever for hurry, since he
+himself had enough amusements on his hands to make the time pass
+pleasantly.
+
+He advanced to the Colonel first.
+
+'Sir, it is now to-morrow, the date at which you kindly promised me a
+few moments of your leisure. You may hear the chimes of the Abbey
+strike the half hour after one.'
+
+'Mr. Wogan,' replied the Colonel, 'I reckon this yesterday--till after
+breakfast. At present I have an engagement with another person.'
+
+'Colonel Montague, your reckoning of time is contrary to the almanac,
+and to a sound metaphysic, of which I am the ardent advocate. You will
+understand, sir, that such a difference of opinion between gentlemen
+admits of only one conclusion.'
+
+Colonel Montague smiled, and to Wogan's chagrin and astonishment
+replied:
+
+'You have grown a foot, or thereby, Mr. Wogan, since last we met, on
+an occasion which you will permit me to say that I can never forget.
+All our differences are sunk for ever in that one consideration. I
+implore you to leave me to the settlement of my pressing business.'
+
+So the Colonel knew of that unfortunate rescue at Preston. Wogan,
+however, was not so easily put off.
+
+'Grown a foot, sir!' he cried. 'I am not the same man! You speak of a
+boy, who died long ago; if he made a mistake in saving your life,
+overlook a pure accident, and oblige me.'
+
+'The accident does not remove my obligation.'
+
+'If you knew the truth, you would be sensible that there was no
+obligation in the matter. Come, take a stroll in the Park, and I'll
+tell the truth of the whole matter to whichever of us is alive to hear
+it.'
+
+'I had the whole truth already, to-night, from the young lady.'
+
+'The young lady?' Wogan had told Rose Townley of how he saved the life
+of a Colonel Montague, and to-night he had informed her that this
+Colonel was the man. She had been standing by his elbow when he had
+picked his quarrel with Montague. Sure she had overheard and had
+interfered to prevent it. 'The young lady!' he cried. 'All women are
+spoil-sports. But, Colonel, you must not believe her. I made a great
+deal of that story when I told it to Miss Townley. But you would find
+it a very simple affair if you had it from an eye-witness.'
+
+The Colonel shook his head.
+
+'Yet the story was very circumstantial, how you leaped from the
+barricades--'
+
+'That were but two feet high.'
+
+'And, through a cross fire of bullets, crossed the square to where I
+lay--'
+
+'The fire was a half charge of duckshot that an old fellow let off by
+mismanagement from a rusty pistol. Both sides stopped firing the
+moment I jumped over--the politest thing. I might have been tripping
+down the Mall with a lady on my arm, for all the danger I ran.'
+
+'But your wounds?'
+
+'I slipped and cut my shin on the sharp cobbles, that's true.'
+
+'Mr. Wogan, it will not do! Had I known your name this evening when
+Lady Mary made us acquainted, certain expressions properly distasteful
+to you would not have escaped my lips. But now I can make amends for
+them to the gallant gentleman who brought a wounded enemy out of a
+cross-fire. I apologise to you, but I cannot oblige you to the extent
+you wish, however you may attempt to make light of your courage, and
+of the obligation on my side.'
+
+'Sure, Colonel, to be done with adornment of the real truth, I only
+saved such a fine man to have the pleasure of killing him myself.'
+
+Here the Colonel broke into a laugh.
+
+'Mr. Wogan, if I drew my sword and stood up before you without making
+a parry or a lunge, would you kill me?'
+
+'No, indeed, there would be little diversion in that game,' said
+Wogan, who was now grown quite melancholic.
+
+'Well, that is the utmost you will get from me, I am much pressed for
+time, and look to find another.'
+
+'Another!' Wogan's failing hopes revived. 'Praise be to the Saints! I
+see your mistake, and you shall understand it in a twinkling. The
+other and myself are just one man for these purposes. George is my
+_alter ego_. We are the greatest friends, and have been taken for each
+other when we are talking. I'll talk all the time we fight, and you
+can fancy it is George whose ribs you are trying to tickle.'
+
+The Colonel, however, was obdurate, and before Wogan could hit upon a
+likelier argument both gentlemen heard a cough.
+
+Someone was standing on Lady Oxford's doorstep looking towards them.
+
+The Colonel coughed in reply, and the figure--it was Mr.
+Kelly's--waved his hand, and marched, like the ghost of Hamlet's
+father, toward St. James's Park.
+
+The Colonel followed, like Hamlet, and Mr. Wogan followed the Colonel.
+Would there be a fourth to follow Wogan? The three men marched in the
+moonlight, their footsteps rang boldly on the road. Was there a fourth
+behind them stealthily creeping in the shadow of the wall? As they
+turned a corner out of the square Wogan fell a little further to the
+rear. He kept his head screwed upon his shoulders, and he saw a shadow
+slink round the corner. He listened, and heard the stealthy steps. He
+stopped; the steps ceased. Wogan went on again. He knew that Scrope
+was dogging them.
+
+The figure in front moved silently on till he reached a sweet spot for
+an occasion, a little _clairière_ among the trees, the smoothest
+sward, moonlight on the grass, dark shadow all around. There he
+stopped, turned, and dropped his cloak. The moon shone silvery on the
+silver shoulder-knots of Mr. Kelly. The other two gentlemen advanced.
+
+'Nick,' exclaimed Kelly, 'you should be on your road to the coast.'
+
+'At last!' cried Colonel Montague, dropping his cloak.
+
+'A moment, sir,' said Kelly; 'I must dismiss my friend.'
+
+'And would you be so mad? Are you to have nobody to see fair and run
+for the surgeon while the other gentleman makes his escape? George, I
+never knew you were so selfish.'
+
+Kelly drew his friend a little way aside.
+
+'Nick, I have that to do which cannot be done before a witness.'
+
+Mr. Wogan merely gaped at this extraordinary speech. He noticed that
+Kelly looked white and haggard even for a man in the full moonlight.
+
+'When I tell you that my honour hangs on it, that a witness is mere
+ruin, when I pray you by our old friendship? Nick, you _must_ go out
+of eye-shot and ear-shot.'
+
+'I think you are crazed,' said Wogan.
+
+'I have obeyed you all night. Things have taken the turn that you must
+obey me. There is no time for an explanation, the hour presses, and,
+Nick, my honour hangs on it. You must retire to where you can neither
+see nor hear us, or I am shamed--lost with the Cause.'
+
+Mr. Kelly had been whispering, his voice trembled as the Cause was
+named. Wogan had only once seen him thus moved. Had he played his
+trumps amiss after all? It seemed he had not won the game.
+
+'Very well,' said Wogan. 'Good-night. I will take care you are not
+troubled with witnesses.'
+
+'No,' said Kelly suddenly, and then 'yes; goodnight.'
+
+He stood looking at Wogan a moment and then hurried off to the
+Colonel, who seemed, to Wogan's judgment, a man apt to give the Parson
+his bellyful. Wogan twitched his cloak about him, and took his road
+down a path, bordered by bushes. It was the path by which they had
+come into the Park. Wogan was determined that the Parson should not be
+troubled by witnesses.
+
+From his boyhood Mr. Wogan has had a singular passion for
+bird's-nesting. He idly scanned the bushes as he marched, for he had
+heard a twig snap, and in a thick bush he saw what at a first glance
+certainly resembled a very large brown bird's-nest. Looking more
+narrowly at this curiosity there were shining eyes under the nest, a
+circumstance rarely found in animated nature.
+
+Mr. Wogan paused and contemplated this novelty. The bush was deep; the
+novelty was of difficult access because of the tangled boughs. Wogan
+reckoned it good to show a puzzled and bemused demeanour, as of one
+who has moored himself by the punch-bowl.
+
+'It's a very fine bird,' he said aloud. 'I wonder what is the exact
+species this fine fowl may belong to?'
+
+Then he wagged his head in a tipsy manner, and so lurched down the
+path singing:
+
+
+ 'I heard a bird
+ Sing in a bush,
+ And on his head
+ Was a bowl of punch,
+ _La-la-loodie!_'
+
+
+But Wogan's eye was cocked back over his shoulder, for he hoped that
+the fowl, thinking the hunter gone, would save him trouble by breaking
+cover. The bush did not stir, however; all was deadly still.
+
+Wogan lurched back to the bush, still singing, parted the branches,
+and peered in. His mind, in fact, was quite fixed as to the nature and
+name of this nocturnal fowl.
+
+He spied into the bush. 'I have heard, in France, of a bird called
+"the cuckoo Kelly,"' he said, 'I wonder if this can be _le cocu_
+Scrope?'
+
+Something glittered in the heart of the bush. Mr. Wogan leaped aside,
+his hat spun round on his head, he was near blinded by the flame and
+smoke of a pistol discharged almost _à bout portant_. A figure had
+scrambled out of the bush on the further side, and was running at a
+great pace towards St. James's.
+
+Mr. Wogan gave a view halloo, and set off at the top of his own pace
+in pursuit. He was swift of foot when young, sound of wind, and long
+of stride.
+
+At every step he gained on the flying figure, which, he happily
+remembered, might be armed with another pistol. These commodities
+usually go in pairs. Reflecting on this, and reckoning his distance to
+a mathematical nicety, Mr. Wogan applied his toe to that part of the
+flying gentleman's figure which he judged most accessible and most
+appropriate to his purpose. The flying gentleman soared softly into a
+parabola, coming down with a crash, while a pistol fell from his hand.
+As the priming was spilled, Mr. Wogan let the weapon lie, and
+courteously assisted the prostrate person to rise.
+
+'I fear I stumbled over you, sir,' he said. 'I hope I was not so
+unfortunate as to hurt you. Why, 'tis Mr. Scrope, the celebrated
+critic and amateur of Virgil. Mr. Scrope, the writer of ballads.'
+
+'You are a brutal Irish bully,' said Scrope, whose hands and face were
+bleeding, for he had the mischance to slip on a gravel path covered
+with sharp little flints at the top of the Canal.
+
+'Nay, when last we met it was my poetry that you criticised, and now
+'tis my manners that do not please you! How could I guess that it was
+Mr. Scrope who lay in a bush to watch an explanation between
+gentlemen? This time, sir, of your flight, you have not two horses to
+carry you off, and I am not barefoot. Suppose we take up our
+conversation where we left it when last you ran away? You have a sword
+I see.'
+
+Scrope's sword was already out, and he made a desperate pass at Wogan,
+who broke ground and drew his own weapon. Scrope was no match for his
+reach and skill in fence.
+
+'Why, sir, our positions are altered,' said Wogan. 'Now it is you who
+make errors, and I who play critic and instructor.'
+
+Wogan made a parade in _contre de carte_.
+
+'Look, sir, your blade was beaten a good half foot out of line. Had I
+chosen to riposte, my sword-hilt would have rung on your breast-bone.
+Ah, that was rather better,' he said, stepping a pace back, and
+offering his breast full like a fencing master with his pupil. 'But
+you did not really extend yourself. Now, sir, _un_, _deux_, _doublez_,
+_dégagez_, _vite!_' and Mr. Wogan passed his sword through the lappet
+of Scrope's coat, coming back on guard. 'That is how you ought to
+lunge. There is another thing that I would have you notice. Coming on
+rashly as you do, I could stop you at any moment with a time thrust. I
+have only to extend my long arm, and where are you?'
+
+Scrope broke ground, sweating, and drew breath:
+
+'You cowardly _maître d'armes!_' he exclaimed between two pants.
+
+'Cowardly, sir? Am I a spy? Or a nameless, obscene rhymer? Do I carry
+pistols and try to use them? Fie, Mr. Scrope, you must see that a
+coward who meant to kill you would have done so long ago, and left you
+here--with an insult, and without a surgeon. You remember the little
+square at Avignon. You want another lesson.'
+
+Wogan parried, riposted, and just grazed his opponent on the fore-arm.
+
+'_Touché!_' he said. 'Now you see I do not mean to kill you: at least,
+not with the sword. To do so would be to oblige a lady whom I have no
+desire to please. Would you prefer to lay down your weapon and come
+frankly to my embrace? You remember our fond hugs at Brampton Bryan?
+By the way, Mr. Scrope,' asked Wogan, as an idea occurred to him, 'the
+night is warm and you seem heated, do you swim? The place is
+convenient for a bathe, and sheltered from coarse observation.'
+
+With this remark Wogan switched Scrope's sword out of his hand by a
+turn of the wrist in _flanconade_. The blade flew up and fell flashing
+in the water of the Canal.
+
+'Now, sir, your life is at my mercy. You have betrayed my Cause; you
+have nearly murdered my friend; you have insulted two ladies of my
+acquaintance; you have censured my poetry; and you have spoiled my hat
+with your pistol bullet. I repeat, do you swim? There are two places
+here mighty convenient for a ducking.'
+
+Here Mr. Wogan caught his enemy by the collar.
+
+'The Canal is shallow; Rosamond's Pool is deep. You have your choice;
+safety and prose, or poetry and peril?'
+
+Scrope was squirming in Wogan's grip like a serpent. When Mr. Wogan
+had calmed him he carried Mr. Scrope like a babe to the edge of the
+Canal.
+
+'One, two, three!' he said, heaving Mr. Scrope backward and forward,
+like children setting a swing in motion. 'And away!'
+
+A heavy body flew through the air, flashed into the Canal, and did not
+at first arise to the surface.
+
+'I hope he has not hit his head or broken his neck,' said Wogan with
+anxiety. 'It would be very disagreeable to have to wade for him.'
+
+His fears were soon set at rest. Scrope scrambled to his feet, the
+water reaching nearly to his middle. In his dripping perruque he cut a
+figure odd enough, and sufficiently pitiable.
+
+'A water god! A Triton!' cried Wogan. 'Have you a Virgil in your
+pocket? You might study the marine deities whom you resemble. You are
+sure you have again forgotten to bring the Virgil you desired for Mr.
+Kelly's use at Avignon.'
+
+'D----n you, I shall see your bowels burned before your eyes for this,
+you Popish traitor,' cried Scrope, shaking his fist.
+
+'That is as may be. You have done what you can to that end already.
+You have told all you know; as regards myself it is not very much, and
+I am not in Newgate yet. Moreover, I know a way out. But stop, I
+cannot possibly permit you to land, for Scrope was wading to the bank.
+'Stay where you are and admire the moonshine! If you set foot on shore
+I will merely throw you in again! You might be hurt.
+
+Scrope turned and was beginning to wade to the other side of the
+Canal.
+
+'It really is not safe in the middle if you do not swim,' cried Wogan.
+'Moreover, I can easily be at the further bank before you.' Mr. Wogan
+suited the action to the word. He ran round the bank as Scrope waded
+across. He met his bedraggled victim at the water's edge. Mr. Wogan
+uttered a joyful whoop; there was a great splash and again Scrope sank
+beneath the surface. He regained his feet and rose spluttering. 'I do
+trust, Mr. Scrope, that you are not hectic, or subject to rheumatism,'
+said Wogan with sympathy.
+
+Wogan walked to the centre of the path across the top of the Canal. He
+spread his cloak upon the grass and sat down, contemplating the
+moonlight on Buckingham House. There was a sweet odour of the budding
+may in the air.
+
+'A more peaceful scene, Mr. Scrope,' he cried, 'I have rarely
+witnessed. All the poet whom you tried to crush wakes in my bosom. I
+shall recite Mr. Pope's celebrated Night piece for your benefit.'
+
+Mr. Wogan then arose from his seat on the grass, and, raising his hand
+towards the Moon, delivered Mr. Pope's lines in his best manner.
+
+
+ 'As when the Moon, refulgent lamp of Night,
+ O'er Heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light.
+ When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
+ And not a cloud o'erspreads the solemn scene.'
+
+
+'You are not listening, Mr. Scrope!'
+
+Scrope was listening, but not to Wogan. Wogan ceased from reciting and
+listened also. He heard steps and voices of men approaching.
+Presently, to his great amazement, he recognised the tones of Kelly
+and Montague, whose mere existence had been banished from his mind. He
+was yet more surprised when they both came in view, walking very
+friendly together.
+
+Wogan rose as they drew near him.
+
+'What, both of you?' he exclaimed.
+
+'You do not seem to be glad to see us again, sir?' said Colonel
+Montague.
+
+'And devil a scratch between the pair of you!' cried Mr. Wogan.
+'George, what does this mean? Am I to hear,' he asked with honest
+indignation, 'that one of you has debased himself to an apology?'
+
+He looked from one to the other much perplexed in mind.
+
+'It is too long a tale for the opportunity, Mr. Wogan,' said the
+Colonel laughing. 'But _what_ does that mean?'
+
+He pointed to the Water God in the perruque, whose shadow was
+reflected in the calm bosom of the lake.
+
+'Colonel Montague,' cried Scrope, 'I appeal to you as a Protestant and
+an officer of his Majesty's for your protection against an Irish,
+Popish, Jacobite conspirator.'
+
+'That gentleman,' said Wogan, 'whom I have been entertaining with Mr.
+Pope's poem, is an English Protestant, Whig, spy, and murderer, and
+even, I suspect, a writer in the newspapers. He persists in staying
+out in the water there, where I cannot get at him. He is one of the
+Maritime Powers. Egad! George, you know Mr. Scrope of Northumberland
+and Grub Street?'
+
+George bowed to Mr. Scrope.
+
+'The fourth time you see, sir, has been lucky, contrary to the
+proverb,' he said politely.
+
+'The poor devil's teeth are chattering audibly,' said Colonel
+Montague. 'May I ask you to explain his situation, Mr. Wogan?'
+
+'Faith, sir, the story, as you say, is too long for the occasion. And
+I want an explanation myself. After a gentleman has trod on another
+gentleman's foot, here you both are, well and smiling. I am betrayed,'
+cried Mr. Wogan, 'in the character of a friend. I could not have
+thought it of George.'
+
+'What was the pistol shot we heard, Nick?' asked Mr. Kelly.
+
+'That was Mr. Scrope firing at me.'
+
+'And the view halloo that might have wakened the dead?'
+
+'That was me remonstrating with Mr. Scrope. But I crave your pardon
+for my thoughtlessness. No doubt the noise brought up some
+ungentlemanly person who interrupted you in your explanation. You will
+begin it again? Mr. Scrope and I will be delighted to see fair play,
+but you will see it from the water, Mr. Scrope. You don't come out
+yet.'
+
+'Our honours, about which you are so kindly concerned, Mr. Wogan, are
+as intact as our persons,' said the Colonel.
+
+'Then you have been finding out that George saved your life, or you
+saved George's, some time in the dark ages, all to prevent you killing
+each other in a friendly way?'
+
+'You are in an ingenious error, Mr. Wogan; but Mr. Johnson and I have
+important business together in the town, and we must bid you farewell.
+Pray allow that dripping gentleman to land and go to bed.'
+
+'But I cannot take him with me, and it is purely inconvenient to let
+him follow me, for the precise reason that he would not follow me at
+all, but my friend Mr. Johnson. I am like my countryman who caught a
+Tartar in the Muscovite wars. To be sure, I might tie him to a tree
+with his garters. Come out, Mr. Scrope, and be tied to a tree!'
+
+'No, no,' said the Colonel; 'your friend will die of a cold.'
+
+'Then what am I to be doing?' asked Wogan. 'He is a very curious
+gentleman.'
+
+'I must leave that for you and your friend to determine,' said Colonel
+Montague. He turned to Kelly. 'In ten minutes,' said he, moving off.
+
+'In ten minutes, Corydon,' said Kelly, and Wogan thought he heard the
+Colonel mutter, 'Oh, damnation!'
+
+It was all Greek to Wogan, and Kelly seemed in no mind to translate
+the Greek for his baser comprehension.
+
+'Be off, Nick,' said he. 'I have ten minutes to wait here, and for ten
+minutes Mr. Scrope shall stand in the pond. You have that much law. It
+is time enough for your long legs.'
+
+'And do you think I am leaving Mr. Scrope to follow you while I go
+quietly to bed?' asked Wogan, who was in truth hurt by the proposal.
+'No. I shall take him with me. It is the best plan after all.'
+
+'It will not matter, I think, whether he follows me or no; and, Nick,
+as to going to bed, I hope it will not be on this side of the Channel.
+Truth, I should be blaming you as it is for your delay, but I have no
+heart to it.' He had dropped into the Irish accent, a thing very rare
+with him. 'For the world topples about me to-night, and the sight of a
+friend is very pleasant to me. There! It is all I had to say to you.
+Good-night. Good-bye.'
+
+He clapped his hand on Wogan's shoulder and then sat himself down on
+the grass. If Mr. Scrope had had his wits about him, he might have
+chosen this occasion to creep out of the water, for Wogan was paying
+little heed to him.
+
+'George,' said he, 'it seems the game has gone against you. But I have
+the simplest plan imaginable to put matters straight. What if you give
+me the key to that pretty despatch-box? You see if I go to your
+lodging and am taken--'
+
+'No!' cried Kelly.
+
+'But yes,' said Wogan, seating himself on the grass beside Kelly. 'If
+I am taken, why, it's just Nick Wogan that's taken, and no one but
+Nick Wogan is a penny the worse. But if you go and are taken--well,
+there's the Doctor's daughter.'
+
+Kelly would not listen to reason. It was not, he said, a mere matter
+of slipping into the house and burning the cyphers. But a man must pay
+for his own shortcomings, and the whole aspect of affairs had changed.
+And then he fell to thanking Wogan, which thanks Wogan cut short; and
+so they sat in the moonlight like a couple of owls, only they did not
+talk.
+
+'You are very thoughtful,' said Kelly, with a tired sort of laugh,
+'and you have thought most of your ten minutes away.'
+
+'I was thinking,' said Wogan, 'of a word you used to say about a
+little parsonage in Ireland and your Latin books, and an acre or two
+of land, and how, like a fool, I laughed at you for speaking so.'
+
+Kelly rose very quickly to his feet.
+
+'Come, Nick,' said he almost sharply. 'My ten minutes are almost up. I
+cannot watch Scrope after that, and you may just as well save your
+life as lose it.'
+
+'I mean to take him with me,' said Wogan. 'Come out, my friend. I'll
+give him the slip, never fear, when I want to.'
+
+'And then you will start for France?'
+
+Mr. Wogan did not mention a couple of obstacles which would at all
+events delay his departure. In the first place he had a little matter
+of business with Lord Sidney Beauclerk, and in the second it would be
+no more than politeness to inquire after Kelly's health before he went
+abroad. He kept silent upon this subject, and again summoned Scrope,
+who waded with his teeth chattering from the water. He drove Scrope
+before him along a bypath, leaving the Parson standing alone in the
+moonlight. Mr. Wogan had no expectation that he would ever see his
+friend's face again, and therefore he swore most heartily at Scrope.
+
+'Come, my man,' said he, 'I am to see that you do not catch cold,' and
+he marched Scrope at a round pace eastwards as far as Temple Bar, and
+thence northwards to Soho, and from Soho westwards.
+
+Scrope had been enjoined strictly not to open his lips; but, on the
+other hand, he heard a great deal about his own character, his merits
+as a poet, and the morals of his family, which was no doubt new to
+him. Some three hours later, when the moon had long since set, the
+pair came to the fields behind Holland House, and there Wogan took his
+leave of Scrope. The man could do no more harm for that night, and he
+had for the moment lost his taste for spying.
+
+'You will stay here for five minutes,' said Wogan, who in five seconds
+was lost in the darkness. He knew a shy place in Westminster where he
+could pass the night undisturbed. As he laid his head on the pillow it
+seemed to him to be a good year since he had driven off from Sir Harry
+Goring's house in the morning. And what of the Parson, whom he had
+last seen, a sombre figure in the moonlight by the water of St.
+James's Park? Well, the night had only then begun for Kelly, who, to
+be sure, had lain abed all the day before.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXI
+
+ IN WHICH MR. KELLY SURPRISES SMILINDA
+
+
+The devil in all this affair, it was that Wogan could not be in two,
+or even three, places at once. While Kelly was shut in with Lady
+Oxford earlier, Mr. Wogan, as he has said, was on the wrong side of
+the door. There he was again, after the rout, while he conversed with
+Colonel Montague in the street. Again, while Wogan was busy with Mr.
+Scrope in St. James's Park, Kelly and the Colonel were exchanging
+their unknown explanations, of a kind not admired by Mr. Wogan, which
+ended in their walking, like a pair of brothers, towards George's
+rooms. In all these conjunctures Mr. Wogan's advice, could he have
+been present, might have been serviceable, or at least his curiosity
+must have been assuaged.
+
+What did pass between Kelly and Lady Oxford when the rout was over,
+and what were the considerations which induced George and the Colonel
+to resist their natural and mutual desire for an honourable
+satisfaction?
+
+These questions (that perplexed Wogan when he awoke, about noon, from
+the fatigue of the previous day) were answered later by Kelly, and the
+answer must be given before the later adventures and sorrows of George
+can be clearly narrated. Sure, no trifle could have turned sword and
+gown into friends that night.
+
+When Lady Oxford and Kelly were left alone in the empty rooms, among
+the waning candles and scattered cards, Lady Oxford marched, like
+indignant royalty, to the end of the inner withdrawing-room, where
+they could not be heard or interrupted without warning.
+
+Mr. Kelly followed with a mind made up. It was, after all, Lady Oxford
+that had betrayed him, but he had, by an accident of forgetfulness,
+kept her letters, and they now gave him the advantage. If those
+letters could be saved, the Chevalier's papers could and should be
+saved too, and himself rescued from peril and Rose from much
+unhappiness. Rose was at the bottom of his thoughts that night; her
+face was mirrored there bright, it seemed, with divinity. The
+Chevalier was there too, no doubt, but Rose peeped over his shoulder.
+Mr. Kelly, then, hardened his heart, and, for love and loyalty, meant
+to push his advantage over Lady Oxford to its limits. He approached
+her as she stood retired.
+
+'Wretch,' cried Lady Oxford, 'you promised to burn my letters. Of all
+traitors you are the most abandoned and perfidious.'
+
+The Parson thought that memory supplied him with a parallel, but he
+replied:
+
+'It is a promise all men make and all men break.'
+
+Lady Oxford struck her hand upon a table.
+
+'You swore you had burned them.'
+
+This time George was less ready with his answer, but her ladyship
+stood awaiting it.
+
+'My passion must be my excuse, madam; I could not bear to part with
+these elegant testimonies of your esteem. It is as I have the honour
+to tell your ladyship; the brocades are in my strong box in my
+lodgings. To-morrow they shall be restored to your hands.'
+
+'To-morrow!' she said, in a voice of despair. 'To-morrow! I am
+undone!'
+
+'It is not so long to wait for the finery, and I do not think the
+streets are so purely unsafe as you suppose.'
+
+'I am undone!' she repeated. 'The public will ring of my name. I shall
+become a byword, a thing of scorn for every scribbler to aim his wit
+at.'
+
+She gnawed her fingers in an agony of fear and perplexity. Mr. Kelly
+had learned enough. There was plainly no chance within the lady's
+knowledge, as he had hoped, of saving her letters. Neither, then,
+could the King's papers be saved. He bowed, and took a step towards
+the door.
+
+'Stop!'
+
+Mr. Kelly turned with alacrity at the eager cry, but Lady Oxford had
+no words of hope for him.
+
+'You must not leave this house to-night, or must leave it secretly by
+the garden.'
+
+Kelly smiled grimly. Her ladyship was suddenly grown most tender of
+her reputation now that it was in peril.
+
+'Your ladyship's care for me, and your hospitality overcome me, but I
+have, as you perhaps remarked, an assignation of honour with Colonel
+Montague which nothing must prevent me from keeping. He is longing for
+an instant revenge--at the Hazard Table. A while ago, you may pardon
+me for observing, your ladyship was remote from feeling this sudden
+and violent anxiety on my hand.'
+
+Mr. Kelly's irony was poured out to deaf ears. Lady Oxford paced to
+and fro about the room, wringing her hands in her extremity. Then she
+stopped suddenly.
+
+'I might drive to the Minister's.' She reached out a hand towards the
+bell. Kelly shook his head.
+
+'That visit would be remarked upon unfavourably by the friends of my
+Lord Oxford, who are not in the Minister's interest. Mr. Walpole has
+no party to-night, and must have gone to bed--'tis verging on two
+o'clock--or else he is in his cups. Moreover, the _Dolliad_, the
+ballad on his sister, was credited to your pen. You know that Mr.
+Walpole loves a broad jest, and loves revenge. He will not protect you
+nor miss so fair an opportunity. Nay, I think I read in to-morrow's
+_Flying Post_, "In the papers of the prisoner Kelly, among other
+treasonable matter reserved for a later occasion, were found the
+following letters of a high curiosity, which we are graciously
+permitted to publish; one begins--_Oh, my Delicious Strephon_."
+
+Lady Oxford snapped her fan between her fingers and dashed the
+fragments in Kelly's face. He owns that he cannot well complain she
+served him ill, but he wanted to repay her in some sort for her
+innuendo about his fate at the hangman's hands, and similar favours.
+Beholding her passion, which was not unjust, he felt bitterly ashamed
+of his words.
+
+'You coward!' she said. Her dark eyes glared at him from a face white
+as the ivory of her broken fan, and then, quite suddenly, she burst
+into a storm of tears. Kelly's shame was increased a thousandfold.
+
+'I humbly crave your ladyship's pardon,' he said. 'I have spoken in
+terms unworthy of a chairman. But some remarks of your ladyship's on a
+future event, to me of painful interest, had left an unhappy
+impression.'
+
+But Lady Oxford paid no heed to the stammered apology. As Mr. Kelly
+moved to her she waived him aside with her hands, and, dropping on to
+a sofa, pressed her weeping face into the cushions. Sobs shook her;
+she lay abandoned to distress.
+
+Mr. Kelly stood apart and listened to the dolorous sound of her
+weeping. That was true which she had said; he had promised to burn
+those letters; he had sworn that he had burned them. His fine plan of
+using them as a weapon against her began to take quite another
+complexion. There were, no doubt, all manner of pious and respectable
+arguments to be discovered in favour of the plan, if only he pried
+about for them. But a saying of Mr. Scrope's was suddenly scrawled out
+in his recollections: 'Æneas was an army chaplain who invoked his
+religion when he was tired of the lady, and so sailed away with a
+clear conscience.' Kelly murmured 'Rose' to himself, and, again,
+'Rose,' seeking to fortify himself with the mention of her name. But
+it had the contrary effect. Even as he heard his lips murmuring it,
+the struggle was over.
+
+George had a number of pretty finical scruples, of which his conduct
+at this crisis of his fortunes was a particular example. He relates
+how it seemed to him that at the mention of her name Rose threw out a
+hand to him and drew him up out of a slough; how he understood that
+his fine plan was unworthy of any man, and entirely despicable in the
+man whom she, out of her great condescension, had stooped to love; how
+he became aware that he owed it to her, since she was a woman, that no
+woman's fame, whether a Smilinda's or no, should be smirched by any
+omission of his; how he suddenly felt in his very marrow that it would
+dishonour Rose to save her even from great misery by a _lâcheté_
+towards another of her sex. His duty was revealed to him in that
+moment, as clear as it was unexpected. He sets his revulsion of
+feeling wholly to Rose's account, as a man in love should, but very
+likely her ladyship's fan had something to do with it.
+
+He spoke again to Lady Oxford, and very gently.
+
+'Madam, it is true. I promised to burn your letters. I swore that I
+had burned them. My honour, I perceive, can only be saved by saving
+yours.'
+
+Lady Oxford raised her head from the cushions and stared at him with
+wondering eyes.
+
+'Let us play this game _cartes sur table_,' continued Kelly.
+
+Her ladyship rose from her sofa and sat herself in a chair at a table,
+still wondering, still suspicious. George took the chair on the other
+side of the table, and spoke while Lady Oxford dried the tears upon
+her face. To help her at all he must know all that she knew. His first
+business was to remove her ladyship's suspicions.
+
+'I understand that your ladyship, by some means of which I am as yet
+ignorant, has become aware of a certain Plot, and has carried the
+knowledge to Mr. Walpole.'
+
+Lady Oxford neither agreed nor denied. She admitted the truth of Mr.
+Kelly's statement in her own way.
+
+'You bragged and blabbed to my worst enemy, to Lady Mary, with her
+poisonous pen,' and her fine features writhed with hatred as she spoke
+Lady Mary's name.
+
+'There your ladyship was misled,' returned Kelly. 'My lips have been
+sealed, as I already had the honour to inform you. My Lady Mary may
+not love you, but she is innocent of this offence. If she wrote those
+rhymes, she was, indeed, more my enemy than yours; and my enemy, as
+your ladyship is aware, she is not.'
+
+Lady Oxford understood the strength of the argument.
+
+'Ah, yes,' she said thoughtfully. 'The apothecary's daughter!'
+
+The contemptuous phrase slipped from Lady Oxford by mistake, and was
+not at all uttered in a contemptuous voice. But she had no doubt
+fallen into a habit of so terming the girl in her thoughts. None the
+less, however, it stung Mr. Kelly, who was at some trouble to keep his
+voice gentle. He knew how much Smilinda owed at this moment to the
+apothecary's daughter.
+
+'The young lady to whom I conceive you refer, Miss Townley, is of a
+family as ancient, loyal, and honourable as your ladyship's own, and
+you may have seen on what terms both ladies were this evening.
+Moreover, Lady Mary was purely ignorant of Miss Townley's very
+existence when that pasquinade was written.'
+
+'Then who wrote it?'
+
+'Mr. Scrope, as I have the honour to repeat.'
+
+'Scrope?' she answered in a quick question, as though for the first
+time she understood that George might well be right. He gave the
+reasons for his belief as he had given them at the Deanery to Nicholas
+Wogan. They were to the last degree convincing. Lady Oxford was
+persuaded long before Mr. Kelly had come to an end. A look came into
+her face which Kelly could not understand, a look of bitter
+humiliation. 'Scrope,' she muttered, as her fingers played with the
+cards upon the table. She overturned a card which lay face downwards
+on the table, and it chanced to be the knave of hearts.
+
+'Your ladyship now sees that you fell into a natural error,' continued
+Kelly, who was anxious to smooth Lady Oxford's path, 'in consequence
+of which you took a natural revenge. May I ask how you secured the
+means of revenge? How, in a word, you came to know of the hidden Plot
+within the Plot?'
+
+Her ladyship's answer fairly startled Mr. Kelly. It was not given at
+once. She still played with the cards, and overturned another. It was
+the knave of clubs.
+
+'The cards tell you,' she said with a bitter smile.
+
+Mr. Kelly leaned back in his chair open-mouthed. 'Scrope?' he asked.
+
+'Scrope,' replied her ladyship. 'I received a humble letter from him
+praying that I would forgive his odious ingratitude, and, by way of
+peace-offering, bidding me tell my Lord Oxford--'
+
+'Who had already withdrawn,' said George. 'I think I understand,' Lady
+Oxford's look of humiliation had enlightened him, 'and I think your
+ladyship understands with me. Mr. Scrope is a sort of a gentleman, and
+would prefer to do his dirty work without appearing as a spy. He has
+made use of your ladyship. He sends you the Plot and spurs you to
+disclose it with his ballad. He would have disclosed it himself, I
+doubt not, had not your ladyship served his turn. But Mr. Scrope has
+his refinements, and, besides that he spares himself, would take a
+particular pleasure in compassing my ruin at the same time that he
+outwitted you.'
+
+Little wonder that Lady Oxford broke in upon Mr. Kelly's reasonings.
+It must have been sufficiently galling for her to reflect that in
+exacting her revenge she had been the mere instrument of a man she had
+tossed aside.
+
+'It is both of us that he has ruined, not you alone,' she cried.
+
+Certainly, Mr. Scrope was a person to reckon with, and had killed
+quite a covey of birds with one stone.
+
+'Are you sure?' asked Kelly. 'Are you sure of that?'
+
+She bent across the table eagerly, but she did not reply to the
+question.
+
+'Will you kill Scrope,' she flashed out, 'and you and I part friends?'
+
+Kelly, even in the midst of this tangle of misfortunes, could not but
+smile.
+
+'I fear that I may have been anticipated. Mr. Scrope has been watching
+your ladyship's house to-night--and Mr. Wogan observed him, and, I
+conceive, has undertaken for him.'
+
+Lady Oxford at that smiled too. 'Then he is a dead man,' she said,
+slowly savouring her words like wine.
+
+'But his death, madam, will not save your letters,' said Kelly; and
+the fire died out of her face.
+
+'He has betrayed us both,' she moaned. It seemed she had already
+forgotten how she herself had seized at the occasion of betraying Mr.
+Kelly. Kelly was in no mood to debate these subtleties.
+
+'Are you sure?' he contented himself with asking for a second time.
+'There is one thing Mr. Scrope has not done. He has taken no measures
+purposely to insure that your letters will be discovered, since he
+does not know of them; else, no doubt, he would have done his worst.
+We two are still engaged in a common cause--your ladyship's. Your
+intentions in my regard I were much less than a man if I did not
+forgive, granting (what I now know) your ladyship's erroneous
+interpretation of my ground of offence, the babbling to Lady Mary.
+Does your ladyship permit me, then, at the eleventh hour, to save you,
+if I can find a way, from the odious consequences of Mr. Scrope's
+unparalleled behaviour?'
+
+'You?'
+
+Lady Oxford's brows were drawn together in perplexity. The notion that
+Mr. Kelly was prepared to do this thing was still new and strange to
+her.
+
+'You?' Her eyes searched his for the truth of his purpose, and found
+it. 'You?' she said again, but in a voice of gratitude and
+comprehension. And then, with a gesture of despair, she thrust her
+chair back and stood up. 'You cannot save yourself. I cannot save
+you.'
+
+'No,' replied George, 'myself I cannot save; but it may not be too
+late to save my honour, which is now wrapped up in that of your
+ladyship's. My case is desperate; what can be done for yours? Be plain
+with me. How much does your ladyship know?'
+
+Lady Oxford turned away from the table. In the face of Kelly's
+generosity no doubt she hesitated to disclose the whole truth of her
+treachery.
+
+'I know no more than that you are in peril of arrest,' she said.
+
+'Madam, surely you know more than that. You spoke earlier this evening
+of my arrest, and you spoke with the assurance of a more particular
+knowledge.'
+
+Lady Oxford took a turn across the room.
+
+'Oh, my God, what can I do?' she cried, lifting her hands to her head.
+'I hear Lady Mary's laughter and the horrid things they will say!'
+
+The whimsical inconsequence of Smilinda's appeal to her Maker did not
+fail to strike Kelly as ludicrous, but, as his own case was hopeless
+and abandoned, any thought of revenge or mockery had ceased to agitate
+him. His honour now stood in saving all that was left of hers from
+open and intolerable shame, and Rose beckoned him to the task.
+
+'Surely you know more,' he persisted quietly.
+
+Lady Oxford gave in and came back to the table.
+
+'The Messengers should be waiting for you in Ryder Street.'
+
+At last Kelly knew the worst. He would be taken before he reached his
+doorstep. There would be no chance of saving the cyphers in his strong
+box. Could he save Smilinda's letters?
+
+He bent his forehead upon his hands, thinking. Smilinda watched him;
+her lips moved as though she was praying.
+
+'I might be carried to your lodgings and claim what is mine,' she
+suggested.
+
+'You would be carried to a trap--a _souricière_. Ten to one you would
+be arrested by the Messengers. At all events your visit would be
+remarked upon, and you would not obtain the letters.'
+
+Lady Oxford had no other proposal at hand, and there was silence in
+the room. Mr. Kelly remained with his face buried in his hands; he
+took the air in long deep breaths. No other sound was audible except
+the faint ticking of the clock in the outer withdrawing-room. For
+Smilinda was holding her breath lest she should disturb the man whom
+she had betrayed, and who was now wholly occupied with the attempt to
+save her. Then she remarked that the sound of his breathing ceased.
+She bent forwards; he raised his face to hers. He did not seem to see
+her; his eyes kindled with hope.
+
+'You have found a way?' she whispered; and he whispered back:
+
+'A desperate chance, but it may serve.' He started to his feet. 'It
+must serve.'
+
+A smile brightened over his face.
+
+'It will serve.'
+
+Sure he showed as much pleasure as if he had discovered an issue for
+himself.
+
+'Quick!' said Smilinda, with a smile to answer his. 'Tell me!'
+
+'Colonel Montague--'
+
+'What of him? Why speak to me now of him?'
+
+Lady Oxford's face had clouded at the name.
+
+'He is your only salvation.'
+
+'What can he do?'
+
+'Everything we need. His loyalty to the present occupant of the Throne
+is entirely beyond a suspicion. He can act as he will without peril to
+his reputation. He can even rescue your papers, which are not in the
+same strong box as my own. The Colonel, if any man, can assist you if
+he will.'
+
+'But he will not,' said her ladyship sullenly.
+
+'He will,' answered Kelly confidently, 'if properly approached. He is
+a man of honour, I take it? You will pardon me for saying that your
+ladyship's flattering behaviour towards me, in his presence (for the
+nature of which you had, doubtless, your own particular reasons) can
+have left him in no doubt on certain heads; while it is equally plain
+that your ladyship hath no longer any very tender interest in keeping
+his esteem and regard. Nevertheless, being a gentleman, he will not
+abandon your ladyship's cause.'
+
+Lady Oxford was in no way comforted.
+
+'It may well be as you say,' she returned with a look at Mr. Kelly.
+She had already one example of how much a gentleman could forgive a
+woman when she stood in need of his help. 'But, Mr. Kelly, you cannot
+come at Colonel Montague.'
+
+'Why not?'
+
+'You know very well that he lodges in the same house as yourself. I
+sent a lackey with a note to you, yesterday. And your reply was dated
+from 13 Ryder Street.'
+
+Mr. Kelly stepped back, he could hardly believe his ears.
+
+'Colonel Montague--lodges--in the same house as myself?' he asked.
+
+'Yes,' Lady Oxford replied in a dispirited fashion. She had lost heart
+altogether. Mr. Kelly, on the other hand, was quite lifted up by the
+unexpected news.
+
+'This is a mere miracle in nature,' he cried. 'I only went into my
+present lodgings two days ago. I have been abroad for the greater part
+of the time, and asleep the rest, and have had no knowledge of the
+other tenants, even of their names. 'Faith, madam, your letters are as
+safe as though the ashes were now cold in your grate.'
+
+'But the Colonel will have gone home, and you are to be taken in Ryder
+Street. You will not get speech with him.'
+
+'Nay, madam, he has not gone home. He is waiting for me now.' Lady
+Oxford started. 'Ah, your ladyship remembers. He is waiting for me.
+Ten yards from your doorstep--ten yards at the farthest,' and Kelly
+actually chuckled. Carried away by his plan, he began to pace the room
+as he unfolded it. 'I shall see the Colonel, and if I can by any means
+do so, I will acquaint him, as far as is necessary, with the
+embarrassing posture of your affairs. I shall give him the key of the
+box containing the--brocades, and, if the Messengers be not already in
+possession of them, the rest must be entrusted to his honour as a
+gentleman and a soldier. The unexpected accident of our being
+fellow-lodgers gives him, to this end, a great advantage, and can
+scarce have occurred without the providence of--some invisible power
+or another which watches over your ladyship.'
+
+Kelly thought that Lady Oxford this night had enjoyed what is called
+the Devil's own luck.
+
+'Have I your ladyship's leave to try my powers of persuasion with
+Colonel Montague?'
+
+Very much to Kelly's surprise she moved towards him, like one walking
+in her sleep.
+
+'You are bleeding,' she said, and stanched with her handkerchief some
+drops from his brow, where it had been cut by the broken edges of the
+ivory fan. Then she went again into a bitter fit of weeping, which
+Kelly could never bear to see in a woman. She may have remembered the
+snow upon the lawn, years ago, and a moment's vision of white honour.
+Then she stinted in her crying as suddenly as she had begun; in a time
+incredibly short you could not tell that she had wept.
+
+'You must carry a token. I must write. Oh my shame!' she said, and
+sitting down to a scrutoire, wrote rapidly and briefly, sanded the
+paper, and offered it open to Kelly.
+
+'I cannot see it; your ladyship must seal it,' he said, which she did
+with a head of Cicero.
+
+George took the note, and said: 'Now time presses, madam. I must be
+gone. I trust that, if not now, at least later, you may forgive me.'
+
+Her lips moved, but no words came forth. Kelly made his bow, and so
+took leave of Smilinda, she gnawing her lips, as she watched him with
+her inscrutable eyes, moodily pushing to and fro with her foot the
+broken pieces of the fan on the polished floor.
+
+There came into Kelly's fancy his parting view of Rose at Avignon, her
+face framed among the vine leaves, in the open window; she leaning
+forth, with a forced smile on her dear lips and waving her kerchief in
+farewell. A light wind was stirring her soft hair at that time, and
+she crying '_Au revoir_! _Au revoir!_ There was a scent of lilacs from
+the garden in the air of April, George remembered, and now the candles
+were dying in the sconces with a stench.
+
+With these contrasted pictures of two women and two farewells in his
+fancy, Kelly was descending the wide empty staircase, not knowing too
+well where he went. Something seemed to stir, he lifted his eyes and
+before him he saw again the appearance of his King: the King, young
+and happy, and as beautiful as the dawn that was stealing into the
+room and dimming the lustres on the stairs.
+
+Then the appearance moved aside, and Kelly found himself gazing into a
+great empty mirror that hung on the wall, facing the gallery above.
+
+Lord Sidney Beauclerk, in fact, had not left the house with the other
+guests, and Kelly, remembering, laughed aloud as he reached the fresh
+air without.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXII
+
+ AN ECLOGUE WHICH DEMONSTRATES THE PASTORAL
+ SIMPLICITY OF CORYDON AND STREPHON
+
+
+Wogan has told already how Kelly came out of the house in Queen's
+Square, how he led the way to the glade, so convenient for the
+occasion, and how he dismissed his friend. George has since declared
+that he never was more tossed up and down in his mind than during that
+trifle of a promenade. Here was the Colonel that had insulted him, and
+wished nothing, more or less, than to cut his clerical throat. And
+here was Kelly, that must make friends with his enemy, if he was to
+save his honour, and the reputation, such as it was, of the woman whom
+he had once loved. It was a quandary. If Kelly began by showing a flag
+of truce, the Colonel, as like as not, would fire on it by way of a
+kick or cuff, and then a friendly turn to the conversation would be
+totally out of the possible. Had Kelly been six inches taller than he
+was and a perfect master of his weapon, he might have trusted to the
+chance of disarming the Colonel and then proposing a cartel, but
+unhappily it was the Elector's officer who possessed these advantages.
+Thus Kelly could think of nothing except to get rid of Mr. Wogan's
+presence as a witness of the explanation. He succeeded in that, and
+then marched back to the Colonel, who had stood aside while George
+conversed with his friend.
+
+Kelly waited, as the wiser part, till the Colonel should show his
+hand. But the Colonel also waited, and there the two gentlemen stood
+speechless, just out of thrust of each other, while every convenience
+in nature called on them to begin.
+
+At last the Colonel cleared his throat and said, 'Reverend Mr.
+Lace-Merchant, I am somewhat at a loss as to how I should deal with
+you.'
+
+'Faith, it is my own case,' thought George to himself, but all he
+uttered was, 'Gallant Mr. Drill-Sergeant, the case seems clear enough.
+You trod on my foot, and,' said George, as he let his cloak slip from
+his shoulders to the ground, 'you invited me to take a walk; what
+circumstance now befogs your intellects?'
+
+Kelly's instincts, naturally good, though dimmed a trifle by a learned
+education and a clerical training, showed him but that one way out of
+the wood.
+
+'Several circumstances combine, sir. Thus, I do not want to save the
+hangman a job. Again, my respect for your cloth forbids me to draw
+sword on you, and rather prompts to a public battooning tomorrow in
+St. James's. I therefore do but wait to favour you with this warning,
+which is more than a trafficker of your kidney deserves.'
+
+'Truth, sir, if you wait to cane me till to-morrow, I have every
+reason to believe that you may wait a lifetime. As to cloth, mine is
+as honourable as ever a German usurper's livery.'
+
+This did not promise a friendly conclusion, but George was ever
+honourably ready to support the honour of his gown, and he confesses
+that, at this moment, he somewhat lost sight of his main object.
+
+The Colonel stepped forward with uplifted cane, a trifle of
+tortoise-shell and amber, in his hand.
+
+George drew back one pace and folded his arms on his breast. His eyes,
+which are of an uncommon bright blue, were fixed on the Colonel's.
+
+'You will find, sir, if you advance one foot, that I do not stand kick
+or cuff. You are dealing with one who knows his weapon' (no experience
+could cure George of this delusion), 'and who does not value his life
+at a straw. Moreover, you began a parley for which I did not ask,
+though I desired it, and I have to tell you that your honour is
+involved in continuing this conversation in quite another key.'
+
+George stepped forward the pace he had withdrawn, and clasped his
+hands behind his back, watching the Colonel narrowly.
+
+There was something in his voice, more in his eyes. The Colonel had
+seen fire, and knew a brave man when he met one. He threw down his
+cane and Kelly reckoned that the worst of his task was over.
+
+'You may compel me to fight,' George went on, 'and I never went to a
+feast with a better stomach, but first I have certain words that must
+be spoken to you.'
+
+'You cannot intend to escape by promising a discovery?'
+
+'Sir, I do not take you for a Messenger or a Minister. One or both I
+can find without much seeking, and, for that sufficient reason, before
+they lay hands on me I absolutely demand to speak to you on a matter
+closely touching your own honour, which, as I have never heard it
+impeached, I therefore sincerely profess my desire to trust.'
+
+'You are pleased to be complimentary, but I know not how my honour can
+be concerned with a Jacobite trafficker and his treasons.'
+
+'I make you this promise, that, if you do thus utterly refuse to
+listen for five minutes, I will give you every satisfaction at the
+sword's point, or, by God! will compel you to take it, as you have
+been pleased to introduce battoons into a conversation between
+gentlemen. And if, when you have heard me, you remain dissatisfied,
+again I will give you a lesson with sharps. You see that we are not
+likely to be interrupted, and that I am perfectly cool. This is a
+matter to each of us of more than life or death.'
+
+'I do see that you desire to pique my curiosity for the sake of some
+advantage which I am unable to perceive. Perhaps you expect your
+friends on the scene?'
+
+'You may observe that I began by dismissing the only friend I have in
+this town. Do you, perhaps, suspect that Mr. Nicholas Wogan needs, or
+has gone to procure, assistance?'
+
+'I confess that I know that gentleman too well for any such
+suspicions.'
+
+'Then, sir, remember that the Roman says _noscitur a sociis_, and
+reflect that I am a friend of Mr. Wogan's, who must stand sponsor, as
+you do not know me, for my honesty. Moreover,' said George, working
+round by a risky way to his point, 'had I wished to escape I could,
+instead of socking you, have sneaked off t'other way. You observed
+that I remained some minutes with a lady to-night after you and the
+rest of her company had withdrawn?'
+
+'It is very like your impudence to remind me of that among other
+provocations! I am not concerned in your merchant's business of
+brocades.'
+
+'But, indeed, with your pardon, you are concerned in the highest
+degree, and that is just the point I would bring you to consider.'
+
+'I tire of your mysteries, sir,' he said, shrugging his shoulders.
+'Speak on, and be brief.'
+
+'On these brocades turns the question whether the honour of a lady,
+which you are bound to cherish, shall be the laughing-stock of the
+town. Sir, in a word, you, and you only, can save that person; need I
+say more?'
+
+'Did she send you with this message to save your own skin?'
+
+'That is past saving, except by a miracle, which I am in no situation
+to expect will be wrought for me. Understand me, sir, I am out of hope
+of earthly salvation. I have nothing to gain, nothing to look for from
+man. I make you freely acquainted with that position of my affairs,
+which are purely desperate. And the person of whom we speak looks to
+you as her sole hope in the world. She sends you this, take it, I know
+not the contents, the seal, as you perceive, being unbroken.'
+
+'This looks more serious,' said the Colonel, taking the sealed note
+which Kelly handed to him.
+
+He pored over the letter, holding it up to the moonlight. 'Do as the
+bearer bids you, if you would have me live,' he read; then, with a
+bitter laugh, he tore the note into the smallest shreds, and was about
+to dash them down on the grass.
+
+'Hold, sir,' Kelly said; 'preserve them till you can burn them. Or--I
+have myself swallowed the like before now.'
+
+The Colonel stared, and put the fragments into his pocket-book.
+
+'Well,' he said, 'I am hearing you.'
+
+'I thank you, sir; you will grant that I did not wrong you in trusting
+your generosity. If I am a free man to-morrow, or even to-night after
+this business is done, I shall have the honour of meeting you,
+wherever you are pleased to appoint. For my cloth have no scruple, I
+never was more than half a parson.'
+
+'Sir, I shall treat you as you may merit. And now for your commands,
+which, it seems, I am in a manner under the necessity to obey.'
+
+'You see this key, sir,' said Kelly, offering that of one of his
+strong boxes, 'take it, go to my lodgings, which, by a miracle, are in
+the same house as your own. Enter my parlour, 'tis on the ground
+floor; open the small iron strong box which this key fits, and burn
+all the--brocades which you find there.'
+
+'This is a most ingenious stroke of the theatre! I am to burn, I
+perceive, all the papers, or brocades as you call them, which damn you
+for a Jacobite plotter! It is not badly contrived, sir, but you have
+come to the wrong agent I am acquainted with the ingenious works of
+the French playwrights.'
+
+'Sir, you compel me, against my will, to be more plain with you than I
+desire. It is your own fault if I give you concern. On opening the
+coffer you may satisfy yourself of the hand of the writer, which
+cannot but be familiar to you. Moreover, the letters of the person for
+whom we are concerned are addressed (that you may not make the error
+which you apprehend) to one Strephon--not a cant name of a political
+plot.'
+
+'She called you--Strephon?'
+
+'She was so kind.'
+
+'And I was Corydon,' groaned the Colonel between his teeth.
+
+'_Arcades ambo!_' said George. 'But now 'tis the hour of a third
+shepherd! Lycidas, perhaps, _le plus heureux des trois_. Oh, Colonel,
+be easy, we are both yesterday's roses, or, rather, I am the rose of
+the day before yesterday.'
+
+'And it is for this woman--'
+
+'Ay, it is just for this woman that you are to risk your commission,
+for a risk there may be, and I my life, for I could get away from this
+place. You perceive that we have no alternative?'
+
+'What must be, must,' he said, after some moments of thought; 'but
+what if I find the Messengers already in possession of your effects?'
+
+'In that case I must depend solely on your own management and
+invention. But I may say that gold will do much, nay, everything with
+such fellows, and your position, moreover, as a trusted officer of
+your King's, will enable you to satisfy men not very eminent for
+scruples.'
+
+'Gold! I have not a guinea, thanks to the cards, not a stiver in my
+rooms to-night. The cards took all.'
+
+'Here, at least,' cried George, 'I can offer some kind of proof of my
+honesty, and even be of service. I am poor, Heaven knows, but there
+are my winnings, easily enough to corrupt four Messengers. Use the
+money; I have friends who will not let me starve in the Tower. Nay,
+delicacy is purely foolish. I insist that you take it.'
+
+'Mr. Johnson,' the Colonel said, 'you are a very extraordinary man.'
+
+'Sir, I am an Irishman,' said George.
+
+'I will not say that I never met one like you, but I hope, after all
+accounts are settled between us, to have the advantage of your
+acquaintance. Sir, _au revoir_.'
+
+'I shall be with you, sir, in ten minutes after your arrival in your
+lodgings, whether the coast be clear or not. But let me attend you
+across the Park, as far as the corner of Pall Mall Street.'
+
+If Kelly was an Irishman, Montague was an Englishman, and Kelly was
+well enough acquainted with that nation to know that the last proof
+given of his disinterestedness was by much the most powerful he could
+have used. He reflected again on the Devil's own luck of Smilinda that
+night, for if the cards had gone contrary to her and George he could
+not have produced this demonstration of his loyalty, nor could he very
+well have invited the Colonel to pay the piper out of his own pocket.
+
+The Colonel also walked silently, turning about in his mind all the
+aspects of this affair.
+
+'I understand,' he said, 'that you are upon honour not to involve me
+in tampering with anything disaffected? You will take no advantage
+whatever that may give _me_ the air of being concerned, to shelter
+yourself or your party?'
+
+'You have my word for it, sir. Your honour, next to that in which we
+are equally concerned, is now my foremost consideration.'
+
+He nodded, then sighed, as one not very well satisfied.
+
+'Things may come to wear a very suspicious complexion, but I must risk
+a little; the worse the luck. Mr. Johnson, neither of us has been very
+wise in the beginnings of this business.'
+
+'I came to that conclusion rather earlier than you, sir, and on very
+good evidence.'
+
+'No doubt,' growled Montague, and he muttered once or twice,
+'Strephon, Corydon--Corydon, Strephon.' Then he turned unexpectedly to
+Kelly. 'You mentioned these letters as I was leaving the room, and I
+noticed that her ladyship grew white. She kept you, she knew then of
+the danger you were in and has just informed you of it. Now, how came
+she to have so particular a knowledge of your danger?'
+
+Mr. Kelly did not answer a question which boded no good for Lady
+Oxford. 'She had grounds of resentment against you in a certain
+ballad.'
+
+Kelly seized at the chance of diverting Montague from his suspicions,
+and showed how the ballad was aimed at him no less than at her
+ladyship, and, without giving the Colonel time to interrupt,
+
+'Here I must bid you _au revoir_, sir,' he said, 'for some ten
+minutes, time enough for you to do what is needed, if, as I hope, you
+are not disturbed. The Messengers, I conceive, will be lurking for me
+in Ryder Street outside our common door; they will not think of
+preventing you from entering, and before I arrive, whatever befalls
+_me_, our common interest will be secured.'
+
+'You are determined to follow?'
+
+'What else can I do? I must know the end of this affair of the
+brocades. It is not wholly impossible that the Messengers have wearied
+of waiting, and think to take me abed to-morrow. When you have done
+what you know, you will leave my room, and I, if I am not taken, have
+some arrangements of my own to make. That, I presume, is not a breach
+of my engagement with you?'
+
+'Certainly not, sir. When I have left your room I am in no sense
+responsible for your actions. I wish you good fortune.'
+
+While they thus walked and were sad enough, they came within ear-shot
+of Wogan, who, at that moment, was declaiming Mr. Pope's Night piece
+to Mr. Scrope, who was in the Canal.
+
+What conversation passed between the four gentlemen Wogan has already
+told, and he has mentioned how the Colonel went away, and how, after
+using pains to prevent Mr. Scrope from catching a cold, he himself
+withdrew to court slumber, and left Mr. Kelly alone in the moonlight.
+
+Mr. Kelly did not remain in the open, but lay _perdu_ on the shadowy
+side of the grove. Concealing himself from any chance of a rencounter,
+he allotted a space of twelve minutes by his watch, and time never
+paced more tardy with him in all his life. There was in his favour but
+the one chance that the Messengers might choose to take him abed in
+the early morning, when the streets would be empty. At this moment St.
+James's Street was full of chairs and noises; night-rakers were
+abroad, and the Messengers, who are not very popular, might fear a
+rescue by the rabble. On this chance Kelly fixed his hopes, for if he
+could but be alone for ten minutes in his lodgings, he and his friends
+would have little to fear from any evidence in his possession.
+
+If the Colonel succeeded, Lady Oxford, and, with her ladyship,
+George's honour, were safe. If, by an especial miracle of heaven,
+George could have a few minutes alone in his room, the Cause and the
+faithful of the Cause would be safe. The Colonel, Kelly hoped, could
+hardly fail to do his part of the work; he would enter his own rooms
+unchallenged, his uniform and well-known face must secure him as much
+as that, and the Epistles of Smilinda would lie in ashes.
+
+So he hoped, but nothing occurred as he anticipated.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIII
+
+ HOW THE MESSENGERS CAPTURED THE WRONG
+ GENTLEMAN; AND OF WHAT LETTERS THE
+ COLONEL BURNED.
+
+
+For Colonel Montague was taken in Mr. Kelly's place, as you may see
+with your own eyes in his Grace of Dorset's Report to the Lords'
+Committees, where the informations of John Hutchins and Daniel
+Chandler, described as 'two of his Majesty's Messengers in Ordinary,'
+are printed. These did not chance to be men of a very high degree of
+intelligence, as their own confessions bear testimony, in itself a
+fortunate circumstance.
+
+Colonel Montague, when he parted from the Parson at the grove in St.
+James's Park, walked into Pall Mall Street by the path at the corner
+of St. James's House and up to St. James's Street to the corner of
+Ryder Street, where he turned. Ryder Street, what with gentlemen
+walking home on the footpaths and chairs carried in the road, was a
+busy thoroughfare at this time of the night, and he remarked nothing
+extraordinary until he was close to his own doorstep. Then he
+distinguished, or rather seemed to distinguish--for in the doubtful
+light he could not be certain--at a little distance on the opposite
+side of the road a man in the blue and silver livery of Lady Oxford.
+The man was loitering at the edge of the path, taking a few steps now
+this way now that. He was tall, and not unlike Mr. Wogan in his girth.
+Now, Colonel Montague was aware that her ladyship possessed a lackey
+of just such a conspicuous figure.
+
+'For once in a while,' he thought, 'the news-sheet spoke truth
+to-night. It seems it was Lady Oxford that set the reverend non-juror,
+for here is her lackey to point him out to the Messengers.'
+
+With this thought urging him to get his business done quickly,
+Montague walked up to his door and knocked. On the instant, three men
+ran across the road and collared him. The capture was observed by one
+or two gentlemen, who stopped, and immediately a small crowd began to
+gather about them.
+
+Montague was prudent enough to waste no time in a useless struggle
+with the Messengers, and asked them quietly who they were and what
+they intended. At this moment the door was opened by Mrs. Kilburne's
+maid, and the Messengers, lifting the Colonel up, carried him into the
+house. Hutchins, a short, stoutish fellow, who was the chief of the
+three men, told the Colonel who they were.
+
+'And we hold a warrant for your apprehension under Lord Townshend's
+seal,' he said, and showed his scutcheon and the warrant.
+
+'Not for my apprehension,' replied Montague. 'There is one without
+there who can speak for me.' For the door was still open to the
+street, and amongst the people who thronged the entrance, he now saw
+very clearly the blue and silver livery of her ladyship. The lackey,
+however, pushed backwards out of range, and since those who were
+foremost of the crowd turned about to see who it was that Montague
+pointed to, Hutchins took the occasion to close the door in their
+faces.
+
+'You are George Kelly, _alias_ James Johnson, _alias_ Joseph Andrews,'
+said he, turning again to Colonel Montague, and reading out from the
+warrant a number of names by which the Parson was known to the honest
+party.
+
+'It is the first I have heard of it,' replied Montague, and he invited
+the Messengers up to his rooms on the first floor, where he would be
+happy to satisfy them of their mistake. Mrs. Kilburne had now joined
+her maid in the passage, and she followed the Messengers up the
+stairs, wringing her hands over the disgrace which, through no fault
+of hers, had fallen upon her house. When they were come within the
+room, Montague threw open his cloak, which he wore wrapped about his
+shoulders, and discovered his scarlet coat beneath it.
+
+'I am Colonel Montague,' he said, 'and an officer under the King as
+well as you. If there is work to be done for the King, I shall be very
+happy to assist you. I fought for the King at Preston,' and he made a
+great flourish of his services and valorous acts, not being sure that
+the Messengers had reinforcements without, and hoping that Mr. Kelly
+might enter meanwhile and do what was needful. Mrs. Kilburne's tongue
+and care for the Parson seemed likely to forward this plan, for, with
+many unnecessary words, she declared how the Colonel had lodged with
+her for years.
+
+'And as for Mr. Johnson,' she said, 'there was such a man who came and
+went, but he lodged with Mrs. Barnes in Bury Street, and there you
+should go if you seek for news of him.'
+
+But the ten minutes were not yet gone. The maid remained downstairs in
+the passage. She was a perfectly honest poor wench, who would have
+risked herself for the Parson or for any gentleman in distress. But
+Montague, however closely he listened, could not hear that she opened
+the door, or any noise in the room below.
+
+Hutchins made his apologies with a great many 'your honours,' and the
+Colonel was no less polite in his compliments upon Hutchins's zeal,
+which he would be sure to make known in the proper quarters. But still
+the Parson did not come, and Montague could hold the Messengers in
+talk no longer, though that would have been of little use, as he now
+discovered.
+
+For Hutchins turned about to Chandler,--
+
+'Go down into the street and tell Lyng and Randall,' he said, 'that
+our man is not come. Bid them watch for him at the corner of Ryder
+Street and St. James's.' And as he spoke he gave Chandler the warrant.
+Chandler slipped it into his pocket, and ran downstairs to join the
+others of his worshipful calling in the street. Hutchins followed him,
+but remained within, in the passage, to watch the maid of the house,
+and see that she did not go out to warn the Parson.
+
+The Colonel and Mrs. Kilburne were thus left alone.
+
+'Mrs. Kilburne,' said Montague. 'You must take my word for it, I am
+Mr. Kelly's friend, and without any argument, if you please.' For he
+saw that she was on the point of interrupting him. 'There is but one
+thing you can do for him. Send someone you can trust, or go yourself
+to lure the Messengers off to Mrs. Barnes's house. But you must be
+quick, and here's money to help you.'
+
+He filled her hands with the Parson's gold, and she, in her turn, went
+downstairs and out of the house by a door at the back. Montague, for
+his part, had it in mind to try whether the like means might not
+over-persuade Hutchins's zeal. With that design he descended to
+Hutchins, whom he found lighting a candle in Mr. Kelly's room with the
+door open so that he might command a view of the maid who was still
+waiting in the passage.
+
+The Colonel stepped into the room, casting his eyes about for the
+strong-box with Smilinda's letters, which he could not see. He saw the
+scrutoire, however, which stood in the window with the lid closed.
+Hutchins held the candle above his head and remarked it at the same
+time.
+
+'I will search the rooms,' he said with an air of consequence. Colonel
+Montague was in a quandary. Hutchins had only to throw back the lid
+and the Parson's strong-box would be in his hands. He had only then to
+break open the lock, and all Smilinda's dainty sentiments about the
+union of souls would be splotched over by the dirty thumbs of a
+constable. And the Colonel could not prevent the sacrilege unless the
+money did it for him.
+
+'Mr. Hutchins,' he said, and jingled the gold in his pockets. But he
+got no further in his persuasions. For the name was scarce off his
+lips when a hubbub arose without. It was a confusion of noise at the
+first as though it came from the end of the street.
+
+'They have taken him,' said Hutchins, setting down the candle and
+flinging aside the curtains of the window.
+
+The noise was louder, and Kelly's voice was heard, bawling, 'A rescue!
+An arrest! an arrest! A rescue!' that the rabble might think he was
+taken for debt. Those who were gathered in front of the house did
+indeed turn themselves about, but they were for the most part of the
+better class, and the night-rakers and such-like who might have
+attempted a rescue, only came up behind at Mr. Kelly's bawling, from
+St. James's Street, where they were likely to find more profit than in
+Ryder Street. This friendly mob was running together indeed, but came
+too late.
+
+'Yes, they have taken him,' said Montague. Mrs. Kilburne had not drawn
+the Messengers off. On the other hand, Hutchins had not opened Mr.
+Kelly's scrutoire. 'They have taken him,' and the Parson was already
+under the window. His sword was gleaming in his hand but the
+Messengers dragged upon his arms and he could not use it.
+
+Hutchins threw up the window.
+
+'Bring him in,' and he rushed to the street door and unlocked it.
+Kelly was hustled up the steps, shouting all the while. He was forced
+into the passage just as the rabble came up at his heels.
+
+'A rescue!' they cried.
+
+Lyng and Chandler turned about and drove them back. Randall sprang in
+after Kelly and slammed the door.
+
+The posture of affairs then was this:
+
+Colonel Montague and Hutchins were standing in Mr. Kelly's room close
+to the scrutoire and the open window.
+
+Mr. Kelly, Lyng, who was a big lout, designed by Providence for this
+office and no other, and the maid, were in the passage. Randall and
+Chandler were outside in the street and at their wits' ends to keep
+back the mob, which was now grown very clamorous.
+
+Mr. Kelly was the first to make any movement. He sheathed his sword,
+carefully dusted the sleeves of his coat where the Messengers had held
+him and arranged his cravat.
+
+'These are ill times for a peaceful man to live in,' he said. 'It
+seems a gentleman cannot walk home of an evening but he must be set
+upon and cuffed.'
+
+With a shrug of the shoulders, as though the whole matter was a
+mystery, he sauntered into his parlour. His eyes carelessly took in
+the room. It seemed that nothing had been disturbed. The scrutoire was
+shut, but were Smilinda's letters still hidden there or were they safe
+in Montague's pockets? His eyes rested on the Colonel's face and put
+the question. But the Colonel gave no sign; Hutchins stood at his
+elbow. Kelly's eyes travelled from the Colonel's face to his red coat.
+
+'One of the King's officers,' he said with a smile. 'In the presence
+of one of the King's officers, gentlemen,' he said politely with a bow
+to Hutchins, 'I take it that you will forgo your ingenious attempt to
+rob me and we may all go quietly to bed.'
+
+He moved as he spoke towards the scrutoire, and again looked at the
+Colonel. The Colonel's face was still a blank.
+
+'We hold a warrant for the arrest of George Kelly, alias James
+Johnson,' began Hutchins.
+
+'Indeed?' replied George with an effort of attention, as though
+fatigue put a strain upon his good manners. 'And why should George
+Kelly prefer to call himself James Johnson? I cannot think it is the
+better name. Mr. George Kelly lacks taste, I am afraid,' and he
+stifled a yawn with his hand.
+
+'Colonel Montague,' said Hutchins, who was in some perplexity as to
+what to make of Kelly's present indifference, 'your honour promised to
+assist me.'
+
+Colonel Montague being appealed to, nodded his head.
+
+'Though you will not need my assistance,' he said, 'for here is
+another of your fellows.'
+
+Chandler had come within the house, and pushing into the room said
+that the curtains were drawn apart so that the rabble could see
+clearly all that happened in the room and were on that account the
+less inclined to disperse. As he spoke he hitched the curtains to and
+a volley of curses went up from the disappointed crowd.
+
+Hutchins immediately turned to Kelly.
+
+'Give me your sword.'
+
+Kelly, who knew not what to make of the Colonel's manner, but thought
+it likely he had taken his measures, took his sword by the hanger and
+handed it sheath and all to Hutchins, who in his turn passed it to
+Montague. Montague stood in the corner by the window.
+
+'There is some stupid blunder,' said Kelly, 'which I cannot take it
+upon me to understand. You talk to me a great deal about a warrant,
+but I have not seen it. It is a new thing to come taking off gentlemen
+to the round-house in the middle of the night without a warrant, but
+we live in ill times.' All this he said with an admirable air of
+resignation, though his eyes kept glancing towards Montague, who still
+dared give no sign. The Colonel waited upon occasion; his present aim
+was to hinder the Messengers from any suspicion that the Parson and he
+were in one purpose or indeed were acquainted.
+
+In answer to Kelly, Chandler took the warrant from his pocket and
+handed it to Colonel Montague, who read it through.
+
+'It is a very sufficient warrant,' he said, 'and this gentleman may be
+satisfied if he is rightly named, of which of course I have no
+assurance,' and folding the paper he handed it back to Chandler.
+Whereupon Chandler went out again into the street to guard the door
+from the rabble.
+
+Hutchins then took Kelly's hat, placed it on the table, and searching
+his pockets, pulled out some papers which he had about him, things of
+no moment; and these papers he laid in the hat. But to search Kelly's
+pockets Hutchins must needs stoop. Here was the Colonel's chance. Over
+Hutchins' shoulder, Kelly's eyes again put their question. The Colonel
+now answered with a shake of the head. Smilinda's letters had not been
+saved, a great surprise and disappointment to the Parson, who of
+course knew nothing of Montague's mistaken arrest.
+
+Kelly, however, wasted no precious moments in regrets. As Hutchins
+turned to place the papers in the hat, Kelly thrust Lyng aside, and,
+springing to the window, tore aside the curtains and again bawled at
+the top of his voice. 'A rescue! An arrest!'
+
+Shouts of encouragement greeted him; the hubbub filled the street
+again. Hutchins and Lyng at once sprang upon Kelly, tore him back from
+the window, and sent him staggering across the room.
+
+'Tie his hands!' cried Hutchins, as he pulled down the sash. 'Knock
+him down! Gag him!' and he turned to help Lyng.
+
+The maid in the passage began to cry; the Colonel stood irresolute;
+the Parson drew himself up against the wall as the two men approached
+him. His Irish blood bubbled in his veins at the prospect of so fine a
+tumble. He clenched his hands. He forgot Smilinda's letter, the Cause,
+even Rose. His face became one broad grin and in an accent as broad as
+the grin.
+
+'And what'll I be doin' while you're tyin' my hands?' he asked. 'Why,
+just this,' and his fist shot out like a battering-ram and took the
+worthy Lyng on the tip of the chin. Mr. Lyng was clean lifted off both
+his feet and so sat down on the floor with some violence, where he
+felt his neck in a dazed sort of way to make sure that it was not
+broken.
+
+'Oh, why isn't Nick here?' cried Kelly, and indeed Nicholas Wogan
+bewails his absence at that festivity to this day. 'Come, Mr.
+Hutchins, I have the other fist for you,' and he began to dance
+towards Hutchins, who called on the Colonel to mark the murderous look
+in the prisoner's eyes and save him from immediate destruction.
+
+'Is it destruction you want?' asked Kelly with a chuckle. 'I'll
+gratify you with all the destruction imaginable.' And no doubt he
+would have been as good as his word. But Hutchins, while shutting the
+window had not drawn the curtains, and the rabble in the street had
+thus enjoyed a full view of the Parson's prowess. They had roared
+their applause when Lyng went down, and as Hutchins drew back before
+the Parson's fisticuffs, they hooted the Messenger for a coward and
+made a rush at the door. A stone or two shattered the window and a
+voice was yelling, 'Murder! murder!' in tones of unmistakable
+sincerity. Chandler then rushed in, his face bleeding, and said that
+Randall was being mobbed, and, if they did not come to help him, would
+be knocked on the head. At this, Lyng, who was now got to his feet,
+ran out into the street with Chandler. Hutchins remained in the room,
+but cried out to Chandler that he should go or send for a file of
+musquets.
+
+Now Chandler, when he rushed into the room, was holding the warrant in
+his hand, he still held it when he ran out again, as the Parson
+remarked, and instantly thought of a plan by which, after all,
+Smilinda's letters might be secured, and her name kept wholly out of
+the business. Accordingly he ceased from his warlike posture and sat
+down in a chair. Hutchins took the occasion to draw the curtains and
+shut out the mob from a view of the room. Mr. Kelly smiled, for he was
+just wondering what excuse he could discover to do that very thing
+himself. Mr. Hutchins was helping him very well.
+
+'It is a pity,' said the Parson in a plaintive voice, sucking his
+knuckles, which were bleeding, 'that a peaceful, law-abiding citizen
+must put himself to so much discomfort because a couple of rascally
+Messengers will not show him their warrant.'
+
+'It is under Lord Townshend's seal,' began Hutchins.
+
+'It may be, or it may not be. I have not seen it. I cannot really
+surrender unless the proper formalities are observed.'
+
+Hutchins, who was no doubt well pleased to see the peaceful turn
+things were taking and had not the wits to suspect it, replied with an
+oafish grin that the prisoner was wise to submit himself to his lawful
+captors.
+
+'And as for the warrant, Chandler has it safe enough in the street.'
+
+'In the street!' cried Kelly, suddenly flying into a passion. 'And
+what's the warrant doing in the street? How dare the warrant be in the
+street when it is intended for a gentleman in the house? Upon my word
+it would take very little to persuade me that there's no warrant at
+all,' and he began to stamp and fume about the room.
+
+'Colonel Montague has read it,' said Hutchins.
+
+'I certainly read a warrant,' agreed the Colonel with an impartial
+air.
+
+'A warrant, yes,' said Kelly in a testy voice. 'But how can the
+Colonel know whether it is intended for me? How can he know whether it
+is a real warrant at all? You come here with a scutcheon, Mr.
+Hutchins. But you might have stolen the scutcheon, as you have
+certainly forged the warrant.' He stopped in front of Hutchins and
+wagged his head at him. 'Mr. Hutchins, I begin to suspect you are one
+of a gang of cheats come here to rob me. But I will not be your gull,'
+he cried out as though his fury overmastered him. 'No, nor his worship
+the Colonel either,' and he called to the maid to lock the street
+door.
+
+'Lock it,' said he. 'Lock the door' and Mr. Hutchins and I will get to
+the bottom of the matter quietly.'
+
+That very thing now happened which Mr. Kelly most desired. The maid
+ran down the passage to the street door: Hutchins ran out of the room
+after her to prevent her locking it. Kelly flung to the door of the
+parlour: Mr. Hutchins was outside, the Colonel and Kelly were alone
+within the room.
+
+'My sword,' said the Parson in a quick whisper. Montague held it out
+to him without a word: he had no right to refuse it to a free man.
+Kelly snatched the hilt; the blade rattled out of the scabbard; he
+stood on guard with his naked blade.
+
+Meanwhile Hutchins and the maid were quarrelling in the passage over
+the door key, as Kelly could distinguish from their voices.
+
+He made a quick step towards the window, threw open the scrutoire, and
+returned to his station at the door. But he had not so much as glanced
+at the scrutoire; he had kept his eyes fixed upon the door. Still
+keeping his eyes so fixed, he pointed towards the strong boxes.
+
+'Be quick,' he whispered. 'In the strong box! Take the candle and have
+done. You know the hand, and you have the key.'
+
+Montague pulled the key from his pocket, and fumbled at the lock.
+
+'It will not fit,' he said under his breath and swore.
+
+'Be quick,' repeated Kelly.
+
+The key rattled in the lock as the Colonel turned it this way and
+that. Mr. Kelly was about to throw a glance over his shoulder when he
+saw the handle of the door turn. It was turned cautiously without any
+noise. The next moment the door flew open. Fortunately it opened
+upwards towards the window and the scrutoire. Kelly stopped it with
+his foot when it was but half open, so that Montague was entirely
+hidden behind the panels from the eyes of any one on the threshold or
+in the passage. Hutchins was on the threshold peering into the room.
+But he did not peer long, for at the same moment that Kelly stopped
+the door with his foot he made at Hutchins, with his sword, a pass so
+vigorous that the hulking fellow leaped back a good yard, crying out
+to Montague:
+
+'Will your honour let a poor man be killed in his duty?'
+
+The Colonel made no answer to the pathetic question. He was occupied
+with business of another complexion. Mr. Kelly heard a crack.
+
+'What is the matter?' he asked, in a low voice.
+
+'The key is filled with dust, or the lock is jammed,' Montague
+whispered back. 'I have broken open the box with the guard of my
+sword.'
+
+'Be quick,' said Kelly. 'Make sure you have Smilinda's letters.'
+
+All this while he had not looked towards the scrutoire. The most that
+he saw was the shadow of the Colonel thrown on the wall of the room by
+the single candle, a shadow monstrous big that held the shadow of a
+paper to its eyes. It is to be said in Mr. Kelly's defence that he
+dared not look about him. The door of the room was half open; the
+Messenger who had retreated into the passage was plainly hardening his
+heart for a rush. Mr. Kelly's attention was entirely distracted from
+Colonel Montague's proceedings at this important moment.
+
+'Yes,' whispered Montague. 'This is her hand, this is the blue-edged
+paper she affects of late. "My own Strephon," and dated two days back.
+It bids you to her rout.'
+
+The words passed in and out of Mr. Kelly's ears. His eyes were
+occupied with Hutchins, and with his eyes his mind. He did not
+remember that he had thrust this letter of her ladyship's, as he had
+told to Wogan, into the wrong box, the box holding the papers of the
+Bishop and the King. Then a little flame shot up and illumined the
+room, which was at once filled with a smell of burning paper. Montague
+had burned Smilinda's letter, inviting Kelly to her rout.
+
+It seemed that Hutchins had after all no stomach for Mr. Kelly's
+sword, which to be sure must have glittered ominously in the dismal
+light of the solitary candle. He ran back again down the passage and
+pulled open the street door.
+
+'Chandler,' he shouted, calling his fellow to assist him. A yell of
+laughter answered him, and a voice from the street cried out that
+Chandler was gone for a file of soldiers. Kelly could hear Hutchins
+swearing and cursing, though it was himself that had sent Chandler on
+the errand.
+
+A second flame spirted up and died away. Montague had burned a second
+letter.
+
+'Lyng! Randall!' cried Hutchins at the street-door, but again he was
+answered with jeers, and again the voice called to him mockingly that
+they were gone to Bury Street, where they were told they would be sure
+to snare the right man.
+
+Montague, who heard everything clearly, blessed Mrs. Kilburne aloud,
+and burned a third paper. Kelly kicked the door to.
+
+'We are safe, then, it seems,' he said. 'Smilinda's safe.'
+
+He took out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his face,
+leaning his back against the panels of the door. He could hear
+Hutchins bawling up the street for his partners, and his voice sounded
+as though he had moved from the door in search of them. So for the
+first time Kelly looked at Montague and the scrutoire.
+
+Colonel Montague had turned the strong-box upside down and emptied the
+papers on the scrutoire, so that they lay face downwards. By a scruple
+of delicacy, having read the topmost letter to make sure it was Lady
+Oxford's hand, he looked at them no more. He took them up one by one,
+face downwards, and so burned them separately, knowing no doubt that,
+lighted in a single heap, only those on the outside and the edges of
+the letters in the middle, would catch fire. One by one he burnt them
+face downwards at the candle, the secret letters of the Cause. He had
+burned three, and he now held the fourth in his hand. He approached it
+to the candle; he did not so much as look at it. But had he merely
+glanced once at Mr. Kelly leaning there against the panels of the
+door, that glance would have surely told him what papers he was
+burning.
+
+Kelly did not speak a word, or stir a muscle. He had wiped the sweat
+from his face a second ago, but his forehead was wet now: his eyes
+stared greedily at the papers: a slow smile, of a knavish kind, that
+went very ill with his face, curved his lips. An extreme temptation
+chained him; the Devil whispered in his ear, 'Be silent,' and the
+Parson held his peace.
+
+The blue-edged letter bidding him to the rout he had slipped on the
+top of the Chevalier's papers, as he had told Mr. Wogan. Colonel
+Montague was merrily burning the papers of the Plot. Kelly had but to
+hold his tongue, and in a few minutes he was safe. The Cause was saved
+so far as the papers went, and Lady Oxford, her letters unburned, was
+lost. No wonder the key did not fit; it was the wrong key! Kelly could
+see the corner of Wogan's strong-box peeping out from beneath a thatch
+of papers in the corner of the scrutoire.
+
+All this the Parson saw and understood in the one short moment during
+which Montague approached the paper to the candle. His mind was tossed
+up and down in a tempest; the winds of temptation blew hard against
+the tides of his nature. On one side was safety and the King's
+interest, and Rose, who to be sure need never know of the treachery by
+which the Parson had won her; on the other, a broken pledge that he
+had given to the Colonel, and the ruin of Smilinda, who had betrayed
+him.
+
+Montague lit the sheet of paper and held it up. Kelly saw the blue
+flame creep down from the edge, the writing turn brown, the paper curl
+over black and tattered, with a multitude of red sparks; and still he
+kept his peace.
+
+Montague dropped the ashes on the scrutoire, and took a fifth paper
+from the pile. The Parson turned away, and laid his ear to the panel,
+making a pretence that he heard Hutchins stirring in the passage.
+
+'Be quick!' he said first, and then, moistening his dry lips with his
+tongue: 'Make quite sure you have Smilinda's letters.'
+
+'Smilinda?' asked Montague.
+
+Kelly forced a laugh.
+
+'No doubt she called herself something equally pretty to you.'
+
+'Phylissa,' growled Montague.
+
+'She has a pretty conceit in names. Make sure those are her letters,'
+and again he spoke with an effort.
+
+'Not I. I have had my fill of the lady's handwriting.'
+
+Montague was already holding the paper to the flame, when Kelly's good
+angel got the upper hand with him. He is happy now to think that no
+chance accident, such as the return of Hutchins or the coming of the
+soldiers, hurried him into the better choice with a mind half made up.
+Here was the very occasion of which he had dreamed when he stayed
+behind in Lady Oxford's withdrawing room. He could use the weapon
+which her letters put into his hand to save the Chevalier's papers and
+himself and Rose. But he put the weapon aside. He turned about from
+the door: Montague was holding the paper to the flame, and a corner of
+it had taken fire. Kelly sprang to the scrutoire, snatched the paper
+out of Montague's hand, and crushed the fire out in the palm of his
+hand.
+
+'I gave you the right key, 'he whispered. 'You chose the wrong box.'
+
+Montague snatched up the pile of papers and turned them over.
+
+'Good God! Cyphers!' he exclaimed, and dropped them as though they
+were, in truth, burning.
+
+'The other box; the other box,' said Kelly, pointing to it. He fancied
+that he heard Hutchins moving cautiously just outside the door, and
+was now in a fever lest the delay brought about by his incertitude
+might balk his intentions. At any moment the Messenger might come back
+from Bury Street, or the file of the musquets march tramping up the
+stairs.
+
+All this indeed takes a long time to tell, and seemed no less long to
+Mr. Kelly in the happening; but the whole of the occurrences, the
+movements of the Messengers, the tidings cried to him from the street,
+the burning of the papers, with Kelly's own thoughts and doubts and
+unlooked-for temptations, passed with momentary speed.
+
+Montague found Wogan's strong box, the box of the love-letters,
+unlocked it, tore out all the contents, and glanced at a few at the
+top, middle and bottom.
+
+'Smilinda--Smilinda--Smilinda,' he said, reading the signatures. 'And
+it's for this woman,' he cried, striking the letters with his fist,
+'Smilinda, Phylissa, and the Lord knows what else to the Lord knows
+what other men, that----'
+
+But the Parson was in no mood to listen to Montague's reflections.
+
+'Put the other papers back into that box, the box with the unbroken
+lock, lock it and give me the key,' he said. Montague crammed her
+ladyship's letters into the inner pocket of his coat. But before he
+could move the door opened with a crash, and Hutchins flew in, Kelly
+made a furious pass, and Hutchins, leaping back, 'parried the thrust
+with the door,' as he truly said in his evidence before the Lords'
+Committee. Had he not used that novel parade Kelly would infallibly
+have run him through, and, as it was, George could scarcely drag his
+point out of the wood of the door, which Hutchins in leaping back had
+shut. Being now sufficiently terrified, for indeed no man ever had a
+narrower escape of his life, Hutchins contented himself with a
+plaintive expostulation from the safety of the passage.
+
+'Sure, I would serve Lord Townshend himself in the same way,' Kelly
+shouted back, 'if he tried to enter my room against my will without a
+warrant,' and lowering his voice so that only Montague might hear,
+'Lock the box, and throw me the key.' If only for Montague's sake the
+papers of the Plot must not be found lying open upon Kelly's
+scrutoire, and the box which held them broken among a litter of ashes.
+Mr. Kelly could not but remember with what care, earlier in the
+evening, he had burned and buried the ashes of his Grace of
+Rochester's letters, and reflect with some sadness what little good
+had come of it. Montague locked up the papers of the Plot in the box
+which had held Smilinda's letters, and tossed the key to Kelly, who
+caught it.
+
+'There is no more to do?' said Montague.
+
+'Nothing,' and Kelly handed him back his sword and sat him down on a
+sofa. He seized the occasion to make Montague acquainted with the
+accident through which Smilinda's last letter had been laid on the top
+of those in the box that contained very different wares, adding
+apologies for his brief delay to inform him. The Colonel then sat down
+over against Kelly and laid the flat of Kelly's sword across his
+knees. He looked at the sword for a little. Then,
+
+'You had a chance to let me destroy your own papers,' he said.
+
+'Yes, and to be a liar to a loyal gentleman, and a traitor to a more
+sacred cause than even my King's.'
+
+'Smilinda's?' Montague looked up in perplexity.
+
+'No,' said Kelly, and he stared for a little at the floor, then he
+said very slowly, 'A long while ago I made a prayer that nothing might
+ever come between the Cause and me except it be death. Even while I
+made the prayer I was summoned to visit Lady Oxford, who was then
+unknown to me. Well, something has come between the Cause and
+me--honour. A more sacred Cause than even my King's. Himself would say
+it.'
+
+Colonel Montague fancied that he heard a distant regular tramp of feet
+like soldiers. But Mr. Kelly was clean lost in his thoughts.
+
+'I could meet the King with a clear face and this story on my lips,'
+he continued, 'even though it were over there in Rome, and in his old
+lodging. The very approach to him was secret, his antechamber a cellar
+underground. You went by night, you crossed the cellar in the dark,
+you climbed a little winding stair, and above, in a mean crazy chamber
+which overhangs the Tiber, there was my King looking towards England.
+A man like me, with a man's longings and a man's despair, but, unlike
+me, robbed of a nation. Day by day delay shadowed his eyes and wrote
+upon his face until the face became an open book of sorrows. Yet
+himself would say, "Perish the Cause, perish all but honour,"' and,
+suddenly throwing up his arms, Mr. Kelly cried out in a voice of great
+passion and longing, 'The King! The King!'
+
+Colonel Montague very likely had his own opinions as to how the King
+would take it, but he was careful to keep them to himself, and in the
+silence which followed upon Kelly's outburst the tread of soldiers was
+heard very distinct, and Hutchins's voice at the door bidding them
+hurry.
+
+Mr. Kelly raised his head. He too had heard the sound, and, drawing a
+ring from his finger,
+
+'Take my seal ring, when you are alone seal up the brocades in a
+packet. You know the person whom they concern.'
+
+Montague took the ring and slipped it on his finger.
+
+'Mr. Johnson, or Kelly, or whoever you are,' he said cordially, 'we
+must needs be public enemies, but I wish my King had many as loving
+servants as your King has in you.'
+
+The rattle of the butts of musquets could now be heard in the passage.
+
+'And, damme,' said Montague, bending forward suddenly; he had all this
+while maintained in word and carriage the reserve of the Englishman,
+but now he showed a decent warmth of blood, 'had you been in my place
+and I in yours, Smilinda or no Smilinda, I should have let you burn
+the cyphers.'
+
+On those words he was pleased to say, which Mr. Kelly merely counted a
+politeness, the door was driven open by the butts of several fusils, a
+sergeant with a file of musqueteers entered; behind them came Chandler
+with the warrant, Lyng with a broken head, Hutchins with a white,
+scared face, and Randall whose coat was in tatters.
+
+They were surprised enough, you may be sure, to see the Colonel on one
+side of the fireplace and their redoubtable prisoner as quiet upon the
+other.
+
+'Oh,' said Mr. Kelly, with an admirable air of astonishment, 'it seems
+you have a warrant after all.'
+
+Hutchins then read the warrant through, and Mr. Kelly surrendered. But
+the Messenger had not done; he picked up presently the impudence to
+question the Colonel.
+
+'Your worship let the prisoner take his sword?'
+
+The dignified Montague stared at Hutchins with a strong amazement
+until the fellow was quite abashed.
+
+'What's the world coming to?' he said. 'Here is your prisoner's sword,
+if he is your prisoner.' and, lifting Mr. Kelly's sword from his
+knees, he handed it to Hutchins. Hutchins then made haste to secure
+Mr. Kelly's effects. He went over to the scrutoire, and the first
+things he clapped his eyes upon were a pile of black ashes and a great
+many splotches of hot grease from the candle.
+
+Hutchins looked at the Colonel with a question upon his lips; the
+Colonel looked stonily at Hutchins. Hutchins raised his nose and
+sniffed the air.
+
+'Will your worship tell me whether the prisoner meddled with any
+papers?' he asked, but with less impertinence than before.
+
+'Yes, sir, the gentleman did.'
+
+'What was done with them?'
+
+'Sir, they were burned, as you may perceive.'
+
+'And how came you, sir, to let them be burned?'
+
+'I am not to answer to you, sir, for my conduct, of which I can give a
+sufficient account to persons who have the right to question me. I
+have, for your satisfaction, no knowledge of this gentleman's name,
+nor as to whether he is correctly described in a warrant which was not
+in the house while we were together. It appears to me that you are all
+very likely to lose your scutcheons for your doltish stupidity,
+whether you have hold of the right or the wrong gentleman. I wish you
+a good night, sir,' he said, bowing to Kelly, 'and speedy deliverance,
+if you deserve it, from your present company.'
+
+He put his hat on his head and walked out of the room without another
+word. Hutchins thereupon searched Mr. Kelly's scrutoire; he found one
+box broken open and empty, another box, its own fellow, locked. Mr.
+Kelly delivered the key to it, with a great show of reluctance. It
+held the papers of the Bishop's Plot and a key to the Bishop's cypher,
+which was used to convict him at his trial. As for the burned papers,
+it came out at George's trial that he had destroyed letters in the
+presence of a King's officer. But the Duke of Wharton, in his famous
+speech, argued that a man of Mr. Kelly's figure might very well have
+letters to burn which were not political.
+
+That night the Parson was taken to the house of John Gardiner, living
+in Westminster Market, there to be kept in safe custody. He walked
+between the soldiers, and whistled a lively tune as he walked.
+
+This was related in more than one inn-parlour the next day by the
+sergeant, who was mightily surprised that a man should bear so heavy a
+charge so easily, and so the story got about.
+
+But Mr. Kelly was sensibly lightened by having saved Smilinda in the
+end after so many mischances, and when he thought of her letters safe
+in the Colonel's inner pocket, felt a private glow of pleasure which
+put all conjectures of his fate and doom clean out of his head.
+Moreover, he says that Rose was never nearer to him than on that night
+and during that walk. He speaks as though she walked by his side
+amongst his captors, and walked with a face that smiled.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIV
+
+ MR. WOGAN WEARS LADY OXFORD'S LIVERY, BUT
+ DOES NOT REMAIN IN HER SERVICE.
+
+
+The question with which Mr. Wogan lay down to sleep after Lady
+Oxford's rout, woke him at noon; he sent a boy whom he could trust to
+Ryder Street to desire Colonel Montague's attendance. Montague came
+back presently with the boy, and gave Wogan the news that the Parson
+was taken.
+
+'There was no escape possible,' he said. 'I cannot tell you the
+innermost truth of the affair, because the secret is not mine to tell;
+but, Mr. Wogan, you will take my word for it, your friend was in the
+net.'
+
+'The room was searched?'
+
+'And his papers seized. One or two, I believe, were burned, but the
+greater part were seized,' and then he broke out with an oath. 'Damn
+these plots! What in the world made you meddle with such Tory
+nonsense?'
+
+'Faith,' said Wogan, 'I have been wondering how ever you demeaned
+yourself to become a Whig.'
+
+Wogan wondered very much more what strange mishap had brought Mr.
+Kelly to this pass at the moment when he seemed to have success
+beneath his hand. Something wholly unexpected must have happened
+during those few minutes when he and Smilinda were left alone.
+Something had happened, indeed, but it was something very much simpler
+than Mr. Wogan looked for, who had not the key to the Parson's
+thoughts. However, he forebore to inquire, and instead:
+
+'Colonel,' said he, 'you professed last night that you were under some
+trifling obligation to me.'
+
+'I trust to-day to make the profession good.'
+
+'Faith, then you can, Colonel. There's a little matter of a quarrel.'
+
+At this the Colonel broke in with a laugh.
+
+'With whom?'
+
+'With a lad I have taken a great liking for,' and the Colonel laughed
+again. 'Therefore I would not put a slight on him by missing a certain
+appointment. It is Lord Sidney Beauclerk.'
+
+Colonel Montague's face clouded as he heard the name.
+
+'And the reason of the quarrel?'
+
+'He took objection to a few words I spoke last night.'
+
+'About a ballad? I heard the words.'
+
+'I told him that he would find a friend of mine waiting at Burton's
+Coffee-house this morning, and I doubt if many friends of mine will be
+seen abroad to-day.'
+
+Montague rose from the bed.
+
+'I will not deny,' he said, 'that there are services I should have
+preferred to render you. But I will go to Burton's, on one condition,
+Mr. Wogan--that you do not stir from this house until I come back to
+you. There's an ill wind blowing which might occasion you discomfort
+if you went abroad.'
+
+This he said with some significance.
+
+'It catches at one's throat, I dare say,' replied Wogan, taking his
+meaning. 'I have a tender sort of delicate throat in some weathers.'
+
+Colonel Montague walked to Burton's, at the corner of King Street in
+St. James's. The coffeehouse buzzed with the news of Mr. Kelly's
+arrest, and Colonel Montague saw many curious faces look up from their
+news-sheets and whisper together as he entered. In a corner of the
+room sat Lord Sidney Beauclerk, with a man whom Montague had remarked
+at Lady Oxford's rout the night before.
+
+Lord Sidney arose as Montague approached and bowed stiffly.
+
+'I come on behalf of a gentleman, whom, perhaps, we need not name,'
+said Montague.
+
+'Indeed?' said Lord Sidney, with a start of surprise.
+
+'I can understand that your lordship did not expect me, but I am his
+friend.'
+
+'To be frank, I expected no one.'
+
+'Your lordship, then, hardly knows the gentleman?'
+
+'On the contrary,' said Lord Sidney, and he took up from the table the
+_Flying Post_ of that morning. He handed the paper to Montague, and
+pointed to a sentence which came at the end of a description of Mr.
+Kelly's arrest.
+
+'It is said that Mr. Nicholas Wogan is also in London, hiding under
+the _incognito_ of Hilton, and that he will be taken to-day.'
+
+'You see, my lord,' said Montague, 'that there are certain
+difficulties which threaten to interfere with our arrangements.'
+
+'My friend is aware of them,' said Lord Sidney, and presented his
+friend.
+
+'Before making any arrangements I should be glad if your lordship
+would favour me with a hearing in some private place. It is I who ask,
+not my friend, Mr. Hilton.'
+
+Lord Sidney reluctantly consented, and the two men walked out of the
+coffee-house.
+
+'There are to be no apologies, I trust,' said Lord Sidney.
+
+Montague laughed.
+
+'Your lordship need have no fears. What I propose is entirely unknown
+to Mr. Wogan. But it seems to me that the conditions of the duel have
+changed. If Mr. Wogan shows his face in London he will be taken. If he
+fights you, it matters not whether you pink him or no, for if he
+escapes your sword he will be taken by the Messengers. On the other
+hand, he will not go from London until he has met you; unless--'
+
+'Unless--?'
+
+'Unless your lordship insists upon deferring the meeting until it can
+take place in France.'
+
+'Yes, I will consent to that,' said Lord Sidney, after a moment's
+pause. 'It is common fairness.'
+
+'Again I take the liberty to observe that your lordship does not know
+the gentleman. You must insist.'
+
+Lord Sidney was brought without great difficulty to understand the
+justice of Colonel Montague's argument.
+
+'Very well; I will insist,' he said; and, coming back to Burton's
+coffee-house, he wrote a polite letter, which the Colonel put in his
+pocket.
+
+Montague, however, did not immediately carry it to Mr. Wogan. He stood
+on the pavement of King Street for a little, biting his thumb in a
+profundity of thought; then he hurried to the stable where he kept his
+horses, and gave a strict order to his groom. From the stable he set
+out for Queen's Square, but on the way he bought a _Flying Post_, and
+stopped in St. James's Park to see what sort of account it gave of Mr.
+Kelly's arrest.
+
+'The Plot concerning which they write from Paris,' it began, 'hath
+brought the Guards into the Park, and a reverend and gallant non-juror
+within danger of the Law. The Messengers that were essaying to take
+Mr. Kelly needed reinforcement by a file of musquets before his
+reverence's lodgings could be stormed. It is said that a loyal Colonel
+of the Guards who lodges in the same house in Ryder Street was
+discovered with Mr. Kelly when the soldiers forced their way in, and
+that by his interference many valuable papers have been saved, which
+would otherwise have been destroyed. It appears that Kelly was intent
+upon burning certain cyphers and letters, and had, indeed, burnt two
+or three of them before the loyal Colonel interrupted him.'
+
+The loyal Colonel took off his hat to Grub Street for this charitable
+interpretation of his conduct. Lady Oxford, he reflected, must be in a
+fine flutter, for assuredly she would have sent for the news-sheet the
+first thing.
+
+Montague tapped the pocket in which were her ladyship's letters, and
+smiled. Her anxieties would be very suitable to a certain plan of his
+own.
+
+He walked straight to Queen's Square and knocked at the door. It
+seemed to him purely providential that the man who opened the door was
+the big lackey whom he had seen in Ryder Street the night before.
+Montague looked him over again and said, 'I think that I saw you last
+night in Ryder Street.'
+
+He had some further conversation with the lackey, and money passed
+between them. But the conversation was of the shortest, for her
+ladyship, in a fever of impatience, and bearing every mark of a
+sleepless night, ran down the stairs almost before Colonel Montague
+had finished. She gave her hand to him with a pretty negligence, and
+the Colonel bent a wooden face over it, but did not touch the fingers
+with his lips. Then she led the way into the little parlour, and her
+negligence vanished in a second. She was all on fire to know whether
+her letters had been seized or no; yet even at that moment it was not
+in her nature to put a frank question when a devious piece of cajolery
+might serve.
+
+'Corydon!' she said in a whisper of longing, as though Montague was
+the one man her heart was set upon, as though she had never brought
+Mr. Kelly into this very room on a morning of summer two years ago.
+'My Corydon!' she said, and sighed.
+
+'Madam,' said Montague, in a most sudden enthusiasm, 'I think there is
+no poetry in the world like a nursery rhyme.'
+
+Her ladyship could make nothing of the remark.
+
+'A nursery rhyme?' she repeated.
+
+'A nursery rhyme,' repeated the Colonel. '"Will you walk into my
+parlour, said the spider to the fly."'
+
+Lady Oxford looked at him quite gravely.
+
+'I do not in the least understand,' she said. She had a wonderful
+knack of burying her head in the sand and believing that no one spied
+her, as travellers tell of the ostrich. 'But you have a message for
+me, have you not?'
+
+She put the question frankly now, since coquetry had failed.
+
+'I have a packet to deliver to your ladyship,' replied Montague.
+
+Lady Oxford drew a breath and dropped into a chair. 'Thank you! How
+shall I thank you?' she cried; and seeing that Montague made no answer
+whatever, but stood stiff as a ramrod, she became at once all weak
+woman. 'You are very good to me,' she murmured in a very pathetical
+voice.
+
+'Your ladyship owes me no thanks,' replied Montague. 'Your ladyship
+has need of all your gratitude for a gentleman who gave up all that he
+held dear to save your good name.'
+
+He had it on the tip of his tongue to add, 'which was not worth
+saving,' and barely refrained from the words.
+
+Lady Oxford was not abashed by the rebuke. She turned upon the Colonel
+eyes that swam with pity for Mr. Kelly's misfortunes.
+
+'I read that he was taken,' she said sadly. 'Poor gentleman! But he
+should have burnt my letters long ago. They were letters written, as
+we women write, with a careless pen and ill-considered words which
+malice might misconstrue. He should have burnt them, as he swore to
+do; but he broke his word, and so, alas! pays most dearly for his
+fault. Indeed, it grieves me to the heart, and all the more because he
+brought his own sufferings about. So unreasonable we poor women are,'
+and she shook her head, and smiled with a sort of pity for women's
+frail readiness to forgive.
+
+'Madam,' said Montague, growing yet colder, 'it is not for me either
+to construe or to misconstrue the packet which I am to give you, nor
+am I at all concerned to defend a gentleman whom I am proud to name my
+friend.'
+
+The indifference of the speech no doubt stung her ladyship.
+
+'Friend!' she said with a sneer. 'This friendship is surely something
+of the suddenest. I did not even so late as last night notice any
+great cordiality between you.'
+
+'Very likely not,' said Montague. 'Last night there was a trivial
+cause for disagreement upon which to-day we are of one mind.'
+
+Lady Oxford flushed and took another tone.
+
+'You are cruel,' she said. She was not so much insulted as hurt. 'You
+are ungenerous. You are cruel.'
+
+But Colonel Montague was not in a melting mood, and so, 'Give me the
+packet,' she said sullenly.
+
+Montague pressed his hand over his pocket and smiled.
+
+Lady Oxford rose from her chair with a startled face.
+
+'You mean to keep it? To use it?'
+
+'Not to your ladyship's hurt.'
+
+Lady Oxford looked at him with eyes mournful in their reproach.
+
+'Mr. Kelly bade you give these letters back to me at once,' she said;
+and then, with a great fervour of admiration, 'Mr. Kelly would have
+given them back to me at once.' It seemed as though the thought of the
+noble Mr. Kelly was the one thing which now enabled her to keep her
+faith in men.
+
+'Very likely,' replied Montague coolly, who was not at all moved by
+the disparaging comparison of himself with the Parson. 'Mr. Kelly
+would have given them back to you at once had not your ladyship taken
+good care that a few locks and bars should hinder him. But I am not
+Mr. Kelly, and indeed it is well for your ladyship I am not. Had your
+ladyship betrayed _me_, why, when that pretty news-sheet was read out
+last night, I would have stood up before the whole company, and told
+boldly out how your ladyship came by the knowledge which gave you the
+power to betray me.'
+
+The words and the stern voice in which they were spoken stung Lady
+Oxford into a passion. She forgot to deny that she had betrayed Mr.
+Kelly.
+
+'It would have been an infamy!' she cried.
+
+'A harsh critic might say that it would have matched an infamy.'
+
+Her ladyship saw her mistake.
+
+'There was nothing which Mr. Kelly could have said. Mr. Kelly was my
+friend, as I have told you frankly; but I did not betray him.'
+
+'Your ladyship's livery is blue and silver, I think--a pretty notable
+livery even at night, as I had occasion to remark in Ryder Street.'
+
+Lady Oxford was put out of countenance.
+
+'What am I to do to earn the packet which is mine?' she asked
+bitterly.
+
+'The simplest thing imaginable. Your ladyship, I fear me, has not
+slept well. What say you to a little country air, with your humble
+servant for a companion? If your ladyship would order your carriage to
+be at your door in an hour's time we might take the air for a while
+together. On our return your ladyship will be refreshed for this
+evening's diversions, and I shall be the lighter by a packet of
+letters.'
+
+Lady Oxford did not know what to make of the Colonel's proposal, but
+she perforce consented to it.
+
+'I obey your orders,' said she bitterly; and Montague went back to
+Wogan, whom he found sitting on the edge of the bed and disconsolately
+swinging his legs.
+
+'I have a letter for you from Lord Sidney Beauclerk,' said Montague.
+
+It was a very polite letter, and assured Mr. Wogan that he would on no
+account fight with him in England; but would cut his throat somewhere
+in France with the greatest friendliness possible.
+
+'Very well,' said Wogan, 'but I have to reach France first.'
+
+'You will start in an hour's time,' said Montague.
+
+'In broad daylight?' asked Wogan. 'And what of the ill wind and the
+sore throat that's like to come of it?'
+
+'I have got a fine coat to protect the throat.'
+
+Montague went outside and cried down the stairs to know whether a
+parcel had been brought into the house. The parcel was carried
+upstairs into Mr. Wogan's room. The Colonel unwrapped it, and spread
+out on the bed a blue and silver livery.
+
+'A most distasteful garb,' said Wogan.
+
+'It is indeed not what we would choose for the descendant of kings,'
+murmured Montague gently as he smoothed out the coat.
+
+'Viceroys, Colonel, viceroys.'
+
+'Viceroys, then, Mr. Wogan; but no doubt they murdered, and robbed,
+and burned, and ravished, just like kings. Besides, you have an
+example. For I seem to have heard of another Wogan, who went to
+Innspruck as a shopkeeper.'
+
+'To be sure,' cried Nick. 'That is the finest story in the world. It
+was my brother Charles--'
+
+'You shall tell me that story another time,' said Montague, and Wogan
+stripped off his clothes.
+
+'Will you tell me what I am to do when I am dressed?'
+
+'You will go to a certain house.'
+
+'Yes,' said Wogan, and pulled on the lackey's breeches.
+
+'At the house you will find a carriage.'
+
+'I shall find a carriage.' Wogan drew on a stocking.
+
+'You will mount behind as though you were a footman from the house.'
+
+'A footman from the house,' repeated Wogan, and he pulled on the other
+stocking.
+
+'I shall get into the carriage with a companion. You won't know me.
+The carriage will drive off. You won't speak a word for fear your
+brogue should betray you.'
+
+'I will whisper my opinions to you in English, Colonel,' said Wogan as
+he fastened his garters.
+
+'I don't think you could,' said Montague, 'and certainly you will not
+try. We shall drive to the almshouses at Dulwich. When we get there, I
+will make an excuse to stop the carriage.'
+
+'You won't be alone, then?'
+
+'No. Let me see. It is a fine sunny day. I will say that my watch is
+stopped, and I will send you to see the time by the sundial in the
+court.'
+
+Wogan buttoned his waistcoat.
+
+'I will bring you the exact minute.'
+
+'No you won't. You will cross the court to the chapel, by the chapel
+you will find a path, and the path will lead you out through an arch
+into another road, bordered with chestnut trees.'
+
+'And when I am in the road?' Wogan tied his cravat.
+
+'You will find my groom with a horse. The horse will be saddled. There
+will be pistols in the holsters, and then your patron saint or the
+devil must help you to get out of the country.'
+
+'I have a friend or two on the coast of Sussex who will do as well,'
+said Wogan, and he drew the coat over his shoulders, 'and I am very
+grateful to you. But sure, Colonel, what if a constable pulls me off
+the carriage by the leg before we are out of London? You will be
+dipped yourself.'
+
+'There's no fear of that if you hold your tongue.'
+
+Wogan took up his hat.
+
+'And who is to be your companion?'
+
+Montague hesitated.
+
+'My companion will be a lady.'
+
+'Oh! And where's the house with the carriage waiting at the door?'
+
+'In Queen's Square, Westminster.
+
+Wogan looked at his clothes.
+
+'I am wearing her damned livery,' he cried. 'No, I will stay and be
+hanged like a gentleman, but I take no favours at Lady Oxford's hand,'
+and in a passion he began to tear off the clothes.
+
+'She offers none,' said Montague. 'She knows nothing of what I intend.
+I would not trust her. If you have to stand behind, I have to drive by
+her side; and upon my word I would sooner be in your place. Her
+ladyship's footman for an hour! Man, are you so proud that your life
+cannot make up for the humiliation? Why, I have been her lapdog for a
+year.'
+
+Wogan stopped, with one arm out of the sleeve of his coat. The notion
+that her ladyship was not helping him, but that, on the contrary, he
+was tricking her, gave the business a quite different complexion.
+
+'D'ye see? The one place in London where the King's Messengers will
+not look to find you is the footboard of Lady Oxford's carriage,'
+urged Montague.
+
+There was reason in the argument: it was the same argument which Mr.
+Wogan had used to persuade Mr. Kelly to go to Queen's Square the
+evening before, and now he suffered it to persuade himself.
+
+Wogan drew on the coat again, pulled his peruke about his face, and
+drew his hat forward on his forehead.
+
+'Now follow me. It is a fortunate thing we are close to her ladyship's
+house.'
+
+Montague walked quickly to Queen's Square. Wogan followed ten yards
+behind. As they turned into the square they saw Lady Oxford's carriage
+waiting at the door.
+
+'Does the coachman know?' asked Wogan, lounging up to the Colonel and
+touching his hat with his forefinger.
+
+'The lackey whose place you took has primed him.'
+
+At the door Mr. Wogan climbed up to the footboard while Montague
+entered the house. In a minute Lady Oxford came out, and was handed
+into the carriage by the Colonel. She did not look at her new lackey,
+but gave an order to the coachman and the carriage drove off. Mr.
+Wogan began to discover a certain humour in the manner of his escape
+which tickled him mightily. He noticed more than one of his
+acquaintances who would have been ready to lay him by the heels, and
+once Lady Oxford made a little jump in her seat and would have stopped
+the coachman had not Colonel Montague prevented her. For Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk stood on the path gazing at her ladyship and the Colonel
+with a perplexed and glowing countenance. Mr. Wogan winked and shook a
+friendly foot at him from the back of the carriage, and his lordship
+was fairly staggered at the impertinence of her ladyship's footman. So
+they drove out past the houses and between the fields.
+
+Colonel Montague was plainly in a great concern lest Lady Oxford
+should turn round and discover who rode behind her. He talked with
+volubility about the beauty of spring and the blue skies and the green
+fields, and uttered a number of irreproachable sentiments about them.
+Lady Oxford, however, it seemed, had lost her devotion to a country
+life, and was wholly occupied with the Colonel's indifference to
+herself. Her vanity put her to a great many shifts, which kept her
+restless and Mr. Wogan in a pucker lest she should turn round. Now it
+was her cloak that, with an ingenious jerk, she slipped off her
+shoulders, and the Colonel must hoist it on again; now it was her
+glove that was too small, and the Colonel must deny the imputation and
+admire her Liliputian hand, which he failed to do; now his advice was
+asked upon the proper shape of a patch at the corner of the mouth, and
+a winsome, smiling face was bent to him that he might judge without
+any prejudice. The Colonel, however, remained cold, and Wogan was
+sorely persuaded to lean over and whisper in his ear:
+
+'Flatter her, soften your face and adore her, and she will be quiet as
+a cat purring in front of a fire.'
+
+For it was solely his indifference that pricked her. Had he pretended
+a little affection, she would have whistled him off without any
+regret, but she could not endure that he should discard her of his own
+free will. This, however, Colonel Montague did not know; he had not
+Mr. Wogan's experience of the sex, and so Lady Oxford restlessly
+practised her charms upon him until they came to the gates of the
+almshouses at Dulwich.
+
+Then Colonel Montague cried to the coachman to halt.
+
+'Or would your ladyship go further?' he asked, and pulled his watch
+out of his fob to see the time. But his watch had unaccountably
+stopped. 'Nay, there's a sundial in the court there,' he said, and
+over his shoulder bade the lackey go and look at it. The lackey
+climbed down from the footboard. At the same moment Colonel Montague
+bade the coachman turn, and since the lackey kept at the back of the
+carriage as it turned, Lady Oxford did not catch a glimpse of him. The
+lackey walked through the gates, crossed the grass to the chapel
+without troubling his head about the sundial, ran down the passage and
+under the archway into a quiet road shaded with chestnut trees and
+laburnums. Colonel Montague's groom was walking a horse up and down
+the road. Wogan mounted the horse, thrust his feet into the stirrups,
+and took the air into his chest with incomparable contentment.
+
+The afternoon sunlight shone through the avenue and glistened on the
+laburnum flowers. But there is another sort of yellow flower that
+blooms from the mouth of a pistol barrel with which Mr. Wogan was at
+that moment more concerned, and he unstrapped the holsters and looked
+to the priming to see whether the buds were ready to burst. Then he
+drove his heels into his horse's flanks and so rode down between the
+chestnut trees. 'Your ladyship, we need wait no longer,' said Montague
+to Lady Oxford. 'Your footman will not come back, and I have the
+honour to return you your packet of letters.'
+
+With that he drew the letters from his pocket, sealed up in a parcel
+with Mr. Kelly's ring. Lady Oxford clutched them tight to her bosom,
+and lay back in the carriage, her eyes closed. The coachman drove back
+to London.
+
+They had gone almost half the way before Lady Oxford recovered
+sufficiently from her joy to have a thought for anything but the
+letters. Then she looked at Montague, and her eyes widened.
+
+'The footman!' she said. 'Ah! I have saved Mr. Kelly after all. I have
+saved him!'
+
+The Colonel might have pointed out that whatever saving had been done,
+Lady Oxford had taken but an involuntary hand in it. But he merely
+shrugged his shoulders; he imagined her anxiety on Mr. Kelly's account
+to be all counterfeit, although, may be, she was sincere.
+
+'Mr. Kelly,' he said, 'is most likely in the Tower. Your footman was
+Mr. Nicholas Wogan.'
+
+Lady Oxford was silent for some little time. Then in a low, broken
+voice she said:
+
+'There was no need you should have so distrusted me.'
+
+Montague glanced at her curiously. Her face had a new look to him. It
+was thoughtful, but with a certain simplicity in the thoughtfulness;
+compunction saddened it, and it seemed there was no artifice in the
+compunction.
+
+'Madam,' he answered gently, 'if I had told you, and the manner of Mr.
+Wogan's escape became known, you might fall under the imputation of
+favouring Mr. Wogan's cause.'
+
+Lady Oxford thanked him with a shy look, and they drove back among the
+streets. Neither of them spoke until they reached Queen's Square, but
+Colonel Montague was again very gentle as he handed her from the
+carriage and bade her good-bye. Lady Oxford's discretion was to seek.
+The Colonel seemed to be in a relenting mood; she could not resist the
+temptation.
+
+'My Corydon!' she whispered under her breath.
+
+Montague's face hardened in an instant.
+
+'My Phylinda!' he replied. 'No, I should say my Smilissa. Madam, there
+is, in truth, some family likeness between the names, and perhaps it
+would be better if I said simply "Lady Oxford."'
+
+So the Colonel got his foot out of the net. Her ladyship made no
+answer to his sneer, but bowed her head and passed slowly into her
+house. Montague had struck harder than he had intended, and would
+gladly have recalled the words. But the door was closed, and the
+strange woman out of sight and hearing. He walked away to his lodging
+in Ryder Street, very well content with his day's work, and opening
+the door of his parlour on the first floor was at once incommoded by a
+thick fog of tobacco-smoke. But through the fog he saw, comfortably
+stretched in his best armchair, with his peruke pushed back and his
+waistcoat unbuttoned, a lackey in Lady Oxford's livery. Montague
+lifted up his voice and swore.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXV
+
+ HOW THE MINIATURE OF LADY OXFORD CAME BY
+ A MISCHANCE.
+
+
+'I lent you the swiftest horse I have,' said Montague.
+
+'It is just for that reason I am back before you,' replied Wogan.
+
+Colonel Montague at once became punctilious to the last degree. He
+stood correct in the stiffest attitude of military deportment. A
+formal politeness froze the humanity out of his face.
+
+'This makes me very ridiculous, Mr. Wogan,' he said in a tone of
+distaste. 'If you will pardon the remark, I was at some pains and
+perhaps a little risk to get you safe out of London. You accepted my
+services, as it seemed, and yet here you are back in London! Indeed
+this makes me very ridiculous.'
+
+Mr. Wogan had quite forgotten that Colonel Montague was an Englishman,
+and so hated ridicule worse than the devil. He was briskly reminded of
+the fact, and having ruffled the gentleman's feelings, must now set to
+work to soothe them.
+
+'It is very true, Colonel. My behaviour looks uncommonly like a breach
+of good taste. But it was not for the purpose of playing a trick on
+you that I came back into danger, when I was safe upon the back of
+your beautiful horse. Sure, never have I ridden a nobler beast. A
+mouth of velvet, a leg tapered like a fine lady's finger, a coat--sir,
+I have seen the wonderful manufactures of Lyons. There never was silk
+so smooth or of so bright a gloss, as the noble creature's coat. He
+spurned the earth, at each moment he threatened to float among the
+clouds. Sure, that horse was the original of Pegasus in a direct
+descent. A true horse, and more than a horse, a copy of all that is
+best in England, an example of what is most English and therefore most
+admired, the true English military gentleman.'
+
+'Mr. Wogan,' interrupted Montague, with a grim sort of smile, 'you are
+likely to learn a little more particularly about the velvet mouth of
+the English military gentleman if you continue to praise his horse at
+the expense of his sense. Will you tell me why you have come back?'
+
+'You have a right to ask that, Colonel, but I have no right to answer
+you. It is a private affair wherein others are concerned. I should
+have remembered it before, but I did not. It only came into my mind
+when I was riding between the chestnut trees, and leaving my friend
+behind me.'
+
+Colonel Montague was silent for a little.
+
+'In another man, Mr. Wogan, I should suspect an intention to meddle
+with these plots. But I have no need to remind you that such a
+proceeding would not be fair to me. And if Mr. Kelly's concerns have
+brought you back I cannot complain. Meanwhile how are you to lie
+hidden? I cannot keep you here.'
+
+'There are one or two earths, Colonel, which are not yet stopped, I
+have no doubt. I did but take the liberty to use your lodging until it
+grew dark.'
+
+The evening was falling while Wogan and Montague thus talked together.
+Wogan wrote a letter which he put into his pocket, and holding the
+ends of his wig in his mouth, without any fear ran the hazard of the
+streets.
+
+Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was that evening adorning herself for a
+masquerade in her house, when word was carried to her that Lady
+Oxford's big lackey was below and had brought a letter. Lady Mary had
+no sooner glanced at the superscription than she sent her maid
+downstairs to bring the lackey immediately to her boudoir. Thither he
+came without awaking suspicion in the servants, and found Lady Mary
+sitting in front of her toilette, which was all lighted up with
+candles, and the rest of the room dark.
+
+Mr. Wogan remained in a dark corner by the door.
+
+'You have a message from Lady Oxford,' said she, carelessly holding
+out a hand as though to take a letter.
+
+'By word of mouth, your ladyship,' replied Wogan in a disguised voice.
+
+Lady Mary dismissed her maid and spoke in considerable heat:
+
+'Colonel Montague told me you had escaped.'
+
+'I have come back,' replied Wogan coolly, who had no reason to think
+he had justly incurred Lady Mary's anger, and so made no account of
+it.
+
+'It is sheer madness,' she exclaimed, 'and yet no more mad than it is
+for your friends to take precautions for your safety,' and she dabbed
+a patch on her cheek viciously. 'Why have you come back?'
+
+'Your ladyship has not forgotten how some while ago Lady Oxford paid
+her losses at cards.'
+
+Lady Mary raised her head from her mirror and looked at Wogan.
+
+'With Mr. Kelly's winnings from the South Sea,' said she.
+
+'Your ladyship was kind enough then to say that you would not count
+the money yours.'
+
+'I remember.'
+
+'But would keep it, since you could not return it to George, until
+such time as it could be used on his behalf.'
+
+Lady Mary took a key from a drawer in her toilette and, unlocking a
+cabinet in a corner of the room, showed Wogan a parcel of bills of
+exchange lying amongst a heap of guineas.
+
+'The moment for using it has come,' said Wogan.
+
+'Take it, then,' said Lady Mary, who now asked for no explanations.
+
+'No. It is only of use if your ladyship uses it.'
+
+'How?'
+
+Lady Mary went back to her toilette and busied herself with a number
+of little silver pots and boxes, while Wogan disclosed his plan.
+
+'George was taken last night in his lodging, as your ladyship is no
+doubt aware. It is a large sum that Lady Oxford lost at cards, and a
+large sum might perhaps bail George, if a trusted Whig were the
+surety. He would have some few weeks of liberty, at all events.'
+
+'Some few weeks that are like to cost you your life,' said Lady Mary,
+who was now grown friendly. 'It was to tell me this you came back. I
+should have guessed.'
+
+'Madam, I shall never believe my life's in danger until I am dead,'
+replied Wogan, with a laugh.
+
+'I will see what the money can do to-morrow,' said Lady Mary. 'Where
+shall I have news of you? Or very likely I am to meet you at
+Ranelagh?'
+
+Wogan disclaimed any such bravado, and told her ladyship of a house
+where she might hear of him if she sent by night and if her messenger
+knocked in a particular way. To that house he now bent his steps, and
+stayed there that night and the next day. It was already dark when the
+particular knock sounded on the door, and Mr. Wogan lifted a corner of
+the blind and peered down into the street. What he saw brought him
+down the stairs in a single bound; he opened the door cautiously, and
+who should slip in but the Parson.
+
+'Nick!' said he, in a warm voice. His hand clasped Wogan's in the
+dark. 'Thanks, thanks!'
+
+It appeared that Lady Mary, after seeing that George was bailed out,
+had told him that the notion of bailing him was none of hers.
+Moreover, in order to make sure Smilinda's letters were safe, Kelly
+had gone as soon as he was released to Colonel Montague, who told him
+of Wogan's return to London and other matters of no importance, so
+that he now wasted a great deal of time in superfluous compliments.
+'But you shall not lose your life on my account, Nick. Montague's
+horse, which it seems you have taken a liking to,' he said, with a
+smile, 'will be waiting for you at twelve o'clock to-night at Dulwich,
+and in the same road; but, Nick, this time you will have to walk to
+Dulwich. There is a warrant out for you. You can slip away with a
+better chance on foot; and, Nick, this time you will not come back.
+Promise me that.'
+
+Wogan promised readily enough.
+
+'I brought the Colonel into some danger of suspicion by returning
+before,' he said. 'It is a strange thing, George, that, while our
+friends have left us in the lurch, we should owe, I my escape, you
+your few weeks of liberty, to perfectly inveterate Whigs, though how
+you came to an understanding with the Colonel is quite beyond me to
+imagine.'
+
+'I will tell you that now, Nick, since you have an hour to spare;'
+and, going up to Wogan's room, Mr. Kelly related to him the story of
+his meeting with the Colonel in the Park, of the disturbance with the
+Messengers in his rooms, and of the saving of Smilinda, and how his
+love for Rose urged him to it. It was eight o'clock when he had come
+to an end. Mr. Wogan heard the clocks striking the hour.
+
+'It will take me an hour to get to Dulwich,' he said, 'so I have three
+hours to spare. George, have you seen Rose?'
+
+'No; but she knows that I am free, for Lady Mary sent the news to
+her.'
+
+'That's a pity,' said Wogan, pursing his lips.
+
+'On the contrary, it was not the least kind of Lady Mary's many
+kindnesses,' said George, who was astonished at Mr. Wogan's cruelty,
+that would have left the girl in her anxieties a moment longer than
+was necessary. 'Had she not heard the news till it was stale, she
+would never have forgiven me--she that has forgiven me so much,' said
+he, with more sentiment than logic.
+
+'Oh,' said Wogan, 'she has forgiven you so much? My young friend, you
+are very certain upon a very uncertain point. There's that little
+matter of her ladyship's miniature.'
+
+Mr. Kelly looked anxiously at Wogan.
+
+'True,' said he; 'I told her a lie about it at Avignon, and made out
+it was the likeness of Queen Clementina.'
+
+'The lie is the smallest part of the difficulty. She wore the
+miniature, and wore it in Lady Oxford's withdrawing-room. There's the
+trouble, for there's the humiliation.'
+
+'But, Nick,' said Kelly, 'she forgave it. Didn't I escort her to her
+chair? Didn't I feel her hand upon the sleeve of my coat?'
+
+'Oh! she carried herself very bravely, never a doubt of that. For one
+thing, you were in peril; and, to be sure, she will have kept a liking
+for you at the worst of it. For another, Lady Oxford was there, and
+Lady Oxford was not to win the day. My little friend Rose is a girl of
+an uncommon spirit, and would hold her own against any woman, for all
+her modest ways. But, just because she has spirit, she will not meekly
+forgive you. If you expect her to droop humbly on to your bosom, you
+are entirely in the wrong of it. 'Oons! but it must have been a hard
+blow to her pride when she found she was in Lady Oxford's house, and
+knew who Lady Oxford was, and had that miniature about her throat.
+Will she forgive you at all? The best you have to hope is that she
+will be content with making your head sing. That she will do for a
+sure thing; and I think--'
+
+'What?' asked the Parson. The danger of life, the Messengers, the
+angry Colonel, had only raised his blood; the fear of Rose drove it to
+his heart. He was now plainly scared.
+
+'I think it was the greatest pity imaginable that Lady Mary sent word
+to her you were free. For, d'ye see, if you had dropped upon Rose
+suddenly, and she thinking you locked up in a dark prison and your
+head already loose upon your shoulders, why, you might have surprised
+her into a forgetfulness of her pride; but now she will be prepared
+for your coming. I think, George, I will walk along with you as far as
+Soho, since I have three hours to kick my heels in.'
+
+'Will you, Nick?' cried George eagerly; and then, with his nose in the
+air, 'But I have no fears whatever. She is a woman in a thousand.' He
+was, none the less, evidently relieved when Wogan clapped his hat on
+his head. The night was dark, and Wogan in his livery had no fears of
+detection.
+
+The two men walked through by-streets until they came to Piccadilly.
+The Parson was nerving himself for the meeting, but would not allow
+that he was in the least degree afraid. 'A trivial woman would think
+of nothing but her humiliation and her slight, but Rose is, as you
+say, of an uncommon spirit, Nick,' he argued.
+
+Nick, however, preserved a majestic silence, which daunted the Parson,
+who desired arguments to confute. They were by this time come into
+Bond Street, and Mr. Kelly, who must be talking, declared with a great
+fervour, 'There are no limits to a woman's leniencies. Black errors
+she will pardon; charity is her father and her mother; she has an
+infinity of forgiveness, wherefore with truth we place her among the
+angels.' Upon that text he preached most eloquently all the way up
+Bond Street, past the New Building, until he came to the corner of
+Frith Street in Soho. In Frith Street, all at once the Parson's
+assurance was shown to be counterfeit. He caught at his friend's arm.
+
+'Nick,' said he, in a quavering, humble voice, 'it is in Frith Street
+she lives. What am I to do at all? I am the most ignorant man, and a
+coward into the bargain. Nick, I have done the unpardonable thing.
+What am I to do now?'
+
+Thus the Parson twittered in a most deplorable agitation. Mr. Wogan,
+on the contrary, was very calm. It was just in these little
+difficulties, which require an intimate knowledge of the sex, that he
+felt himself most at home. He stroked his chin thoughtfully.
+
+'Nick,' and George shook the arm he held, 'sure you can advise me. You
+have told me so often of your great comprehension of women. Sure, you
+know all there is to be known about them, at all.'
+
+'No, not quite all,' said Wogan, with a proper modesty. 'But here I
+think I can help you. Which is the house?'
+
+Kelly pointed it out. A couple of windows shone very bright upon the
+dark street, a few feet above their heads. Looking upwards they could
+see the ceiling of the room and the globe of a lamp reflected on the
+ceiling, but no more.
+
+'It is in that room she will be sitting,' whispered the Parson.
+
+'And waiting for you,' added Mr. Wogan grimly.
+
+'And waiting for me,' repeated the Parson with a shiver.
+
+They both stared for a little at the ceiling and the shadow of the
+lamp.
+
+'Now, if the ceiling would only tell us something of her face,' said
+Kelly.
+
+'It would be as well to have a look at her,' said Wogan. The street
+was quite deserted. 'Will you give me a back'?
+
+The house was separated from the path by an iron railing a couple of
+feet from the wall. The Parson set his legs apart and steadied himself
+by the railing, while Wogan climbed up and knelt on to his shoulders.
+In that position he was able to lean forward and catch hold of the
+sill. His forehead was on a level with the sill. By craning his neck
+he could just look into the room.
+
+'Is she there?' asked the Parson.
+
+'Yes, and alone.'
+
+'How does she look? Not in tears? Nick, don't tell me she's in tears.'
+The Parson's legs became unsteady at the mere supposition of such a
+calamity.
+
+'Make yourself easy upon that point,' said Wogan, clinging for dear
+life to the sill, 'there's never a trace of a tear about her at all.
+For your sake, George, I could wish that there was. Her eyes are as
+dry as a campaigner's biscuits. Oh, George, I am in despair for you.'
+
+'Nick, you are the most consoling friend,' groaned the Parson, who now
+wished for tears more than anything else in the world. 'What is she
+doing?'
+
+'Nothing at all. She is sitting at the table. George, have you ever
+noticed her chin? It is a sort of decisive chin, and upon my word,
+George, it has the ugliest jilting look that ever I saw. She has just
+the same look in her big grey eyes, which are staring at nothing at
+all. Keep still, George, or you will throw me.'
+
+For the Parson was become as uneasy as a restive horse.
+
+'But, Nick, is she doing nothing at all? Is she reading?'
+
+'No, she is doing nothing but expect you. But she is expecting you.
+Steady, for if I tumble off your shoulders the noise will bring her to
+the windows.'
+
+The menace had its effect. Mr. Kelly's limbs became pillars of marble,
+and Wogan again looked into the room.
+
+'Wait a moment,' he said, 'I see what she is doing. She is staring at
+something she holds in her hands.'
+
+'My likeness?' cried the Parson hopefully. 'To be sure it will be
+that.'
+
+'I will tell you in a moment. Hold on to the railings, George.'
+
+George did as he was bid, and Wogan, still holding to the window-sill
+very cautiously, stood up on his friend's shoulders. George, however,
+seemed quite insensible to Mr. Wogan's weight.
+
+'It will be my likeness,' he repeated to himself. 'I had it done for
+her by Mr. Zincke. I was right, Nick; she has forgiven me altogether.'
+
+Mr. Wogan's head was now well above the window-sill, and he looked
+downwards upon Rose, who sat at the table.
+
+'Yes, it's a likeness,' said Nick.
+
+'I told you. I told you,' said the Parson. The man began to wriggle
+with satisfaction. 'You are wrong, Nick. You know nothing at all about
+women, after all. Come down, you vainglorious boaster.' It seemed he
+was about to cut capers with Mr. Wogan on his shoulders.
+
+'Wait,' said Nick suddenly, and hitched himself higher.
+
+'Nick, she will see you.'
+
+'No, she's occupied. George!'
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'It's Lady Oxford's miniature she is staring at, and not yours at
+all.'
+
+The Parson grew quite stiff and rigid.
+
+'Are you sure?' he whispered, in an awe-stricken voice.
+
+'I can see the diamonds flashing. 'Faith my friend, but I had done
+better to have let you throw them into the sea at Genoa.'
+
+A groan broke from the Parson.
+
+'Why didn't you, Nick? What am I to do now?'
+
+'I can see the face. 'Tis the miniature of her ladyship that you gave
+out to be Queen Clementina's. Did you ever meet Gaydon, George?' he
+asked curiously.
+
+'Gaydon?' asked Kelly. 'What in the world has Gaydon to do with Rose?'
+
+'Listen, and I'll inform you. He told my brother Charles a very pretty
+story of the Princess Clementina. It seems that when she escaped out
+of her perils and came to Bologna to marry the Chevalier, who had,
+just at the moment when he expected his bride, unaccountably retired
+into Spain, she stayed at Bologna, and so, picking up the gossip of
+the town, expressed a great desire to visit the Caprara Palace. 'Twas
+there the lady lived who had consoled the Chevalier in his anxieties.
+No doubt he never expected the Princess to get out of the Emperor's
+prison. But Charles got her out, and here was she at Bologna. To be
+sure, the Princess was a most natural woman, eh? And when she came to
+the Caprara Palace she asked to be shown the portrait of the Princess
+de la Caprara. That was more natural still. Gaydon describes how she
+looked at the portrait, and describes very well. For sure Rose is
+looking at Lady Oxford's in just the same way.'
+
+'That's good news, Nick,' said Kelly, grasping at a straw of comfort.
+'For the Princess Clementina forgave.'
+
+'Ah, but there's a difference I did not remark at the first. I
+remember Gaydon said the Princess turned very red, while your little
+friend Rose, on the contrary, is white to the edge of her lips. Sure,
+red forgives, when white will not. George,' and Mr. Wogan ducked his
+head beneath the window-ledge, 'she is coming to the window! For the
+love of mercy don't move, or she will hear!'
+
+George pressed himself close to the railings. Wogan hunched himself
+against the wall in the most precarious attitude. Would she open the
+window? Would she see them? Both men quaked as they asked themselves
+the question, though they had come thither for no other purpose but to
+see her and be seen of her. Wogan threw a glance over his shoulder to
+where the light of the window fell upon the road. But no shadow
+obscured it.
+
+'Sure, she's not coming to the window at all,' said Nick.
+
+'Oh, Nick,' whispered the Parson, 'you made my heart jump into my
+throat.'
+
+Wogan drew his head up level with the window again, and again ducked.
+
+'She is standing looking towards the window with the likeness in her
+hand,' and he scrambled to the ground, where the pair of them stood
+looking at one another, and then to the house, and from the house down
+the street. Wogan was the first to find his tongue.
+
+'It is a monstrous thing,' said he, and he thumped his chest, 'that a
+mere slip of a girl should frighten two grown men to death.'
+
+Mr. Kelly thumped his chest too, but without any assurance.
+
+'Nick, I must look for myself,' he said.
+
+Footsteps sounded a little distance down the street, and sounded
+louder the next moment. A man was approaching; they waited until he
+had passed, and then Mr. Kelly climbed on to Wogan's shoulders, and in
+his turn looked into the room.
+
+'Nick!' he whispered in a voice of awe.
+
+'What is she doing?'
+
+'She has thrown Smilinda's likeness on the ground. She is stamping on
+it with her heel. She is grinding it all in pieces.'
+
+'And the beautiful diamonds? Look if she picks them up, George!'
+
+'No; she pays no heed to the stones. It is the likeness she thinks of.
+It was in pieces a moment ago; it is all powder now,' and he groaned.
+
+'George, it is an ill business. When a woman spurns diamonds you may
+be sure she is in a mortal fluster. It's a Gorgon you have to meet--a
+veritable Gorgon.'
+
+Mr. Kelly slid from Wogan's shoulders to the ground.
+
+'What will I do, Nick?'
+
+Nick bit his thumb, then threw his shoulders back.
+
+'I am not afraid of her,' said he. 'No, I am not. I have done nothing
+to anger or humiliate her. I am not afraid of her at all--not the
+least in the world. I will go in myself. I will beard her just to show
+you I am not at all afraid of her.'
+
+'Will you do that? Nick, you _are_ a friend,' cried Kelly, who was
+most reasonably startled by his friend's heroism.
+
+'To be sure I will,' said Nick, looking up at the window. 'I am not
+afraid of her. A little slip of a girl! Why should we fear her at all?
+Haven't we killed men more than once? Do you wait here, George. If I
+hold my hand up at the window with my fingers open--so, you may come
+in. But if I hold up a clenched fist, you had best go home as fast as
+your legs can carry you. You see, the case is different with you. I
+have no reason whatever to be frightened at her.'
+
+He knocked at the door, and in a little the door was opened. 'Not the
+least bit in the world!' he stopped to say to Mr. Kelly in the street.
+Then he stepped into the passage.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVI
+
+ MR. WOGAN TRADUCES HIS FRIEND, WITH THE
+ HAPPIEST CONSEQUENCES
+
+
+Mr. Wogan's title of Hilton was now, thanks to the _Flying Post_, as
+familiar as his name; he refused both the one and the other to the
+servant, and was admitted to Rose Townley without any formalities. Her
+eyes flashed as they remarked his livery, but she was not in any
+concern about Mr. Wogan, and asked him no questions. She rose with the
+utmost coldness, did not give him her hand, and only the bare mockery
+of a bow, as though her indignation against Mr. Kelly was so complete
+that it must needs embrace his friend.
+
+'I thought that he would have plucked up enough courage to come
+himself,' said she, with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.
+
+'He is a man of the meanest spirit,' replied Wogan, in a sullen
+agreement. 'It is a strange thing how easily one may be misled. Here
+have I been going up and down the world with him for years, and I
+never knew him until now, never knew the black heart of him, and his
+abominable perfidies.'
+
+Rose was taken aback by Wogan's speech. No doubt she expected a
+hotch-potch of excuses and arguments on Mr. Kelly's behalf, which
+would but have confirmed her in her own opinion; but falling in with
+her views, he took the words out of her mouth.
+
+'So,' she said doubtfully, 'he has lost your friendship too?'
+
+'To be sure,' cried Wogan in a heat, 'would you have me keep friends
+with a vile wretch whose thoughts writhe at the bottom of his soul
+like a poisonous nest of vipers?'
+
+Rose neither answered the question nor expressed any approval of
+Wogan's elegant figure describing Mr. Kelly's mind.
+
+'Oh,' said she, 'then he did not send you to make his peace with me?'
+
+Wogan answered with all the appearances of reluctance.
+
+'No. In fact the man was coming himself, and with a light heart. He
+made a great to-do about the infinite fairness and charity of women,
+which place them equal to the angels, and how you excelled all women
+in that and other womanly qualities. But I told him, on the contrary,
+that I knew your spirit, and that you were of too noble a pride to
+shut your eyes to a slight, and would certainly dismiss him. However,
+he would not be persuaded, so I slipped away from him and ran here, so
+that I might warn you against him.'
+
+Rose forgot to thank Mr. Wogan for his zeal on her behalf. Indeed her
+face, in spite of herself, had lightened for a second; in spite of
+herself her eyes had sparkled when Wogan spoke of the great faith Mr.
+Kelly had in her charity.
+
+'It was more than a slight,' she said, 'I could forgive a slight--He
+would have come himself had not you prevented him.'
+
+'But he is coming. He would have been here already, but that he paid a
+visit on the way to Colonel Montague to discover whether Lady Oxford's
+letters had been restored to her.'
+
+'Lady Oxford's letters!' exclaimed Rose, her face flushing again with
+anger.
+
+'To be sure,' said Wogan, 'you would know nothing of them. It is a
+fine story--the story of Lady Oxford's love-letters.'
+
+'I have no wish to hear it,' cried Rose sharply, and she turned
+towards the window. Mr. Wogan took a quick step towards her. If she
+looked out of the window she could hardly fail to observe the Parson.
+
+'Nor is it a story that you should hear,' said Wogan in a soothing
+voice, 'though indeed to hear it from Mr. Kelly's lips would surely
+make you aware of his devilish sophistries. For he declares that, but
+for you, Lady Oxford's love-letters would never have been restored to
+her, nor would he have gone to prison and put his neck in the noose.'
+
+Rose shivered at those last words and drew in her breath. She turned
+quickly back to Wogan.
+
+'But for me?' she asked. 'What have I to do with Lady Oxford's
+love-letters, or with his danger?' and her voice softened towards the
+end of the sentence.
+
+'Why, Lady Oxford, who knew very well Mr. Kelly's trade, betrayed him
+in revenge for a certain ballad wherein your name was mentioned.'
+
+'Yes,' interrupted Rose, 'Lady Mary told me of the ballad.'
+
+'Well, you heard Mr. Kelly perhaps assure Lady Oxford that he had her
+brocades in his lodging, and perhaps you remarked her ladyship's
+confusion.'
+
+'Yes. I guessed what the brocades were.'
+
+'Very well. Mr. Kelly remained with her Ladyship, who informed him
+that he would be taken outside his door, and his rooms searched. There
+were papers in his rooms of a kind to bring him into great danger. But
+there were also Lady Oxford's letters. The story he will tell you is
+this, that he meant to use Lady Oxford's letters as a weapon by which
+he might save his papers and so himself; but a complete revolution
+took place in his thoughts. He suddenly understood that he owed it to
+you that no woman's name should be smirched by his fault, and that
+thus he was bound, at the peril of his life, to rescue Lady Oxford's
+letters, as he did. A strange chance put it into his hands to burn his
+own papers, and leave Lady Oxford's to be seized, in which case he
+would have been saved, and she lost. But he saved his honour instead,
+and his love for you helped him to it. He rescued her Ladyship's
+letters, his own are in the hands of the Minister.'
+
+Mr. Wogan, who had now secured a most attentive listener, disclosed
+all that Mr. Kelly had told him of what took place in Ryder Street.
+
+'This is the story he will tell you. And to be sure, he adds a pretty
+touch to the pretence. For he went whistling to prison and he says
+that he whistled because he felt as if you were walking by his side.'
+
+'But what if it were no pretence at all?'
+
+Mr. Wogan sagely shook his head, though the story had the stamp of
+truth on it to those who knew the Parson.
+
+'If he had held you in such respect would he have sent you Lady
+Oxford's miniature to wear at Lady Oxford's rout?'
+
+'But he did not send it to me for that purpose,' she cried, 'he did
+not even know that I was going to the rout. He gave me the miniature a
+long time ago, when it would have been very difficult for him to tell
+me whose it was.'
+
+'But he told you it was Queen Clementina's.'
+
+'No. It was I who guessed at that, and he--did not deny it.'
+
+Here at all events was sophistry, but Mr. Wogan was less indignant at
+it than his anger with the Parson's subtleties would lead one to
+expect.
+
+'Well,' said Wogan, 'I have told you what it was my plain duty to
+disclose to you.'
+
+At this moment Wogan chanced to look towards the window. He beheld Mr.
+Kelly's face pressed against the glass. The man had grown impatient
+and so had climbed on to the railings. Mr. Wogan broke off with an
+exclamation he could not repress.
+
+'What is it?' said Rose, turning about.
+
+'Some most beautiful diamonds,' said Wogan, spreading out his hand to
+the window. He then dropped on to the floor and began picking up the
+diamonds which Rose had scattered when she set her foot on the
+miniature. Rose bit her lips, and flushed, as he held them in his
+palm. Then he said carelessly:
+
+'That fine miniature had diamonds set about it. D'ye know, Miss
+Townley, that miniature would have been at the bottom of the sea long
+before Mr. Kelly came to Avignon, but for the diamonds about it. 'Twas
+I held his arm when, having done with her Ladyship, he would also have
+done with her Ladyship's present, and I bade him keep it for the value
+of the jewels.'
+
+There was a loud knocking at the door, which came not a moment earlier
+than was necessary to prevent Mr. Wogan revealing himself as still the
+Parson's friend.
+
+'There's the fellow come to importune you,' said Wogan.
+
+'Then he would have thrown it away but for you,' said Miss Townley
+thoughtfully. 'He did not keep it out of any--'
+
+But Wogan heard the servant pass down to the door, and thought it
+would be as well if he had a private word with the Parson.
+
+'You will excuse me,' he said with dignity, 'but I have no heart for
+the man's company. Besides, I have stayed too long in London as it is.
+Delays would be dangerous.'
+
+But Rose had no ears for any dangers of Mr. Wogan, as he was
+indescribably glad to remark. For her eyes looked past him to the
+door; from head to foot she seemed to listen for the sound of the
+Parson's voice. Mr. Wogan bowed, and opened the door. Though she
+followed him to the door, and held it open as he passed out, she did
+not notice that he was going, she had no word of farewell. She did not
+even notice that Mr. Wogan put the diamonds in his pocket. For Mr.
+Wogan had his wits about him. Diamonds were diamonds, and the carpet
+no place for them. Some day they might be of use to the Parson. The
+door of the street was opened as Wogan stepped into the passage. But
+Rose did not shut the door of the parlour and so Wogan, as he met
+Kelly, could only whisper hurriedly, 'Remember, I am your worst
+enemy,' and so left him to his own resources.
+
+It appeared, however, that they were sufficient. The Parson made no
+excuses whatever; he carried the day by the modesty of his omissions.
+Both with regard to the miniature and to the saving of Smilinda he
+disclosed to her no more than a bald array of facts. He made no parade
+of the part which the thought of Rose had played in the revulsion of
+his feelings, bringing him to see that he was bound in honour to save
+Smilinda's honour; he did not tell her why he went whistling to
+prison. But Rose knew from Wogan of these evidences of his love, and
+no doubt thought of them the more because he would not use them to
+soften her just resentments.
+
+Mr. Wogan left them together, and, walking out to Dulwich, found the
+Colonel's horse waiting in the road between the chestnut trees. He
+came to the coast of Sussex in the morning, where he had friends among
+the smugglers, and lay all that day in a hut within sound of the
+waves. It was a black, melancholy day for Nicholas Wogan, who was
+leaving his friends behind him to face their perils alone, and who
+felt very solitary; not even the memory of the noble deeds of his
+illustrious forefathers had any power to cheer him, until he heard the
+grating noise of the boat's keel as it was dragged down the beach to
+the sea, and saw the sail like a great wing waft up between him and
+the stars.
+
+He got safe to Paris, where he heard of the strange use to which the
+Parson put his few weeks of liberty, for the Parson married Rose
+Townley three weeks later at St. James's Church in Piccadilly, and
+wrote to Mr. Wogan a very warm, human sort of letter which had not one
+single classical allusion to disfigure it. In that letter he gave the
+reasons which had induced him to the marriage.
+
+'I am told,' he wrote, 'that a man so dangerously circumstanced must
+be selfish in the extreme to marry a woman who, in a short while, may,
+at the worst, be widowed; and at the best must be separated from her
+husband in his gaol. I do not fear that you will have so mean an
+opinion of my inclinations, but I would not have you think me careless
+upon this point neither. Dr. Townley is old, and his health breaks. He
+will leave his daughter, when he dies, but little money, and that
+moment cannot be very far off. It is true that Rose has beauty, and no
+doubt she might make a rich marriage if she had only beauty. But she
+has frankness, truth, and constancy as well, qualities which are not
+marketable wares, since those who possess them will not bring them
+into the market. Now, if I suffer death for the Cause, Rose will be no
+poorer than she was before; if, on the other hand, I live, there are
+the booksellers, and from the silence of my prison I can make shift to
+earn for her a decent livelihood.'
+
+As all the world knows, Mr. Kelly lived, and even gained much credit
+by his speech at his trial. He made it plain, to all but prejudiced
+Whigs, that there was no Plot, nor he concerned in any, if there were.
+But what is Whig justice? He was sentenced to prison for life. The
+papers in his strong box were enough to help a foolish fellow,
+Counsellor Layer, on his way to Tyburn, enough to send Lord Orrery to
+the Tower, and Lord North and Grey into exile. The Plot was ruined for
+that time; the Bishop of Rochester was banished, for Mar's traitorous
+mention of the dog Harlequin fixed the guilt on that holy man. Mr.
+Kelly came off with loss of fourteen years of his life, which years he
+passed in the Tower.
+
+It was not, after all, so silent a prison as he imagined it would be.
+For though during the first months his confinement was severe, and he
+never drew air except from between the bars, afterwards this rigour
+was relaxed. He was placed in a room of which one window took the
+morning sun, and the other commanded the river, and the ships going up
+and down with the tide; he was allowed the use of his books, and to
+receive what visitors he would. His visitors were not few, and amongst
+them Colonel Montague was the most frequent. His gaolers, the officers
+who were stationed in the Tower, and their wives, became his familiar
+friends, and it is said that when, after fourteen years, he escaped,
+not a woman in the precincts could make up her mind whether to clap
+her hands for joy, or weep at the loss of his society. Moreover, Rose
+came and went at her pleasure.
+
+The first years of his imprisonment were thus not wholly unhappy
+years. He sat amongst his books translating Cicero, and if at times
+his limbs ached for the stress and activity of his youth, and he began
+to dream of hours in the saddle and starry nights at sea, it was not
+perhaps for very long. He had friends enough to divert his leisure
+moments, and Rose to keep him busy at his work. For what he had
+foreseen came to pass. Two years after Mr. Kelly came to the Tower,
+Dr. Townley died, and left Rose but poorly circumstanced. She came to
+lodge close by the Tower Gates, and the Parson set his pen to his
+paper and wrote essays and translations till the whole Tower of London
+buzzed with his learning, and no doubt a friendly Jacobite here and
+there bought one of his books. Mr. Wogan, indeed, bought them all. He
+has them ranged upon a bookshelf in his lodging at Paris, all bound in
+leather and most dignified; the very print has a sonorous look. 'Mr.
+Kelly's _Opera_' he calls them, and always speaks of the books as
+'tomes' with prodigious respect and perhaps a sigh. For--
+
+'He lacks one quality,' Mr. Wogan was heard to say, 'to set him on the
+pinnacle of fame. He cannot write poetry. It is a trick, no doubt, a
+poor sort of trick; but George had it not, and so when there was
+poetry to be written, he had to come to his friends.'
+
+Thus ten years passed, and then came the black day, when Rose fell
+sick of a fever and must keep her bed. She sent word to George daily
+that he should expect her on the morrow, until a delirium took her,
+and the doctor, who had been charged by Rose to make light of her
+suffering, was now forced to tell Mr. Kelly the truth. She lay at
+death's door, calling on her husband, who could not come to her, and
+talking ever of that little garden at Avignon above the Rhone, in
+which she fancied that he and she now walked.
+
+Mr. Kelly took the news in silence as a dog takes pain, and never
+slept and barely moved while the fever ran its course. Rose was at the
+Tower Gates, George was in his prison; a few yards only were between
+them, but those few yards were built upon with stones. In the daytime
+messages were brought to him often enough, but at night, when the
+mists rose from the river and the gates were closed, and the Parson
+had the dark loitering hours wherein to picture the sick room with its
+dim light and the tired figure tossing from this side to that of the
+bed, then indeed Smilinda had her revenge.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVII
+
+ HOW, BY KEEPING PAROLE, MR. KELLY BROKE
+ PRISON
+
+
+Every morning Mr. Kelly looked for the doctor to come to him with word
+that in the little house without the Tower Gate the blinds were drawn.
+But that message was not brought to him, and Colonel Montague, making
+a visit to the prison, three weeks after Rose fell ill, found the
+Parson sitting very quiet in his chair with a face strangely
+illumined.
+
+'Last night she slept,' said George, 'and waked only at midday. The
+fever has left her, and she will live. It is wonderful.'
+
+The Colonel said what was fitting to the occasion, and the Parson
+replied to him absently, with his eyes upon the river and the boats
+swinging on the tide; and after a while Father Myles Macdonnell, whom
+the Colonel had neither seen nor heard of, was ushered into the room.
+
+The Reverend Father was a kinsman of Parson Kelly, and though their
+acquaintance had been of the slightest, the Parson now turned to him
+with a great welcome. For his thoughts were now entirely bent upon an
+escape from his captivity. He dared not survey the possibility that
+some time Rose might again fall ill, and that again he must sit behind
+the bars and only hear news of how she fared.
+
+The Reverend Myles, who was of the honest party, but not as yet blown
+upon by suspicion, seemed to him his only help and instrument. For a
+long while, when the Colonel had gone, the pair debated the means of
+escape, but found no issue; and Rose brought her white face back to
+the Tower, and the Parson's spirits drooped, so that at last his
+health began to fail. He was therefore allowed to drive out in a coach
+to any place within ten miles of London in the custody of a warder,
+and on his parole to return before dark. Of this favour he made
+frequent use, and no doubt the sight of the busy faces in the streets
+urged him yet more to make a bid for his freedom.
+
+Now these journeys of the Parson to take the air set Father Myles
+Macdonnell upon a pretty plan, which he imparted to Rose and to
+George.
+
+'You drive one afternoon up into Highgate Woods--d'ye follow that? I
+have half-a-dozen well-disposed persons hiding in a clump of trees who
+will take care of your warder--d'ye see? There will be a stout horse
+tethered to a branch close by, and a lugger waiting off the coast of
+Essex--'but the Parson would hear no more of the scheme.
+
+'I have given my parole to come back to the Tower before dark,' said
+he, and glanced at Rose, who was looking away, to strengthen him in
+his objection. 'I cannot break it, can I, Rose? I have given my
+parole. I am not one of the Butcher Cumberland's officers. We must
+keep troth.'
+
+Rose made an effort and agreed.
+
+'Yes,' said she, 'he has given his parole, and he cannot break it.'
+
+'Not so long as he's a lost Protestant,' said the Reverend Father. He
+tapped George on the knee, and continued in a wheedling voice: 'It is
+a matter of religion, d'ye see? Just let me convert you. I can do it
+in a twinkling, and so I shall save your body and your soul in one
+glorious moment.'
+
+'How so? 'asked the Parson with a laugh, for he was by this time well
+used to his kinsman's efforts to convert him. 'How shall a Catholic
+creep out of the Tower more easily than a Protestant?'
+
+'Because a Catholic can break his parole. It's a great sin, to be
+sure, but I can absolve him for it afterwards.'
+
+To Mr. Kelly's thinking (and, indeed, to Mr. Wogan's) this was no
+sterling theology, and he would not be persuaded. Another device had
+to be invented, and when at last a satisfactory plan was resolved
+upon, the plotters must wait for the quick nightfalls of autumn.
+
+It was on Guy Fawkes day, the fifth of November, 1736, that Mr. Kelly
+made his escape. On the morning of that day he drove out to Epsom in
+the custody of his warder and upon his parole to return before dark.
+At four o'clock, when the light was just beginning to fall, Father
+Myles Macdonnell came into the Tower by the Sally Port Stairs opposite
+the Mint. He was told that the Parson was taking the air, and replied
+that he would go to the Parson's room and wait. Thereupon he crossed
+the precincts of the Tower, and coming over the green and down the
+steps of the main-guard, he inquired of the porter at Traitor's Gate
+whether or no Mr. Kelly had returned.
+
+The porter answered 'Not yet.'
+
+'It is a great pity,' said the Reverend Myles, who seemed much
+flustered. 'I am in a great hurry, and would you tell him, if you
+please, the moment he comes, to run with all haste to his room?'
+
+Upon that he turned off under the archway of the Bloody Tower, and
+again mounted the steps of the main-guard.
+
+About half-an-hour afterwards, in the deepening twilight, Mr. Kelly
+was set down within the Traitor's Gate; he had kept his parole. The
+porter gave him Father Myles's message; and the warder, since it
+appeared that he could only proceed as usual to his lodging, took his
+leave of him.
+
+The Parson accordingly ran up the steps of the main-guard on to the
+green, which was by this time very obscure. Three minutes afterwards
+Father Myles Macdonnell hurried past the sentry at the Sally Port
+Stairs opposite the Mint, grumbling that he would wait no longer, and
+so came out upon Tower Hill. Just at that time to a moment another
+Father Myles Macdonnell accosted the porter at Traitor's Gate and
+requested him to let him out, seeing that he was, as he had already
+said, in a great hurry. The porter let him out with no more ado.
+
+The second Father Myles was the real Father Myles; the first one who
+went grumbling out by the Sally Port Stairs was Parson Kelly. He had
+met Father Myles in the dark corner by Beauchamp Tower, had slipped
+over his head a cassock which the Father had brought with him, and had
+run across to the entrance over against the Mint, and so into freedom.
+
+The carriage which had driven him to Epsom, after putting him down
+again at the Tower, had driven to Tower Hill, where it waited for the
+Parson close by the Sally Port Stairs. It did not wait long: and the
+Parson was hurried at a gallop out of London amidst the crackling of
+fireworks and the burning of effigies of Guy Fawkes. It seemed the
+town was illuminated to celebrate his escape.
+
+At the Tower his evasion was not discovered until half-past seven of
+the evening, when the two porters, being relieved from their separate
+stations at the Traitor's Gate and the Sally Port Stairs, each vowed
+that he had let out Father Myles Macdonnell. This seemed so miraculous
+an occurrence that the warder ran to Mr. Kelly's chamber. It was
+empty, and then the clamour began. The Parson had thus three hours'
+start, and, though a reward of 300_l_. was offered for his recapture,
+no more was heard of him for a week.
+
+Then, however, two fishermen coming into an alehouse at Broadstairs
+saw the reward for Kelly proclaimed in print upon the wall, and fell
+into a great fury and passion, saying that they had only received five
+pounds when they might have had three hundred. For a fee of five
+pounds they had put a man over from Broadstairs to Calais, who, when
+once he was landed in France, had said to them:
+
+'If anyone inquires for George Kelly, you may say that he is safely
+landed in France.'
+
+And indeed at the very moment when the fishermen were lamenting their
+mistake in the alehouse, George Kelly and Rose were taking their
+dinner in Mr. Wogan's lodging at Paris. Rose had travelled into France
+the day before the Parson escaped, and so, after fourteen years, they
+were united. It was a merry sort of a party, and no doubt Wogan made a
+great deal of unnecessary noise. He drew the Parson aside into a
+window before the evening was over.
+
+'You are not very rich, I suppose?' said he.
+
+'I want for nothing,' said the Parson with a foolish eye on Rose, like
+a boy of eighteen.
+
+Wogan fumbled in his fob and brought out a packet which he unfolded.
+
+'Diamonds!' cried Kelly.
+
+'They are yours,' said Wogan. 'I picked them up off the floor of a
+room in Soho on an occasion which you may remember. A miniature frame
+had come by a mischance.'
+
+'Smilinda's?' asked Kelly with a frightened glance over his shoulder
+to Rose, who had the discretion not to meddle in this private
+conversation.
+
+'Yes,' says Wogan; 'Smilinda's. She gave the stones to you. Very
+likely they are worth a trifle.'
+
+'We'll slip out and sell them to-morrow,' answered the Parson in a
+whisper.
+
+They slipped out, but they did not sell them. The diamonds were paste,
+and Mr. Wogan at last understood why Lady Oxford, when she gave her
+miniature set with brilliants to the Parson, had been so anxious that
+he should never part with it.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+ MR. WOGAN AGAIN INVADES ENGLAND, MEETS THE
+ ELECT LADY, AND BEARS WITNESS TO HER PERFECTIONS
+
+
+It seemed to Wogan that this particular story of the Parson's
+fortunes, which began in Paris so long ago, had now ended in Paris.
+But he was wrong, and it was not till ten years after Mr. Kelly's
+escape from the Tower that Wogan witnessed the last circumstance in
+England, and himself spoke the closing word.
+
+Retiring soon from Paris, which ill suited a slender purse, Mr. Kelly
+lived, with his fair wife, at Avignon, where he played secretary to
+the Duke of Ormond. The Parson was a _gêne_ on the amours of the aged
+Duke, who posted him off, in the year Forty-Five, to, escort the
+Prince of Wales to the Scottish islands. Wogan himself, earlier in the
+same year of grace, lost an arm at the battle of Fontenoy, but got a
+leaf of the laurels, being dubbed Chevalier of the Order of St. Louis.
+
+His arm amputated and the wound healed, Wogan must needs join the
+Prince of Wales, then residing in his palace of Holyrood, near
+Edinburgh. Wogan came too late for that pretty onfall at Prestonpans,
+but he marched south with the Prince's forces, riding again the old
+roads from Carlisle to Lancaster and Preston. The buxom maids of the
+inns were broad-blown landladies now; some of them remembered Wogan;
+and the ale was as good as ever.
+
+It chanced that at Preston, where he tarried for a couple of days, Mr.
+Wogan was billeted on a cobbler, a worthy man, but besotted with a new
+religion, which then caused many popular tumults. To England it had
+been brought over from America by two brothers of Wogan's old friend,
+Sam Wesley, the usher at Westminster School, and familiar of Bishop
+Atterbury.
+
+Wogan's host could talk of nothing but this creed, whose devotees
+cried out (it seemed), laughed, fell down in fits, barked, and made
+confession in public.
+
+'Ah, sir,' he said to Wogan, 'if you could but hear the Brothers
+Wesley, Charles and John, in the pulpit or singing hymns! Charles
+sings like an angel, and to hear John exhort the unaroused might waken
+those who have lain for a score of years in the arms of the Devil.'
+
+'John Wesley, little Jack Wesley?' cried Wogan. 'Why, I have saved him
+from many a beating at Westminster School!'
+
+'Do you know that saint, sir? 'asked the cobbler, in an enthusiasm.
+
+'Know him, I know nobody else, if he is the brother of honest Sam
+Wesley, that once let me into the Deanery on a night in May. Assuredly
+I knew little Jack.'
+
+The cobbler came near kneeling to Wogan. 'Here, indeed, is the finger
+of Providence,' he exclaimed. 'Dear sir, you may yet cast off the
+swathings of the Scarlet Woman.'
+
+'Easy, be easy, Mr. Crispin!' quoth Wogan. 'But tell me, is Jack to
+preach and is Charles to sing in this town of yours to-night?'
+
+'Unhappily no, but we are promised the joy of hearing that famed
+disciple, Mr. Bunton, discourse, and the Elect Lady, as the Brethren
+style her, will also speak.'
+
+'Do the women preach in your new Church?'
+
+'No, but they are permitted to tell the story of their call, and
+to-night we shall hear the Elect Lady--'
+
+'Confess before the congregation? 'Faith, the discourse may be
+improving. Is the Elect Lady handsome?'
+
+'She hath been one of the most renowned beauties of her age, and there
+are some who say that she is little altered by time. Ah, sir, she will
+make you embrace the truth.'
+
+'My embraces were ever at the mercy of feminine persuasion,' said
+Wogan. 'Is this Elect Lady of these parts?'
+
+'No, sir, she comes from the South, travelling with holy Mr. Bunton.
+You will oblige me infinitely, sir, if you will take pity on your own
+poor soul and join our love-feast. We meet in the warehouse of Mr.
+Brown, our most eminent grocer, in Scotch Lane, behind the "Jackdaw
+and Bagpipes."'
+
+'I thank you for your solicitude,' Wogan said; 'and as to the
+love-feast, I'll think of it.'
+
+Consequently he thought no more of it till the bottle had gone round
+half-a-dozen times at the Prince's mess in the 'Bull Tavern.' Lord
+Elcho, who had certainly drunk his dose, began telling, as a good
+thing, of his conversation with a _bourgeois_ of Preston.
+
+'"What is your Prince's religion?" asked the _bourgeois_.
+
+'"That is still to seek, my good man, still to seek," I answered him,'
+cried Elcho, laughing.
+
+The Prince laughed also; the free-thinking philosophers had been at
+him already, first in Rome, then in Paris.
+
+'Good for you, Elcho,' he cried; then, musing, ''Tis a very awkward
+business, this of religion. We have given three crowns for a mass, and
+there's the difficulty, there it is, as black as ever. I wish some one
+would invent a new creed, and the rest agree about it, d----n them,
+and then what is still to seek, my religion, would be found.'
+
+A thought came into Wogan's head; the bottle had made rounds enough,
+and more; next morning they were to march early.
+
+'Sir,' he said, 'there _is_ a new religion, and a handsome lady to
+preach it.' Then he repeated what his host, the cobbler, had chanted
+to him, 'The meeting is at night in the warehouse of Mr. Brown, the
+eminent grocer.'
+
+'A handsome woman!--a new belief! By St. Andrew, I'll go,' cried
+Charles. 'You'll come, Nick, you and--' he looked at the faces looming
+through the tobacco smoke round the wine-stained table. The blue reek
+of pipes clouded and clung to men's faces; to the red rough beard of
+Lochgarry, the smart, clean-shaven Ker of Graden and Maxwell of
+Kirkconnell, the hardy gaze of brave Balmerino, the fated Duke of
+Perth. Wogan thought of the Highland belief in the shroud of mist that
+is seen swathing men doomed soon to die, as were so many of them. The
+Prince stood and stared, his pipe in his hand. 'Nick, you will come,
+you and Ker of Graden; he's sober! _Allons!_'
+
+'Sir,' whispered Mr. Murray of Broughton, 'think of the danger! The
+Elector has his assassins everywhere; they are taken; your Royal
+Highness laughs and lets them go, and the troops murmur.'
+
+'Danger! Will they look for me at a tub-thumping match?'
+
+The Prince picked up a cork from the floor; he set it to the flame of
+a candle; he touched with it his eyebrows and upper lip; he tucked his
+brown hair under his wig, standing before the mirror on the
+chimneypiece. Then he flung a horseman's cloak over his shoulders,
+stooped, and limped a little in his walk.
+
+'A miracle,' everyone called out, for scarce a man of them could have
+known him.
+
+He tossed his hand in the air; '_Allons, en avant!_' he cried, with a
+laugh; and Wogan, with Ker of Graden, did what all might have better
+done at Derby--followed their leader.
+
+The night was wintry, and a cold north wind blew about the rare
+flickering oil lamps in the street. All three men buttoned themselves
+up in their cloaks. The Prince, still stooping and limping, took an
+arm of each of his aides-de-camp; indeed, he somewhat needed their
+support.
+
+'I am like that Sultan in Monsieur Galland's Eastern tales,' he said,
+'visiting my subjects incognito. Nick, you are Mesrour, the Chief of
+the--no, you're Giaffar. Graden is--I forget the Eastern minister's
+name. I am the Caliph. But what are the rabble about?'
+
+The three pilgrims had entered the lane that led to the warehouse of
+the devout grocer. There was a mob around the door waving torches and
+shouting insults at a few decent tradesmen and their wives who were
+bent on the same pious errand as Wogan and his friends.
+
+'Away, swaddlers!' 'Down with the Methodists!' they cried; and a burly
+fellow brushed against Wogan's shoulder in the least gentlemanly
+style. He reeled off and fell flat in the lane, while the other
+ragamuffins laughed at him.
+
+The three devotees stepped briskly through the grinning crowd that
+cried to Graden, 'Come to buy brimstone, Scotch Sandy?'
+
+'Come to escape it, my dear friend,' quoth Wogan's host, the cobbler,
+who stood at the door, and kept it, too, against the mob with a great
+show of spirit.
+
+'You _have_ thought of us, sir?' asked the cobbler.
+
+'Ay, and brought two other inquiring spirits,' said Wogan.
+
+They were conducted into a long half-empty warehouse, smelling of
+cheese and festooned with cobwebs. A light or two burned dimly in horn
+lanterns; a low platform of new planks had been set up at the top of
+the room; a table with seven candles made an illumination there; a big
+black Bible, and a jug of water with a glass flanked the Bible. The
+preacher sat on a chair (most of the congregation stood, or reposed on
+barrels and benches), and on another chair, beside the preacher, was a
+lady, veiled, her fine figure obscured by widow's weeds.
+
+'Is that your beauty?' whispered the Prince.
+
+'The Elect Lady, sir,' murmured the cobbler devoutly.
+
+'_Mon Dieu!_ she has a very pretty foot!'
+
+And Wogan, too, noticed the blaze of a diamond buckle that nearly
+covered the little arched instep. Tap, tap! went the Elect Lady's
+foot, thrust out in front of her heavy petticoat of crape.
+
+'The lady is travelling everywhere, for the good of souls, gentlemen,
+with Mr. Wesley's friend and choice disciple, the preacher, Mr.
+Bunton.'
+
+'L'heureux Monsieur Bunton! Quelle chance!' quoth his Highness.
+
+Mr. Bunton, the preacher, was indeed a fine, handsome young fellow as
+any widow could wish to look upon. He wore lay dress, not being a
+priest ordained of the Church of England. As for the congregation,
+they were small trading people, not rabble; indeed, the mob outside
+broke most of the windows during the sermon, that was interrupted, not
+only by the pebbles of the ragamuffins, but by the antics of the
+congregation.
+
+Mr. Bunton, after a hymn had been sung without any music, began his
+preaching. He assured the audience that none of them could be a gayer
+dog than he had been, that was now a shining light. He obliged the
+congregation with a history of his early life and adventures, which
+Wogan now tells in few words, that people may know what manner of men
+were certain of these saints, or had been. Mr. Bunton was reared in
+sin, he said, as a land-surveyor. A broth of a boy he was, and nine
+times his parents sent him from Reading to London to bind him to a
+trade. Nine times his masters returned him on their hands.
+
+Here the audience groaned aloud, and one went off in a fit. Mr. Bunton
+then told how he was awakened to sin as he walked in Cheapside. At
+this many, and the cobbler among them, cried 'Hallelujah!' but some
+went off into uncontrollable fits of laughter, which did not disturb
+the gravity of the rest of the assembly.
+
+The preacher's confession was, indeed, of such a nature that Wogan let
+a laugh out of himself, while Graden and the Prince rolled in extreme
+convulsions.
+
+'Go on, gentlemen; you are in the right path,' said the cobbler. 'Our
+converts are generally taken in this way first. It is reckoned a very
+favourable sign of grace. Some laugh for a week without stopping to
+sleep, eat, or drink.'
+
+'I'll try to stop to drink,' hooted his Highness, his face as red as a
+lobster; and then off he went again, the bench shaking beneath him,
+while Wogan and Graden laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks in
+their dark corner. The sympathetic cobbler murmured texts of an
+appropriate character. Indeed, now he thinks of it all, and sees Mr.
+Bunton sawing the air while he tells the story of his early wicked
+days, Mr. Wogan laughs as he writes. The man was greasy and radiant
+with satisfied vanity. His narrative of what he did and thought after
+he awoke to sin in Cheapside was a marvel.
+
+'I felt that beef and mutton were sinful things.'
+
+Here came a groan from an inquiring butcher.
+
+'I wished to put away all that was of the flesh fleshy. My desire was
+to dwell alone, in a cave, far from the sight of woman.'
+
+The Elect Lady groaned, and all the wenches in the congregation
+followed suit.
+
+'Abstaining from feasts of fat things, my mind was set on a simple
+diet of acorns, grass, and crabs.'
+
+'Les glands, les écrevisses, et l'herbe des champs!' hooted the
+Prince. 'Mon Dieu, quel souper, et quelle digestion il doit avoir, cet
+homme-là!'
+
+'But, sisters and brethren,' Mr. Bunton went on, 'did I yield to these
+popish temptations? Did I live, like one of their self-righteous
+so-called saints, on crabs, acorns, and grass? Did I retire to a cave?
+No, dear sisters and brethren. My motive for abstaining was bad; it
+was a suggestion of the Old Man--'
+
+'Qui donc est-il, ce vieillard bien pensant?' whispered the Prince.
+
+'The devil, sir,' answered Graden, who knew the doctrine of the Scotch
+ministers.
+
+'My motive for not living on crabs in a cave was bad, I confess, but
+it was over-ruled for the best. Dear friends, I kept myself far from
+these temptations, because, indeed, I was afraid of ghosts that haunt
+caves and such places.'
+
+'Il ne mangeait pas les écrevisses, parce qu'il avait peur des
+revenants! O c'est trop!' said the Prince, in a voice choked with
+emotion, while more advanced disciples cried 'Glory!' and
+'Hallelujah!'
+
+'But next,' the preacher went on, much gratified and encouraged by
+these demonstrations, 'I was happily brought acquainted with that
+precious sister, that incomparable disciple of Mr. Wesley, whom we
+call the Elect Lady. Then I awoke to light, and saw that it was laid
+upon me to preach, continually and unceasingly, making in every town
+confession of my offences. That dear lady, friends, promises for this
+once (she is as modest as she is generous and good) to tell us the
+moving story of her own early dangers, while she was a dweller in the
+tents of--of Shem, I think.'
+
+The congregation cheered and stamped with their feet, all but a few
+who were rolling on the floor in fits and foaming at the mouth. Mr.
+Bunton sat down very warm, and applied himself to the mug of water.
+
+The Elect Lady rose up to her full height, and tossed back her veil
+over her shoulders.
+
+'Ah, nous sommes trompés,' said the Prince. 'C'est une femme de
+quarante ans, bien sonnés!'
+
+But Wogan, between the shoulders of the congregation, stared from his
+dim corner as he had never stared at mortal woman before. The delicate
+features were thickened, alas, the lips had fallen in, the gold
+threads had been unwoven out of the dark brown hair. There were two
+dabs of red on a powdered face, where in time past the natural roses
+and lilies had bloomed; but the voice and the little Andalusian foot
+that beat the time with the Elect Lady's periods were the voice and
+the foot of the once incomparable Smilinda! Nay, when she turned and
+looked at the converted land-surveyor beside her, Mr. Wogan knew in her
+gaze the ghost of the glance that had bewitched Scrope, and Kelly, and
+Colonel Montague, and Lord Sidney Beauclerk, and who knows how many
+other gallants? In that odd place Wogan felt a black fit of the
+spleen. A woman's loss of beauty,--Wogan can never think of it
+unmoved. What tragedy that we men endure or enact is like this?
+
+But her ladyship spoke, and she spoke very well. The congregation, all
+of them that were not in fits or in laughing hysterics, listened as if
+to an angel. Heavens! what a story she told of her youth! What dangers
+encountered! What plots prepared against her virtue, ay, by splendid
+soldiers, beautiful young lords, and even clergymen; above all, by one
+monster whom she had discovered to be, not only a monster, but a
+traitor to the King, and an agent of the Pretender. She was a young
+thing then, married to an old lord, all unprotected, on every side
+beset by flattery.
+
+The congregation groaned and swayed at the picture of man's depravity,
+but Wogan, his spleen quite forgotten, was chuckling with delight.
+
+Yet, all unawakened as she was, said this penitent, an unknown
+influence had ever shielded her. She remembered how one of these evil
+ones, the clergyman, after kneeling vainly at her feet, had cried,
+'Sure, some invisible power protects your ladyship.'
+
+Here the groans gave place to cries of praise, arms were lifted, the
+simple, good people wept. Wogan listened with a less devotional air,
+bending forward on his bench, and rubbing his hands for joy. In truth
+it had just come upon him that it was his duty to stand up when the
+Elect Lady sat down, and bear his witness to the truth of her
+narrative.
+
+'Not to her be the triumph,' she went on, 'all unawakened as she then
+was, and remained, till she heard Mr. Wesley preach,' and thereafter
+went through the world with Brother Bunton, converting land-surveyors,
+colliers, and others.
+
+Wogan does not care to remember or quote any more of this lady's
+pieties. They had a kind of warmth and ease of familiarity which, in
+sacred things, are not to his liking. However, when she ceased, Mr.
+Wogan stood up, a tall figure of a French officer with an empty sleeve
+in his dim corner.
+
+'Good people,' he said; 'in my heedless youth I had the honour to be
+of the acquaintance of this lady who has just spoken to you.'
+
+The Elect Lady glanced at Wogan; she gave a strange, short cry, and
+the black veil swept over her face again.
+
+'I was,' Wogan went on, 'the eye-witness of these trials to which her
+Ladyship's virtue was exposed by the wicked ones of whose company I
+was a careless partaker. I have heard that wicked minister say that
+some invisible power protected her Ladyship. If any testimony to the
+truth of her ladyship's moving tale were needed I could bear that
+evidence, as could my friend the Rev. Mr. Kelly, now in France with
+despatches, and also General Montague, at present serving with
+Field-Marshal Wade, in the neighbourhood of Newcastle.'
+
+Wogan sat down.
+
+'That was providential indeed,' said the cobbler; and all the
+congregation bawled 'Miracle.' But the Elect Lady sat still, her face
+in her hands, like a Niobe in black bombazine.
+
+In the confusion, the three inquirers from the Prince's army slipped
+modestly out. A heavy shower of snow had swept the rabble out of the
+lane. All was dark and cold, after the reek of the crowded warehouse.
+
+'Nick,' said the Prince, 'was that story all true? Was the Elect Lady
+a prude?'
+
+'It is Mr. Kelly's story, sir,' said Wogan. Your Royal Highness can
+ask him.'
+
+'George was her adorer? Then George shall tell me the tale over a
+bottle. How the cold strikes! Hey, for a bowl of punch!' cried the
+Prince.
+
+'I am at your commands, sir, but may I say that it is one of the
+morning, and the pipes play the reveillé at four?'
+
+'To quarters, then! What is the word, damme? What is the word?'
+
+'_Slaint an Righ_, sir.'
+
+'Slaint an Righ? I never can get my tongue about it. Oh, if our
+subjects had but one language and one religion! But it shall not be
+the religion of Mr. Bunton. _Bon soir!_'
+
+'You have taken every trick, Wogan!' said Graden, as the Prince
+entered his inn. 'A sober night, for once, before a long day's march.'
+
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+Next morning the army went south, to Derby, and then (by no fault of
+the Irish officers or of their Prince) came back again. Wogan was at
+Falkirk, Culloden, and Ruthven, woe worth the day! How he reached
+France when all was over, is between him and a very beautiful young
+lady of Badenoch; she said she bore a king's name--Miss Helen
+Macwilliam. Of King Macwilliam Wogan hath never heard, but the young
+lady (whose brothers had taken to the heather) protected Wogan in his
+distress, tended his wound, hid him from the red-coat soldiers, and at
+last secured for him a passage in a vessel from Montrose.
+
+And for all souvenir, she kept the kerchief with which she had first
+bound up the bayonet-stab that Wogan came by, when he, with the
+Stewarts, broke through Barrel's regiment at Culloden. He writes this
+at Avignon, where George and his wife also dwell, in the old house
+with the garden, the roses, and the noisy, pretty children that
+haunted Mr. Kelly's dreams when he was young.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Parson Kelly, by
+A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason and Andrew Lang
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARSON KELLY ***
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+<title>Parson Kelly</title>
+<meta name="Author" content="A. E. W. Mason">
+<meta name="Author" content="Andrew Lang">
+
+<meta name="Publisher" content="Longmans, Green, and Co.">
+<meta name="Date" content="1899">
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Parson Kelly, by
+A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason and Andrew Lang
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Parson Kelly
+
+Author: A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason
+ Andrew Lang
+
+Release Date: January 27, 2012 [EBook #38684]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARSON KELLY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Notes:<br>
+
+1. Page scan source:<br>
+http://books.google.com/books?id=dNMjAAAAMAAJ</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/frontispiece.png" alt="But I am grieved I
+have no vigil."><br>
+&quot;BUT I AM GRIEVED I HAVE NO VIRGIL.&quot; P. 160</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<table cellpadding="20" style="width:70%; margin-left:17%; border:4px solid black">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>PARSON KELLY</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+</td>
+<tr><td style="border-top:4px solid black; border-bottom:4px solid black">
+<br>
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h2>A. E. W. MASON</h2>
+
+<h5>AND</h5>
+
+<h2>ANDREW LANG</h2>
+<br></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td style="border-top:4px solid black">
+<br>
+<h3>NEW YORK<br>
+LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.<br>
+<span class="sc2">LONDON AND BOMBAY</span><br>
+1899</h3>
+<br>
+</tr></table>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h5><i>Copyright, 1899</i>,</h5>
+<h4><span class="sc">By Longmans, Green, And Co.</span></h4>
+<hr style="width:5%; color:black; margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt">
+<h5><i>All rights reserved</i></h5>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4><span class="sc">First Edition, September, 1899<br>
+Reprinted October, 1899</span></h4>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>University Press<br>
+<span class="sc">John Wilson And Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.</span></h4>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3><span class="sc2">TO THE</span><br>
+BARON TANNEGUY DE WOGAN</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><i>The Representative of a House illustrious for its Antiquity:</i><br>
+<i>In Prosperity splendid: in Exile and Poverty gay</i><br>
+<i>and constant: of Loyalty unshaken;</i></p>
+
+<h4>Is Dedicated</h4>
+
+<p class="center"><i>This Narrative, founded on the deeds of his Ancestor</i>,</p>
+
+<h4><span class="sc">The Chevalier Nicholas De Wogan.</span></h4>
+<br>
+<div style="margin-left:65%">
+<p class="continue"><b>A. E. W. M.</b><br>
+<b>A. L.</b></p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The authors wish to say that the proceedings of Lady Oxford are
+unhistorical. Swift mentions a rumour that there was such a lady, but
+leaves her anonymous.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table cellpadding="10" style="width:90%; margin-left:5%; font-weight:bold">
+<colgroup><col style="width:10%; text-align:right; vertical-align:top"><col style="width:90%"></colgroup>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="sc2">Chapter</span></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>I.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_01" href="#div1_01">The Parson expresses Irreproachable Sentiments at the
+Mazarin Palace.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>II.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_02" href="#div1_02">Mr. Wogan refuses to Acknowledge an Undesirable
+Acquaintance in St. James's Street.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>III.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_03" href="#div1_03">Mr. Wogan instructs the Ignorant Parson in the Ways of
+Women.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>IV.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_04" href="#div1_04">Shows the Extreme Danger of knowing Latin.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>V.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_05" href="#div1_05">A Literary Discussion in which a Critic, not for the
+first time, turns the tables upon an Author.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>VI.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_06" href="#div1_06">Mr. Nicholas Wogan reminds the Parson of a Night at the
+Mazarin Palace.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>VII.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_07" href="#div1_07">Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has a word to say about
+Smilinda.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>VIII.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_08" href="#div1_08">Mr. Kelly has an Adventure at a Masquerade Ball.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>IX.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_09" href="#div1_09">Wherein the Chivalrous Mr. Kelly behaves with Deplorable
+Folly.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>X.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_10" href="#div1_10">What came of Mr. Kelly's Winnings from the South Sea.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XI.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_11" href="#div1_11">The Parson departs from Smilinda and learns a number of
+Unpalatable Truths.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XII.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_12" href="#div1_12">The Parson meets Scrope for the Third Time, and what came
+of the Meeting.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XIII.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_13" href="#div1_13">Of the Rose and the Rose-Garden in Avignon.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XIV.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_14" href="#div1_14">Of the Great Confusion produced by a Ballad and a Drunken
+Crow.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XV.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_15" href="#div1_15">At the Deanery of Westminster.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XVI.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_16" href="#div1_16">Mr. Wogan acts as Lightning Conductor at Lady Oxford's
+Rout.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XVII.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_17" href="#div1_17">Lady Oxford's 'Coup De Théâtre'.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XVIII.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_18" href="#div1_18">Wherein a New Fly discourses on the innocence of the
+Spider's Web.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XIX.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_19" href="#div1_19">Stroke and Counter-stroke.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XX.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_20" href="#div1_20">Mr. Scrope bathes by Moonlight and in his Peruke.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXI.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_21" href="#div1_21">In which Mr. Kelly surprises Smilinda.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXII.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_22" href="#div1_22">An Eclogue which demonstrates the Pastoral Simplicity of
+Corydon and Strephon.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXIII.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_23" href="#div1_23">How the Messengers captured the wrong Gentleman; and of
+what Letters the Colonel burned.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXIV.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_24" href="#div1_24">Mr. Wogan wears Lady Oxford's Livery, but does not remain
+in her Service.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXV.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_25" href="#div1_25">How the Miniature of Lady Oxford came by a Mischance.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXVI.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_26" href="#div1_26">Mr. Wogan Traduces his Friend, with the Happiest
+Consequences.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXVII.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_27" href="#div1_27">How, by keeping Parole, Mr. Kelly broke Prison.</a></p></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXVIII.</td>
+<td><p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_28" href="#div1_28">Mr. Wogan again invades England, meets the elect Lady,
+and bears witness to her Perfections.</a></p></td>
+</tr></table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>PARSON KELLY</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_01" href="#div1Ref_01">THE PARSON EXPRESSES IRREPROACHABLE SENTIMENTS
+AT THE MAZARIN PALACE</a></h3>
+
+<p class="center">&quot;What mighty quarrels rise from trivial things!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">So wrote Mr. Alexander Pope, whom Nicholas Wogan remembers as a
+bookish boy in the little Catholic colony of Windsor Forest. The line
+might serve as a motto for the story which Mr. Wogan (now a one-armed
+retired colonel of Dillon's Irish Brigade in French Service) is about
+to tell. The beginnings of our whole mischancy business were trivial
+in themselves, and in all appearance unrelated to the future. They
+were nothing more important than the purchase of a couple of small
+strong-boxes and the placing of Parson Kelly's patrimony in Mr. Law's
+company of the West. Both of these events happened upon the same day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was early in February of the year 1719, and the streets of Paris
+were deep in snow. Wogan, then plotting for King James's cause, rode
+into Paris from St. Omer at ten o'clock of the forenoon, and just
+about the same hour Parson Kelly, plotting too in his way, drove
+through the Orleans gate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few hours later the two men met in the Marais, or rather Nicholas
+Wogan saw the skirts of Kelly's coat vanishing into an ironmonger's
+shop, and ran in after him. Kelly was standing by the counter with a
+lady on either side of him, as was the dear man's wont; though their
+neighbourhood on this occasion was the merest accident, for the Parson
+knew neither of them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure it's my little friend the lace merchant,' said Wogan, and
+clapped his hand pretty hard on the small of his friend's back, whom
+he had not seen for a twelvemonth and more. Kelly stumbled a trifle,
+maybe, and no doubt he coughed and spluttered. One of the ladies
+dropped her purse and shuddered into a corner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'<i>Quelle bête sauvage!</i>' murmured the second with one indignant eye
+upon Nicholas Wogan, and the other swimming with pity for Mr. Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madame,' said Wogan, picking up the purse and restoring it with his
+most elegant bow, 'it was pure affection.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No doubt,' said Kelly, as he rubbed his shoulder; 'but, Nick, did you
+never hear of the bear that smashed his master's skull in the
+endeavour to stroke off a fly that had settled on his nose? That was
+pure affection too.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned back to the counter, on which the shopman was setting out a
+number of small strong-boxes, and began to examine them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, you must e'en blame yourself, George,' said Nick, 'for the mere
+sight of you brings the smell of the peat to my nostrils and lends
+vigour to my hand.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This he said with all sincerity, for the pair had been friends in
+county Kildare long before Kelly went to Dublin University, and took
+deacon's orders, and was kicked out of the pulpit for preaching
+Jacobitism in his homilies. As boys they had raced bare-legged over
+the heather, and spent many an afternoon in fighting over again that
+siege of Rathcoffey Castle which an earlier Nicholas Wogan had held so
+stoutly for King Charles. The recollection of those days always played
+upon Wogan's foolish heartstrings with a touch soft as a woman's
+fingers, and very likely it now set George Kelly's twanging to the
+same tune; for at Wogan's words he turned himself about with a face
+suddenly illumined.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Here, Nick, lay your hand there,' said he and stretched out his hand.
+'You will be long in Paris?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No more than a night. And you?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Just the same time.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned again to the counter, and busied himself with his boxes in
+something of a hurry, as though he would avoid further questioning.
+Wogan blew a low whistle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Maybe we are on the same business, eh?' he asked. 'The King's
+business?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Whisht, man,' whispered Kelly quickly, and he glanced about the shop.
+'Have you no sense at all?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The shop was empty at the moment, and there was no reason that Wogan
+could see for his immoderate secrecy. But the Parson was much like the
+rest of the happy-go-lucky conspirators who were intriguing to
+dislodge the Elector from the English throne--cautious by fits and
+moods, and the more often when there was the less need. But let a
+scheme get ripe for completion, and sure they imagined it completed
+already, and at once there would be letters left about here, for all
+the world to read, and a wink and a sly word there, so that it was
+little short of a miracle when a plot was launched before it had been
+discovered by those it was launched against. Not that you are to
+attribute to Mr. Wogan any superior measure of reticence. On the
+contrary, it is very probable that it was precisely Mr. Wogan's tongue
+which George Kelly distrusted, and if so, small blame to him. At any
+rate, he pursed up his lips and stiffened his back. Consequence turned
+him into a ramrod, and with a voice pitched towards the shopman:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am still in the muslin trade,' said he, meaning that he collected
+money for the Cause. 'I shall cross to England to-morrow.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Indeed and will you now?' said Wogan, who was perhaps a little
+contraried by his friend's reserve. 'Then I'll ask you to explain what
+these pretty boxes have to do with the muslin trade?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'They are to carry my samples in,' replied Kelly readily enough; and
+then, as if to put Wogan's questions aside, 'Are you for England,
+too?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' said Wogan, imitating Mr. Kelly's importance; 'I am going to
+visit my Aunt Anne at Cadiz; so make the most of that, my little
+friend.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan was no great dab at the cyphers and the jargon of the plots, but
+he knew that the Duke of Ormond, being then in Spain, figured in the
+correspondence as my Aunt Anne. It was now Kelly's turn to whistle,
+and that he did, and then laughed besides.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I might have guessed,' said he, 'for there's a likely prospect of
+broken heads at all events, and to that magnet you were never better
+than a steel filing.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Whisht, man,' exclaimed Wogan, frowning and wagging his head
+preposterously. 'Is it yourself that's the one person in the world to
+practise mysteries? Broken heads, indeed!' and he shrugged his
+shoulder as though he had a far greater business on hand. Kelly's
+curiosity rose to the bait, and he put a question or two which Wogan
+waived aside. The Parson indeed had hit the truth. Wogan had no
+business whatsoever except the mere fighting, but since the Parson was
+for practising so much dignified secrecy, Wogan would do no less.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To carry the joke a step further, he turned to the counter, even as
+Kelly had done, and examined the despatch-boxes. He would buy one, to
+convince Kelly that he, too, was trusted with secret papers. The boxes
+were as like to one another as peas, but Wogan discovered a great
+dissimilitude of defects.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There's not one of them fit to keep a mouldy cheese in,' said he,
+tapping and sounding them with his knuckles, 'let alone--' and then he
+caught himself up with a glance at Kelly. 'However, this perhaps may
+serve--but wait a little.' He felt in his pockets and by chance
+discovered a piece of string. This string he drew out and carefully
+measured the despatch-box, depth and width and length. Then he put the
+tip of his thumb between his teeth and bit it in deep thought. 'Well,
+and it must serve, since there's no better; but for heaven's sake, my
+man, clap a stouter lock on it! I could smash this with my fist. A
+good stout lock; and send it--wait a moment!' He glanced towards Kelly
+and turned back to the shopman. 'I'll just write down where you are to
+send it to.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To Kelly's more complete mystification he scribbled a name and an
+address on a sheet of paper, and folded it up with an infinity of
+precautions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Send it there, key and all, by nine o'clock tomorrow morning.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The name was Mr. Kelly's, the address the inn at which Mr. Kelly was
+in the habit of putting up. Wogan bought the box merely to gull Kelly
+into the belief that he, also, was a Royal messenger. Then he paid for
+the box, and forthwith forgot all about it over a bottle of wine.
+Kelly, for his part, held his despatch-box in his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick, I have business,' said he as soon as the bottle was empty, 'and
+it appears you have too. Shall we meet to-night? Mr. Law expects me at
+the Mazarin Palace.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Faith, then I'll make bold to intrude upon him,' said Nicholas, who,
+though Mr. Law kept open house for those who favoured the White Rose,
+was but a rare visitor to the Mazarin Palace, holding the financier in
+so much awe that no amount of affability could extinguish it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">However, that night he went, and so learned in greater particular the
+secret of the Parson's journey. It was nine o'clock at night when
+Wogan turned the corner of the Rue Vivienne and saw the windows of the
+Mazarin Palace blazing out upon the snow. A little crowd shivered and
+gaped beneath them, making, poor devils! a vicarious supper off the
+noise of Mr. Law's entertainment. And it was a noisy party that Mr.
+Law entertained. Before he was half-way down the street Wogan could
+hear the peal of women's laughter and a snatch of a song, and after
+that maybe a sound of breaking glass, as though a tumbler had been
+edged off the table by an elbow. He was shown up the great staircase
+to a room on the first floor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Monsieur Nicholas de Wogan,' said the footman, throwing open the
+door. Wogan stepped into the company of the pretty arch conspirators
+who were then mismanaging the Chevalier's affairs. However, with their
+mismanagement Wogan is not here concerned, for this is not a story of
+Kings and Queens and high politics but of the private fortunes of
+Parson Kelly. Olive Trant was playing backgammon in a corner with Mr.
+Law. Madame de Mezières, who was seldom absent when politics were
+towards, graced the table and conversed with Lady Cecilia Law. And
+right in front of Mr. Wogan stood that madcap her sister, Fanny
+Oglethorpe, with her sleeves tucked back to her elbows, looking
+gloriously jolly and handsome. She was engaged in mincing chickens in
+a china bowl which was stewing over a little lamp on the table, for,
+said she, Mr. Law had aspersed the English cooks, and she was minded
+to make him eat his word and her chicken that very night for supper.
+She had Parson Kelly helping her upon the one side, and a young French
+gentleman whom Wogan did not know upon the other; and the three of
+them were stirring in the bowl with a clatter of their wooden spoons.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Here's Mr. Wogan,' cried Fanny Oglethorpe, and as Wogan held out his
+hand she clapped her hot spoon into it. 'M. de Bellegarde, you must
+know Mr. Wogan. He has the broadest back of any man that ever I was
+acquainted with. You must do more than know him. You must love him, as
+I do, for the broadness of his back.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. de Bellegarde looked not over-pleased with the civility of her
+greeting, and bowed to Wogan with an affectation of ceremony. Mr. Law
+came forward with an affable word. Olive Trant added another, and
+Madame de Mezières asked eagerly what brought him to Paris.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He is on his way to join the Duke of Ormond at Cadiz,' cried Kelly;
+'and,' said this man deceived, 'he carries the most important
+messages. Bow to him, ladies! Gentlemen, your hands to your hearts,
+and your knees to the ground! It's no longer a soldier of fortune that
+you see before you, but a diplomatist, an ambassador: His Excellency,
+the Chevalier Wogan;' and with that he ducked and bowed, shaking his
+head and gesticulating with his hands, as though he were some
+dandified court chamberlain. All the Parson's diplomacy had been
+plainly warmed out of him in his present company. Mr. Law began to
+laugh, but Fanny Oglethorpe dropped her spoon and looked at Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The Duke of Ormond?' said she, lowering her voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Indeed? and you carry messages?' said Miss Olive Trant, upsetting the
+backgammon board.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Of what kind?' exclaimed Madame de Mezières; and then, in an instant,
+their pretty heads were clustered about the table, and their mouths
+whispering questions, advice, and precautions, all in a breath. 'It's
+at Bristol you are to land?' 'The Earl Marischal is for Scotland?'
+'You carry 5,000 barrels, Mr. Wogan?' meaning thereby stands of arms.
+And, 'You may speak with all confidence,' Miss Oglethorpe urged, with
+a glance this way and that over her shoulders. 'There are none but
+honest people here. M. de Bellegarde,' and she looked towards the
+French spark, blushing very prettily, 'is my good friend.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan bowed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It was not that I doubted M. de Bellegarde,' he replied. 'But 'faith,
+ladies, I have learnt more of the prospects of the expedition from
+your questions than ever I knew before. I was told for a certain thing
+that heads would be broken, and, to be sure, I was content with the
+information.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At that Mr. Law laughed. Kelly asked, 'What of the despatch-box,
+then?' The ladies pouted their resentment; and Mr. Wogan, for the
+first and last time in his life, wore the reputation of a diplomatist.
+'A close man,' said M. de Bellegarde, pursing his lips in approval.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But sped on an unlikely venture,' added Mr. Law, getting back to his
+backgammon. 'Oh, I know,' he continued, as the voices rose against
+him, 'you have grumblings enough in England to fill a folio, and so
+you think the whole country will hurry to the waterside to welcome
+you, before you have set half your foot on shore. But, when all is
+said, the country's prosperous. Your opportunity will come with its
+misfortunes.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Madame de Mezières would hear nothing of such forebodings; and
+Olive Trant, catching up a glass, swung it above her head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'May the Oak flourish!' she cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fanny Oglethorpe sprang from her seat. 'May the White Rose bloom!' she
+answered, giving the counter-word. The pair clinked their glasses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Aye, that's the spirit!' cried the Parson. 'Drink, Nick! God save the
+King! Here's a bumper to him!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stood with his face turned upwards, his blue eyes afire. 'Here's to
+the King!' he repeated. 'Here's to the Cause! God send that nothing
+ever come between the Cause and me.' He drained his glass as he spoke,
+and tossed it over his shoulder. There was a tinkling sound, and a
+flash of sparks, as it were, when the glass splintered against the
+wall. George Kelly stood for a moment, arrested in his attitude, his
+eyes staring into vacancy, as though some strange news had come of a
+sudden knocking at his heart. Then he hitched his shoulders. 'Bah!' he
+cried, and began to sing in a boisterous voice some such ditty as</p>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">
+Of all the days that's in the year,<br>
+The tenth of June's to me most dear,<br>
+When our White Roses do appear</p>
+<p class="t2">To welcome Jamie the Rover.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">Or it may have been</p>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">
+Let our great James come over,<br>
+And baffle Prince Hanover,<br>
+With hearts and hands in loyal bands,</p>
+<p class="t2">We'll welcome him at Dover.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not the general practice to allow the Parson to sing without
+protest; for he squeezed less music out of him than any other Irishman
+could evoke from a deal board with his bare knuckles. When he sang,
+and may Heaven forgive the application of the word in this
+conjunction, there was ever a sort of mortal duello between his voice
+and the tune--very distressing to an audience. But now he sang his
+song from beginning to end, and no one interrupted him, or so much as
+clapped a hand over an ear; and this not out of politeness. But his
+words so rang with a startling fervour; and he stood, with his head
+thrown back, rigid in the stress of passion. His voice quavered down
+to silence, but his eyes still kept their fires, his attitude its
+fixity. Once or twice he muttered a word beneath his breath, and then
+a hoarse cry came leaping from his mouth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'May nothing ever come between the Cause and me, except it be
+death--except it be death!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A momentary silence waited upon the abrupt cessation of his voice:
+Wogan even held his breath; Miss Oglethorpe did not stir; and during
+that silence, there came a gentle rapping on the door. Kelly looked
+towards it with a start, as though there was his answer; but the
+knocking was repeated before anyone moved; it seemed as if suspense
+had hung its chains upon every limb. It was Mr. Wogan who opened the
+door, and in stalked Destiny in the shape of a lackey. He carried a
+note, and handed it to George Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The messenger has but this instant brought it,' he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly broke the seal, and unfolded the paper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'From General Dillon,' he said; and, reading the note through,
+'Ladies, will you pardon me? Mr. Law, I have your permission? I have
+but this one night in Paris, and General Dillon has news of importance
+which bears upon my journey.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With that he took his hat, and got him from the room. Fanny Oglethorpe
+sprang up from her chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure, my chicken will be ruined,' she cried. 'Come, M. de
+Bellegarde,' and the pair fell again to stirring in the bowl, and with
+such indiscriminate vigour that more than once their fingers got
+entangled. This Mr. Wogan observed, and was sufficiently indiscreet to
+utter a sly proposal that he should make a third at the stirring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There is no need for a third,' said Miss Oglethorpe, with severity.
+'But, on the other hand, I want a couple of pats of butter, and a
+flagon of water; and I shall be greatly obliged if Mr. Wogan will
+procure me them.' And what with that and other requests which chanced
+to come into her head, she kept him busy until the famous supper was
+prepared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the midst of that supper back came Mr. Kelly, and plumped himself
+down in his chair, very full of his intelligence. A glass or two of
+Mr. Law's burgundy served to warm out of his blood all the reserve
+that was left over from the morning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'We are all friends here,' said he, turning to Miss Oglethorpe.
+'Moreover, I need the advantage of your advice and knowledge. General
+Dillon believes that my Lord Oxford maybe persuaded to undertake the
+muslin trade in Britain.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Lord Oxford,' exclaimed Miss Oglethorpe, with a start, for Oxford had
+lain quiet since he nearly lost his head five years agone. 'He is to
+collect the money from our supporters?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is the opinion that he will, if properly approached.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Law, at the top of the table, shook his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is a very forward and definite step for so prudential a
+politician,' said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But a politician laid on a shelf, and pining there,' replied George.
+'There's the reason for it. He has a hope of power,--<i>Qui a bu,
+boira!</i> The hope grows real if we succeed.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I would trust him no further than a Norfolk attorney,' returned Mr.
+Law; 'and that's not an inch from the end of my nose. He will swear
+through a two-inch board to help you, and then turn cat in pan if a
+Whig but smile at him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Besides,' added Miss Oglethorpe, and she rested, her chin
+thoughtfully upon her hands. As she spoke, all the eyes in that
+company were turned on her. 'Besides,' and then she came to a stop,
+and flushed a little. 'Lord Oxford,' she continued, 'was my good
+friend when I was in England.' Then she stopped again. Finally she
+looked straight into M. de Bellegarde's eyes, and with an admirable
+bravery: 'Some, without reason, have indeed slandered me with stories
+that he was more than my friend.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'None, Madame, who know you, I'll warrant,' said M. de Bellegarde, and
+gravely lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, that's a very pretty answer,' said she in some confusion. 'So
+Mr. Kelly may know,' she went on, 'that I speak with some authority
+concerning my Lord Oxford. It is not he whom I distrust. But he has
+lately married a young wife.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah,' said Mr. Law, and 'Oh!' cried Mr. Wogan, with a shrug of his
+shoulders. 'If a lady is to dabble her tender fingers in the pie--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And what of it, Mr. Wogan?' Madame de Mezières took him up coldly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes, Mr. Wogan, what of it?' repeated Olive Trant hotly, 'provided
+the lady be loyal.' In an instant Mr. Wogan had the whole nest
+swarming about his ears, with the exception of Fanny Oglethorpe. It
+was intimated to him that he had a fine preposterous conceit of his
+sex, and would he be pleased to justify it?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Madame de Mezières hinted that the ability to swing a shillelagh and
+bring it down deftly on an offending sconce did not comprise the whole
+virtues of mankind. And if it came to the test of dealing blows, why
+there was Joan of Arc, and what had Mr. Wogan to say to her? Mr. Wogan
+turned tail, as he always did when women were in the van of the
+attack.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ladies,' he said, 'I do not think Joan of Arc so singular after all,
+since I see four here who I believe from my soul could emulate her
+noblest achievements.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Mr. Wogan's gallantry went for very little. The cowardice of it
+was apparent for all that he bowed and laid his hand on his heart, and
+performed such antics as he thought likely to tickle women into good
+humour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Besides,' put in Lady Cecilia, with a soothing gentleness, 'Mr. Wogan
+should know that the cause he serves owes, as it is, much to the good
+offices of women.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan had his own opinions upon that point, but he wiped his
+forehead and had the discretion to hold his tongue. Meanwhile Fanny
+Oglethorpe, who had sat with frowning brows in silence, diverted the
+onslaught.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But it is just the loyalty of Lady Oxford which is in question. Lady
+Oxford is a Whig, of a Whig family. She is even related to Mr.
+Walpole, the Minister. I think Mr. Kelly will have to tread very
+warily at Lord Oxford's house of Brampton Bryan.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'For my part,' rejoined Mr. Law, 'I think the Chevalier de St. George
+would do better to follow the example of Mr. Kelly and my friends
+here.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And what is that?' asked Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why, scrape up all the money he can lay hands on and place it in my
+company of the West.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan was not well pleased to hear of his friend's speculation,
+and, when they left the house together, took occasion to remonstrate
+with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'How much have you placed?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'All that I could,' replied George. 'It is little enough--the remnant
+of my patrimony. Mr. Law lent me a trifle in addition to make up a
+round sum. It is a very kindly man, and well disposed to me. I have no
+fears, for all the money in France dances to the tune he fiddles.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To his tune, to be sure,' grumbled Wogan; 'but are you equally
+certain his tune is yours? Oh, I know. He is a monstrous clever man,
+not a doubt of it. The computation of figures--it is the devil's own
+gift, and to my nose it smells damnably of sulphur.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan has good occasion to reflect how Providence fleers at one's
+apprehensions when he remembers the sleepless hours during which he
+tossed upon his bed that night, seeing all the Parson's scanty savings
+drowned beyond redemption in the China seas. For no better chance
+could have befallen Kelly than that Wogan's forebodings should have
+come true. But the venture succeeded. Fanny Oglethorpe made a fortune
+and married M. de Bellegarde. Olive Trant, the richer by 100,000
+pistoles, became Princess of Auvergne. Do they ever remember that
+night at the Hotel de Mazarin, and how Parson Kelly cried out almost
+in an agony as though, in the heat of passion, he surmised the future,
+'May nothing come between the Cause and me'? Well, for one thing the
+money came. It placed in his hands a golden key wherewith to unlock
+the gates of disaster.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_02" href="#div1Ref_02">MR. WOGAN REFUSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE AN
+UNDESIRABLE ACQUAINTANCE IN
+ST. JAMES'S STREET</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan left Paris early the next morning without a thought for the
+despatch-box that he had sent to Kelly, and, coming to Cadiz, sailed
+with the Spaniards out of that harbour on the tenth of March, and into
+the great storm which dispersed the fleet off Cape Finisterre. In
+company with the Earl Marischal and the Marquis of Tullibardine, he
+was aboard one of those two ships which alone touched the coast of
+Scotland. Consequently, he figured with better men, as Field-Marshal
+Keith, and his brother the Ambassador, and my Lord George Murray, in
+that little skirmish at Glenshiel, and very thankful he was when the
+night shut black upon the valleys and put its limit to the attack of
+General Wightman's soldiers from Inverness. A council of war was held
+in the dark upon a hill-side, whence the fires of General Wightman's
+camp could be seen twinkling ruddily below, but Wogan heard little of
+what was disputed, for he went to sleep with his back against a
+boulder and dreamed of his ancestors. He was waked up about the middle
+of the night by the Earl Marischal, who informed him that the
+Spaniards had determined to surrender at discretion, and that the
+handful of Highlanders were already dispersing to their homes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'As for ourselves, we shall make for the Western Islands and wait
+there for a ship to take us off.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then I'll wish you luck and a ship,' said Wogan. He stood up and
+shook the dew off his cloak. 'I have friends in London, and I'll trust
+my lucky star to get me there.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your star's in eclipse,' said the Earl. 'You will never reach London
+except it be with your legs tied under a horse's belly.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, I'm thinking you have not such a clear path after all to the
+Western Islands! Did you never hear of my forefather, Thomas Wogan,
+that rode with twenty-eight Cavaliers through the heart of Cromwell's
+England, and came safe into the Highlands? Sure what that great man
+could do with twenty-eight companions to make him conspicuous, his
+degenerate son can do alone.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan began his journey by walking over the hill, near to the top
+of which his friends had been driven off the road to Inverness by the
+English fire, which was very well nourished. He made his way to Loch
+Duich, as they call it, and so by boat round Ardnamurchan, to a hamlet
+they call Oban. There he changed his dress for the Campbell black and
+green, and, joining company with a drove of Rob Roy's cattle from the
+Lennox, travelled to Glasgow. His Irish brogue no doubt sounded a
+trifle strange in a Highland drover, but he was in a country where the
+people were friendly. At Glasgow he changed his dress again for a
+snuff-coloured bourgeois suit, and so rode into England by the old
+Carlisle and Preston route, which he had known very well in the year
+1715.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan was at this time little more than a lad, though full-grown
+enough to make a man and a good-sized boy into the bargain, and the
+exploit of the Cavalier Thomas Wogan, as it had prompted his design,
+so it exhilarated him in the execution. He went lightly on his way,
+weaving all manner of chivalric tales about his ancestor, to the great
+increase of his own vanity, bethinking him when he stopped for an hour
+at a wayside inn that here, too, perhaps Thomas Wogan had reined in
+his horse, and maybe had taken a draught from that very pint-pot which
+Nicholas now held to his lips. Thus the late burst up the hill-side
+above the Shiel was quickly robbed of its sting, and by the time that
+he had reached London he was so come to a pitch of confidence in the
+high destinies of the Wogan family that, after leaving his horse in
+the charge of Mr. Gunning, of Mussell Hill, whom he knew of old as a
+staunch friend of George Kelly's, and borrowing from him a more
+suitable raiment than his stained travelling dress, he must needs walk
+down St. James's Street with no more disguise than the tilting of his
+hat over his nose, and the burying of his chin in his cravat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Soon Mr. Wogan's confidence and, with his confidence, his legs were
+brought to a sudden check. For when he was come half-way down the hill
+he saw the figure of one Captain Montague in the uniform of the Guards
+turn the corner out of Ryder Street and walk towards him. Wogan had
+met the officer before on an occasion of which he did not wish at this
+particular moment to be reminded. He wheeled about, took a step or
+two, and so came again to a halt. Was it known, he asked himself, that
+he had sailed from Cadiz and landed in Scotland? If so, and it was a
+most likely conjecture, then for Wogan to be straggling about St.
+James's Street was egregious impertinence, and the sooner he got under
+shelter the better for his neck. Now Wogan's destination was the
+lodging of George Kelly, not five hundred yards away, in Bury Street.
+But to reach that lodging it would be necessary for him to turn about
+again and face the Captain. Would the Captain know him again? Wogan
+debated the question, and finding no answer, asked himself another.
+What would Thomas Wogan have done under the like contingency? The
+answer to that was evident enough. Wogan turned about on the instant,
+cocked his hat on the back of his head, took his chin out of his
+cravat, twirled his cane, whistled a tune and sauntered past the
+Captain, looking him over as if he were so much dirt. The Captain
+stopped: Wogan felt his heart jump into his throat, whistled a bit
+louder, and twirled his cane a trifle ferociously. Over his shoulder
+he saw the Captain draw his brows together and rub a check with the
+palm of his hand like a man perplexed. The Captain took a step towards
+Wogan, and stopped again. Wogan sauntered on, expecting every moment
+to hear his name called, and a clattering run, and then to feel a
+heavy hand close upon his shoulder. But no voice spoke, no steps
+clattered on the pavement. Wogan reached the corner and spied up St.
+James's Street as he turned. The Captain was still standing in the
+attitude of perplexity; only, instead of smoothing his cheek, he had
+tilted his peruke aside and was scratching his head to ease the labour
+of his recollections. At the sight of him the ancestor and his
+twenty-eight Cavaliers rode clean out of Mr. Wogan's mind. 'Sure,
+Thomas wouldn't have done it, but Nicholas will,' said he, and kicking
+up his heels he ran. He ran along Ryder Street, turned into Bury
+Street, raced a hundred yards or so up the cobbles, and thundered on
+the door of Kelly's lodging. Here and there a head was poked from a
+window, and Mr. Wogan cursed his own noisiness. It seemed an age
+before the door was opened. Fortunately it was Mrs. Barnes, Kelly's
+landlady, in person, and not her serving-woman, who stood in the
+entrance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Is the Parson in London?' says Wogan. 'Say that he is, Mrs. Barnes,
+and say it quick.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why, it's Mr. Wogan!' cries she.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Whisht, my dear woman!' answered Wogan, pushing through the doorway.
+'It's Mr. Hilton. There's no Wogan anywhere in England. Remember that,
+if you please.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Barnes slammed the door in a hurry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then you are in trouble again,' said she, throwing up her hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, there's nothing unusual in that,' said he. 'Sure man is born to
+it, and who am I that I should escape the inheritance?' and he opened
+the door of Mr. Kelly's sitting-room. He saw the figure of a man
+bending over the table. As the door was thrown open, the figure
+straightened itself hurriedly. There was a sound of an iron lid
+clanging down upon a box, and the sharp snap of a lock. George Kelly
+turned and stood between the table and the door, in a posture of
+defence. Then--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick!' he cried, and grasped his friend's hand. The next moment he
+let it go. 'What brings you here?' he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My ancestor,' said Wogan, dropping into a chair. ''Twas his spirit
+guided me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then take my word for it,' cried George, 'if there's a Bedlam beyond
+the grave your ancestor inhabits it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan made no reply in words at first. But he rose stiffly from his
+chair, bowed to Kelly with profuse ceremony, took his hat, and with
+his hat a step towards the door. Kelly, on the other hand, shut the
+door, locked it, put the key in his pocket and leaned his back against
+the panels. Wogan affected to see nothing of these actions, but spoke
+in a tone of dignity like a man taking his leave.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Such insults as you are pleased to confer on me,' said he, 'no doubt
+I deserve, and I take them in all Christian meekness. But when my
+ancestor Thomas Wogan, God rest his soul for ever and ever, rode with
+twenty-eight Cavaliers from Dover to Scotland through the thick of his
+bloodthirsty foes to carry the succour of his presence to the friends
+of his blessed Majesty of sacred memory King Charles the Second, it
+was not, I'd have you know, Mr. Kelly, in order that his name should
+be bespattered after he was dead by a snuffling long-legged
+surreptitious gawk of a parson who was kicked out of his Dublin pulpit
+with every circumstance of ignominy because his intellect didn't
+enable him to compose a homily.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this point Wogan drew a long breath, which he sorely needed. It was
+not at all truth that he had spoken, as he knew--none better. The
+Parson was indeed stripped of his gown because he preached a very fine
+homily on the text of 'Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's,'
+wherein he mingled many timely and ingenious allusions to the
+Chevalier. Nor was there any particular force in that epithet
+'surreptitious,' beyond that it had an abusive twang. Yet it was just
+that word at which Mr. Kelly took offence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Surreptitious,' said he, 'and if you please what is the meaning of
+that?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then surveying Wogan, he began of a sudden to smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ta-ta-ta,' he said with a grimace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is a pretty though an interjectional wit,' replied Wogan in a high
+disdain, falling upon long words, as was his fashion on the rare
+occasions when he cloaked himself with dignity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Faith,' continued George, with the smile broadening over his face,
+'but it is indeed the very picture of Christian meekness,' and then,
+breaking into a laugh, 'Will you sit down, you noisy firebrand. As for
+Thomas Wogan--be damned to him and to all his twenty-eight Cavaliers
+into the bargain!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan will never deny but what the man's laugh was irresistible,
+for the Parson's features wore in repose something of clerkly look.
+They were cast in a mould of Episcopal gravity; but when he laughed
+his blue eyes would lighten at you like the sun from a bank of clouds,
+and the whole face of him wrinkled and creased into smiles, and his
+mouth shook a great rumbling laugh out of his throat, and then of a
+sudden you had come into the company of a jolly man. Wogan put his hat
+on the table and struggled to preserve his countenance from any
+expression of friendliness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is the common talk at the Cocoa Tree that you sailed from Cadiz.
+It is thought that you were one of the remnant at Glenshiel. Oh, the
+rumour of your whereabouts has marched before you, and that you might
+have guessed. But see what it is to know no Virgil, and,' shaking a
+minatory finger,</p>
+<div class="center">
+<p class="t0" style="font-size:90%">
+'Fama, malum quo non aliud velocius ullum.'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan bowed before Latin like a sapling before the wind. He seated
+himself as he was bid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And you must needs come parading your monstrous person through the
+thick of London, like any fashionable gentleman,' continued George.
+'What am I to do with you? Why couldn't you lie quiet in a village and
+send me news of you? Did you meet any of your acquaintance by chance
+when you came visiting your friend Mr. Kelly? Perhaps you passed the
+time of day with Mr. Walpole--' and as he spoke the name he stopped
+abruptly. He walked once or twice across the room, shifting his peruke
+from one side of his head to the other in the fluster of his thoughts.
+Then he paused before Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, what am I to do with you?' he cried. 'Tell me that, if you
+please.' But the moment Wogan began,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure, George, it's not you that I will be troubling for my
+security'--Kelly cut in again:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, if you have nothing better to say than that, you say nothing at
+all. It is dribbling baby's talk,' and then he repeated a question
+earnestly. 'Did you see anyone you knew, or rather did anyone that
+knows you see you?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why,' replied Wogan meekly, 'I cannot quite tell whether he knows me
+or not, but to be sure I ran into the arms of Captain Montague not
+half a dozen yards from the corner of Ryder Street.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Montague!' exclaimed Kelly. Wogan nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The man who fought against you at Preston siege?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The same.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">''Tis a pity you were at so much pains to save his life in that
+scuffle.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Haven't I been thinking that myself?' asked Wogan. 'If only I had
+left him lying outside the barricades, where he would have been surely
+killed by the cross-fire, instead of running out and dragging him in!
+But it is ever the way. Once do a thoroughly good-natured action and
+you will find it's the thorn in your side that will turn and sting
+you. But I am not sure that he knew me,' and he related how the
+Captain had stopped with an air of perplexed recollection, and had
+then gone on his way. Kelly listened to the account with a certain
+relief.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is likely that he would not remember you. For one thing, he was
+wounded when you carried him in, and perhaps gave little heed to the
+features of his preserver. Moreover, you have changed, Nick, in these
+years. You were a stripling then, a boy of fifteen, and,' here he
+smiled and laid a hand on Wogan's shoulder, 'you have grown into a
+baby in four years.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he took another turn across the room. 'Well, and why not?' he
+said to himself, and finally brought his fist with a bang upon the
+table. 'I'll hazard it,' said he. 'I am not sure but what it is the
+safest way,' and, drawing a chair close to Wogan, he sat himself down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It was the mention of Mr. Walpole set me on the plan,' he said. 'You
+heard in Paris that Lady Oxford is a kinsman of his. Well, I go down
+to Lord Oxford's in two days. It is a remote village in the north of
+Herefordshire. You shall come with me as my secretary. 'Faith, but I
+shall figure in my lord's eyes as a person of the greatest
+importance.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan resisted the proposal as being of some risk to his friend,
+but Kelly would hear of no argument. The plan grew on him, the more he
+thought of it. 'You can lie snug here for the two days. Mrs. Barnes is
+to be trusted, devil a doubt. You can travel down with me in safety. I
+am plain Mr. Johnson here, engaged in smuggling laces from the
+Continent into England. And once out of London there will be little
+difficulty in shipping you out of the country until the affair's blown
+over.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it was arranged, and Kelly, looking at his watch, says--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'By my soul, I am late. I should have been with my Lord of Rochester
+half-an-hour since. The good Bishop will be swearing like a dragoon.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He clapped his hat on his head, took up his cane, and marched to the
+door. His hand was on the knob, when he turned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'By the way, Nick, I have something which belongs to you. 'Twas sent
+to my lodging in Paris by mistake. I brought it over, since I was sure
+to set eyes on you shortly.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah,' said Nick. 'Then you expected me, for all your scolding and
+bullying.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To speak the honest truth, Nick,' said Kelly, with a laugh, 'I have
+been expecting you all the last week.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He went into his bedroom, and brought out the strong-box which Wogan
+had purchased in Paris.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure there was no mistake,' said Wogan. 'I sent it to you as a reward
+for your discretion.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, you did. Well, you wasted your money, for I have no need for it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nor I,' replied Wogan. 'But it has a very good lock, and will serve
+to hold your love-letters.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly laughed carelessly at the careless words, and laid the box aside
+upon his scrutore. Many a time in the months that followed Wogan saw
+it there, and the sight of it would waken him to a laugh, for he did
+not know that a man's liberty, his honour, his love, came shortly to
+be locked within its narrow space.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_03" href="#div1Ref_03">MR. WOGAN INSTRUCTS THE IGNORANT PARSON IN
+THE WAYS OF WOMEN</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan then remained for two days closeted in his friend's
+lodgings, and was hard put to it to pass the time, since the Parson,
+who acted as secretary and right-hand man to Bishop Atterbury, was
+ever dancing attendance upon his lordship at Bromley or the Deanery of
+Westminster. Wogan smoked a deal of tobacco, and, knitting his brows,
+made a strenuous endeavour to peruse one of George Kelly's books--a
+translation of Tully's <i>Letters</i>. He did, indeed, read a complete
+page, and then being seized with a sudden vertigo, such as from his
+extreme youth had prevented him from a course of study, was forced to
+discontinue his labours. At this juncture Mrs. Barnes comforted him
+with a greasy pack of cards, and for the rest of that day he played
+games of chance for extraordinary stakes, one hand against t'other,
+winning and losing millions of pounds sterling in the space of a
+single hour. By bedtime he was sunk in a plethora of wealth and an
+extremity of destitution at one and the same time; and so, since he
+saw no way of setting the balance right, he bethought him of another
+plan. On the morrow he would write out a full history of his
+ancestors, as a memorial of their valour and a shame to the men of
+this age.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson, when he was informed of the notable design, quoted a scrap
+of Latin to the effect that it would be something more than a brazen
+proceeding. Wogan, however, was not to be dissuaded by any tag of
+rhyme, and getting up before daylight, since he had but this one day
+for the enterprise, was at once very busy with all of Kelly's
+spluttering pens. He began with the founder of the family, the great
+Chevalier Ugus, who lived in the time of my little Octavius Cæsar, and
+was commissioned by that unparalleled monarch to build the town of
+Florence. 'Ugus,' wrote Mr. Wogan in big round painful letters with a
+flourish to each, and, coming to a stop, woke up George Kelly to ask
+him in what year of Our Lord Octavius Cæsar was born into this weary
+world. 'In no year of Our Lord,' grumbled George, a little churlishly
+to Wogan's thinking, who went back to his desk, and taking up a new
+pen again wrote 'Ugus.' Thereupon he fell into a great profundity of
+thought; so many philosophic reflections crowded into his head while
+he nibbled his pen, as he felt sure must visibly raise him in the
+estimation of his friends. So, taking his candle in one hand and his
+pen in the other, he came a second time to Kelly's bedside and sat him
+down heavily upon his legs, the better to ensure his awakening. It is
+to be admitted that this time the Parson sat up in his bed, and swore
+with all the volubility of a dragoon or even of my Lord Bishop of
+Rochester. But Wogan smiled amiably, knowing when he communicated his
+thoughts how soon those oaths would turn to cries of admiration.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is a very curious thing,' said Wogan, shifting himself a little so
+that Kelly's shins should not press so sharply, 'how the mere inking
+of one's fingers produces speculation. Just as great valorous deeds
+are the consequence of swords,' here he paused to snuff the candle
+with his fingers, 'so great philosophic thoughts are the consequence
+of pens. Put a sword in a man's hand! What does he want to do but cut
+his neighbour right open from the chine to the ribs? Put a pen between
+his fingers, on the other hand, and what does he want to do but go
+away by himself and write down great thoughts?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then, in Heaven's name, why don't you do it?' cried George.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Because, my friend,' replied Wogan, 'out of the great love I bear for
+you, I shall always, always communicate my thoughts first of all to
+you.' Here the Parson groaned like a man giving up the ghost, and
+Wogan continued:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'For instance, you have doubtless heard of my illustrious forbear the
+Chevalier Ugus.' At this Kelly tried to turn on his side; but he could
+not do so, since his legs were pinned beneath Wogan's weight. 'The
+Chevalier Ugus,' repeated Wogan, 'who built and beautified the city of
+Florence to the glory of God in the reign of the Emperor Octavius. How
+many of the English have loitered in the colonnades, and feasted their
+eyes upon the cathedral, and sauntered on the bridges of the Arno? How
+many of them, I say, have drawn profitable thoughts and pleasurable
+sensations from the edifices of my great ancestor? And yet not one of
+them--if poor Nicholas Wogan, his degenerate son, were to poke his
+nose outside of Mrs. Barnes's front door--not one of them but would
+truss him hands and heels and hang him up to derision upon a nasty
+gibbet.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So far Wogan had flowed on when a sigh from Kelly's lips brought him
+to a pause. He leaned forward and held the candle so that the light
+fell upon Kelly's face. Kelly was sound asleep.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To be sure,' said Wogan in a soft voice of pity, on the chance that
+Kelly might be counterfeiting slumber, 'my little friend's jealous of
+my reflective powers,' and going back to his chair wrote 'Ugus' a
+third time with a third pen; and then, in order to think the more
+clearly, laid his hand upon the table and closed his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was Mrs. Barnes's hand upon his shoulder, some three hours
+afterwards, which roused him from his so deep reflections, and to a
+man in Wogan's course of life the shoulder is a most sensitive member.
+She took the paper, whereon the great name was thrice inscribed, very
+daintily between her forefinger and thumb, as though she touched
+pitch; folded it once, twice, thrice, and set it on the mantelshelf.
+There Mr. Kelly, coming into the room for breakfast, discovered it,
+hummed a little to himself like a man well pleased, and turned over
+the leaf to see what was written t'other side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That is all,' said Wogan, indifferently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And it is a very good night's work,' replied Kelly, with the politest
+gravity, 'not a letter--and there are precisely twelve of them in
+all--but is writ with scrupulous correctness. Such flourishes, too,
+are seldom seen. I cannot call to mind that ever I saw a <i>g</i> so
+pictorially displayed. Ugus--Ugus--Ugus--' and he held the paper out
+at arm's length.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I went no further with my work,' explained Wogan, 'because I
+reflected--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What, again?' asked the Parson in a voice of condolence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That the mere enunciation of the name Ugus gives an epitome of the
+Wogan family.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Indeed, it gives a history in full,' said the Parson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It comprises--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nay, it conveys--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'All that need be known of the Wogan family.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'All that need be known, indeed, and perhaps more,' added George with
+the air of a man turning a compliment Mr. Wogan was sensibly
+flattered, and took his friend's words as an apology for that
+disrespect which he had shown towards Thomas Wogan two days before,
+and the pair seated themselves to breakfast in the best of good
+humour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'We start at nine of the evening,' said George. 'I have commanded a
+sober suit of grey cloth for you, Nick, since you cannot squeeze into
+my coats, and it should be here by now. Meanwhile, I leave you to Mrs.
+Barnes's attentions.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of these attentions Mrs. Barnes was by no means sparing. For the buxom
+widow of the bookseller, who, to her credit be it said, had her full
+share of good looks, joined to an admirable warmth of heart a less
+adorable curiosity. With the best intentions in the world for her
+lodgers' security, she was always prying into their secrets. Nor did
+she always hold her tongue outside her own doors, as Mr. Kelly had
+bitter reason afterwards to know. In a word, she had all the
+inquisitiveness of her class, and sufficient wiles to make that
+inquisitiveness difficult to parry. Not that Nicholas Wogan was at all
+troubled upon this score, for if there was one quality upon which the
+good man prided himself, it was his comprehension of the sex. 'Woman,'
+he would say with a sententious pursing of the lips and a nod of the
+head; and again 'woman,' and so drop into silence; as who should say,
+'Here's a nut I could show you the kernel of were I so disposed.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This morning, however, Mrs. Barnes made no demand upon Wogan's
+cunning. For she took the paper with the thrice iterated Ugus which
+the Parson had replaced upon the mantelshelf, and, with the same
+gingerly precautions as she had used in touching it before, dropped it
+into the fire.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And why that?' asked Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Barnes flung out at him in reply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have no patience with you,' she cried. 'What's Ugus, Mr. Wogan?
+Answer me that,' and she struck her arms akimbo. 'What's Ugus but one
+of your cypher words, and you must needs stick it up on your
+mantelshelf for all the world to see?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It's no cypher word at all,' replied Wogan with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What is it then?' said she.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My dear woman, the merest mare's nest,' said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, you may &quot;dear woman&quot; me,' cried she, and sat herself down in a
+chair, 'and you may laugh at a woman's fears; but, good lack, it was a
+bad day when Mr. Kelly first found a lodging here. What with his
+plottings here and his plottings there, it will be a fortunate thing
+if he doesn't plot us all into our graves.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Whisht,' interrupted Wogan. 'There are no plots at all, any more than
+there's sense in your talk.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the woman's eloquence was not so easily stemmed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then if there are no plots, why is Mr. Kelly &quot;Mr. Johnson,&quot; why is
+Mr. Wogan &quot;Mr. Hilton&quot;; and why, oh why, am I in danger of my life and
+liberty, and in peril of my immortal soul?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure you are bubbled with your fears, answered Wogan. 'It is
+sufficiently well known that since Mr. George Kelly ceased to minister
+to souls he has adopted the more lucrative profession of a lace
+merchant. There's some secrecy no doubt in his comings and goings, but
+that is because he is most honourably engaged in defrauding the
+revenue.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A pretty lace merchant, upon my soul,' said she, and she began to
+rock her body to and fro. The sight alarmed Nicholas Wogan, since he
+knew the movement to be a premonition of tears. 'A lace merchant who
+writes letters in Latin, and rides in the Bishop of Rochester's coach,
+and goes a-visiting my Lord Oxford in the country. Thirteen shillings
+have I paid for letters in one day. Laces, forsooth! It is hempen
+ropes the poor gentleman travels in, and never was a man so eager to
+fit them to his own neck.' And, at the affecting prospect which her
+words called up, the good woman lifted her apron to her eyes and
+forthwith dissolved into tears. Sobs tore her ample bosom, her soft
+frame quivered like a jelly. Never did Mr. Wogan find his intimate
+knowledge of the sex of more inestimable value. He crossed the room;
+he took one plump hand into his left palm and gently cherished it with
+his right. The tears diminished to a whimpering. He cooed a compliment
+into Mrs. Barnes's ear, 'A little white dove of a hand in a brown
+nest, my dear woman,' said he, and affectionately tweaked her ear.
+Even the whimpering ceased, but ceased under protest! For Mrs. Barnes
+began to speak again. Wogan, however, kissed the tearful eyes and
+sealed them in content.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Hoity-toity, here's a set out,' he said, 'because my Lord Oxford
+wants a pair of Venice ruffles to hide his gouty fingers, or a new
+mantilla for his new spouse,' and so, softly chiding her, he pushed
+her out of the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At nine o'clock to the minute the chaise drove up to the door. Mr.
+Kelly took a stroll along the street to see the coast was clear; Mrs.
+Barnes was in two minds whether to weep at losing her lodgers, or to
+smile at their prospects of security, and compromised between her
+emotions by indulging them alternately; and finally the two friends in
+burgess dress entered the chaise and drove off. Mr. Wogan thrust his
+head half out of the window, the better to take his fill of the cool
+night air, but drew it back something of the suddenest at the corner
+where Ryder Street debouches into St. James's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure the man's a spy,' said he, flinging himself back. Parson Kelly
+leaned cautiously forward, and under an oil-lamp above the porch of a
+door he saw Captain Montague. The Captain was standing in an
+indecisive attitude, tapping with his stick upon the pavement and
+looking up and down the street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I doubt it,' returned Kelly. 'I have ever heard he was the most
+scrupulous gentleman.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But he's a Whig. A Whig and a gentleman! But it's a contradiction in
+terms. Whigging is a nasty insupportable trade, and infects a man like
+a poison. A Whig is a sort of third sex by itself that combines all
+the failings of the other two.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">However, this time it was evident that Captain Montague had taken no
+note of Nicholas Wogan. He could not but reflect how it was at this
+very spot that he had come upon the captain before, and mighty glad he
+was when the lights of Knightsbridge had sunk behind them, and they
+were driving betwixt the hedgerows. Then at one spring he jumped to
+the top of his spirits.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George, what a night!' cries he. 'Sure I was never designed to live
+in a house at all, but to be entirely happy under the blue roof-tree
+of the sky. Put me out on a good road at night and the whole universe
+converses with me on the most familiar terms. Perhaps it's a bush that
+throws out a tendril and says, &quot;Smell that, you devil, and good luck
+to you.&quot; Or, maybe it's the stars that wink at me and say, &quot;Here's a
+world for you, Nick, my little friend. Only wait a moment, and we'll
+show you a bit of a moon that'll make a poet of you.&quot; Then up comes
+the moon, perhaps, in a crescent like a wisp of fire, and, says she,
+&quot;It's all very well here, Nicholas, but take my word for it, I can
+show you as good on the sea and better. For you'll have all this, and
+the hiss of the water under your lee besides, and the little bubbles
+dancing on the top.&quot; But what troubles you, George?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Kelly made little or no reply, being sunk in the consideration of
+some difficulty. For two days he remained closeted with his trouble,
+and it was not until they had got to Worcester that he discovered it.
+They changed horses at the 'Dog and Turk' and drove through the town
+under the Abbey clock.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is five minutes to twelve,' said Wogan, looking at the clock.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes,' said Kelly with a sigh, 'the face is very plain to read.' Then
+he sighed again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Now, if the clock were a woman,' said he, 'it might be half-past four
+and we still thinking it five minutes to twelve.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, is it there you are?' said Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why, yes,' replied Kelly. 'Lord Oxford, do you see, Nick, is a
+half-hearted sort of trembler--that we know and are ready for him. But
+what of my lady?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan crossed his legs and laughed comfortably. Here was matter with
+which he could confidently deal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, what of her?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You heard what Fanny Oglethorpe said. She is a kinswoman of Mr.
+Walpole's. How shall we be sure of her at all? A woman, Nick, is a
+creature who walks in the byways of thought. How shall an obtuse man
+follow her?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan took a pinch of snuff.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is very well, George,' said he, 'that I took this journey with
+you. I'll make your conduct plain to you as the palm of my hand. In
+the first place, there was never a woman yet from Cleopatra downwards
+that cared the scrape of a fiddle for politics. 'Twas never more than
+a path that led to something else, and is held of just as small
+account as the road a girl dances down when she goes to meet her
+lover. Look at Fanny Oglethorpe, Olive Trant, and the rest of them in
+Paris! D'you think it's the Cause they ever give a thought to? If you
+do you're sadly out, my friend. No; what troubles their heads is
+simply that the Chevalier is a romantical figure of a man, and would
+look extraordinarily well with a gold crown on the top of his periwig.
+Now I'm wagering it will be just the same with my Lady Oxford. You
+have all the qualifications down to your legs, and let my lady once
+take a liking to your person she will gulp your politics without a
+grimace.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly turned a startled face towards his instructor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You would have me pay court to her?' says he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Just that,' says Wogan, imperturbably. 'Keep your politics for my
+lord and have a soft word ready for my lady. Pen her a delicate ode in
+Latin. To be sure the addresses of an erudite man have something
+particularly flattering to the sex. Or drop out a pretty compliment on
+her ear.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, on her ear?' said Kelly, beginning to smile. 'Of what sort?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Faith, George, but you exasperate me,' said Nick. 'Isn't there an
+infinity of images you could use? For instance--,' said he, and hummed
+a little.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, for instance!' said Kelly, urging him on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'For instance,' returned Wogan, 'you can speak of its functions--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I understand. I am to tell her that it is a very proper thing for a
+woman to sit and listen to other people.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Tell her that,' cries Wogan, lifting up his hands, 'and you will be
+drubbed down the staircase pretty quick! No. Tell her there is never a
+poet laureate in the world would print a single one of his poems if he
+could treasure his music within her ear.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah,' says Kelly. 'That is a compliment of quite a different kind,'
+and he repeated it three times to commit it to memory. 'But one, Nick,
+will not suffice. I must have more sayings about her ear.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And you shall,' says Wogan. 'You can speak of its appearance.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Of its appearance?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And fit a simile to it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Give me one,' said Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You can say her ear is like a rosy shell on the sea-banks.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly began to laugh outright.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure,' said he, 'I might as well tell her at once her hair is sandy.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, she will not examine your words so nicely. She will just perceive
+that you intend a compliment.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And take me for a very impertinent fellow.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George' said Wogan, 'for a parson you are a man of a most unnatural
+modesty.' In which remark Wogan did his friend no more than the merest
+justice. For he had nothing in common with that usual foible of the
+young chaplains and tutors who frequent the houses of the great.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To listen to them over a bottle you would think them conquerors of all
+hearts, from the still-room maid to my lady and her daughters. But Mr.
+Kelly was in a different case. The Bishop of Rochester himself gave
+him the character of being prudent and reserved beyond his years. And
+perhaps it was by reason of that very modesty that he slid insensibly
+into the thoughts of more women than he knew of. Of these, however,
+Lady Oxford was not one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was about three in the afternoon of the next day when the chaise
+drove up to the door of the great house at Brampton Bryan. The Parson
+and Nicholas Wogan had barely stepped into the hall before an inner
+door opened and my lady came forward to greet them. She was for her
+sex uncommonly tall, and altogether of a conquering beauty, which a
+simple country dress did but the more plainly set forth. For, seeing
+her, one thought what a royal woman she would look if royally attired,
+and so came to a due appreciation of her consummate appearance.
+Whereas, had she been royally attired, her dress might have taken some
+of the credit of her beauty. She stood for a second between the two
+men, looking from one to the other as though in doubt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And which is Mr. James Johnson? 'said she, with a sly emphasis upon
+the name.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am,' said George, stepping forward, 'and your Ladyship's humble
+servant.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gave him a smile and her hand. Mr. Kelly clicked his heels
+together, bent over the hand and kissed it reverentially.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lady sighed a quick little sigh (of pleasure) as she drew her hand
+away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have taken the liberty, your Ladyship,' said Kelly, 'to bring my
+secretary, Mr. Hilton, with me,' and he waved a hand towards Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Hilton,' she returned, 'is very welcome. For, indeed, we hear too
+few voices in the house.' She bowed very graciously, but she did not
+give her hand to Mr. Wogan. 'Gentlemen,' she continued, 'my lord bids
+me make you his apologies, but he lies abed. Else would he have
+welcomed you in person.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your Ladyship,' said Kelley, 'if we come at an inopportune time--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'By no means,' interrupted Lady Oxford. 'My lord is troubled with the
+gout, but the fit is passing. And if for a couple of days my poor
+hospitality will content you--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your Ladyship,' protested Kelly, but that was all he said. Now, to
+Mr. Wogan's thinking, here was as timely an occasion for a compliment
+as a man could wish. And since Mr. Kelly had not the tact to seize it,
+why, his friend must come to his help. Accordingly,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'So might the holy angels apologise when they open the gates of
+Paradise,' said Wogan with his hand on his heart, and bowed. As he
+bowed he heard some stifled sounds, and he looked up quickly. My lady
+was crimson in the face with the effort to check her laughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Hilton is too polite,' said she instantly, with an elaborate
+courtesy, and turned again to Kelly with some inquiries about his
+journey. Wogan was shown up the stairs before the inquiries were
+answered. The staircase ran round the three sides of the hall up to a
+landing on the fourth, and as Wogan came to the first turn he saw Lady
+Oxford cross to the great wood fire which was burning on the hearth;
+when he came to the second he saw that the Parson had crossed too and
+stood over against her; when he reached the third turn, my lady was
+seated toasting a foot at the blaze; when he reached the landing, Mr.
+Kelly had drawn up a chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan leaned for a moment over the balustrade. It was a very small
+foot with an admirably arched instep; Mr. Wogan had seen the like in
+Spain. Well, very likely she only thrust it out to warm it. The
+firelight coloured her face to a pretty rose hue, sparkled in her dark
+eyes, and searched out the gold threads in her brown hair. Mr. Wogan
+was much tempted to whisper a reminder to his friend concerning her
+ear. But he resisted the temptation, for after all it seemed there
+would be little to do about my lady's politics.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_04" href="#div1Ref_04">SHOWS THE EXTREME DANGER OF KNOWING LATIN</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">An hour later the three sat down to dinner, though, for all the
+talking that one of them did, there might have been present only the
+two whom Wogan had left chatting in the hall. It was not that Lady
+Oxford omitted any proper courtesy towards Mr. Johnson's secretary,
+but the secretary himself, sensible that he was something too apt to
+say in all companies just what came into his head, was careful to keep
+his tongue in a strict leash, lest an inconvenient word should slip
+from him. His deficiency, however, was not remarked. Lady Oxford was
+young, and for all that my lord lay upstairs in a paroxysm of the
+gout, she was in the highest feather; she rattled from course to
+course, plying Mr. Kelly with innumerable questions as to the latest
+tittle-tattle of the tea-parties, and whether Lady Mary Wortley and
+Mr. Pope were still the best of friends.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then your Ladyship is acquainted with Lady Mary?' says Kelly, looking
+up with some eagerness. For Lady Mary, then a toast among the wits and
+a wit among the toasts, was glanced at by some tongues as if, being
+sister to the Duchess of Mar, she was not of the most loyal to the
+Elector. The Duke of Mar was still Secretary to King James over the
+water.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Without doubt,' returned Lady Oxford. 'Lady Mary is my bosom friend.
+The dear malicious creature! What is her latest quip? Tell me, Mr.
+Johnson, I die to hear it. Or rather whisper it. It will be too
+deliciously cruel for loud speaking. Lady Mary's witticisms, I think,
+should always be spoken in a low voice, with a suggestive nod and a
+tap of the forefinger on the table, so that one may not mistake where
+the sting lies. Not that the sayings are in themselves at all
+clumsy--how could they be, when she has such clever friends? But they
+gain much from a mysterious telling of them. You agree with me?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was evident that Lady Oxford wasted no love on Lady Mary, and
+Kelly's face fell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship,' he replied, 'though I have no claims to be considered
+clever, I have the honour to be ranked amongst her friends.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Indeed!' said she with a light laugh at the rebuff. 'No doubt you
+have brought her some of your laces and brocades from France,
+Mr.--Johnson.' She paused slyly upon the name.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly glanced quickly at her, their eyes met, and the lady laughed.
+There could be no doubt that she knew something of Kelly's business.
+Indeed, she would hardly have asked him for the fashionable gossip at
+all had she taken him for just what he represented himself to be.
+Wogan put his foot on his friend's pretty heavily, and, he knows not
+how, encountered her ladyship's. To his horror, Lady Oxford made a
+moan of pain. Kelly starts up in a hurry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship is unwell,' says he, and bids the servant bring a
+bottle of salts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' she replied with a smile on her lips and her eyes full of tears,
+'but your secretary has dropped a blot on the wrong paper.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship,' cried Wogan in an extremity of confusion, 'it was the
+most miserable accident, believe me. A spasm in the leg, madam, the
+consequence of a sabre cut across the calf,' he explained, making the
+matter worse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, and in what battle was Mr. Johnson's secretary wounded?' she
+said, taking him up on the instant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'In a struggle with the Preventive men,' replied Wogan hurriedly, and
+he too broke off with a wry face, for Mr. Johnson was warning <i>him</i>
+and with no less vigour. Before he knew what he was doing Wogan had
+stooped down and begun to rub his leg. Lady Oxford's smile became a
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To be sure,' said she, 'and I think Mr. Johnson must have been
+wounded too, in just that same way, and in just that same encounter.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Faith, madam,' said Kelly, 'the smuggling trade is a hard one. No man
+engages in it but sooner or later he gets a knock that leaves its
+mark.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford expressed the profoundest sympathy with a great deal of
+disbelief; and when her ladyship left her guests to their wine, they
+looked at one another across the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well,' said Wogan cheerfully, 'if my Lady Oxford is in Mr. Walpole's
+interest we have not made the best beginning in the world,' and in a
+little he went off to smoke a pipe in the stables.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly withdrew to the great library, and had not been there many
+minutes before Lady Oxford came in. It seemed she did not see him at
+the first, although he sat bent up over the fire and his shadow huge
+upon the walls. Mr. Kelly certainly did not remark her entrance. For
+one thing, he was absorbed in his book; for another, the carpet was
+thick and the lady's step of the lightest. She went first to the
+bookcase, then she crossed the room and shuffled some papers on a
+table, then she knocked against a chair, the chair knocked against the
+table, and at the noise Kelly looked up. He rose to his feet. Lady
+Oxford turned round, started, and uttered a sharp little cry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My lady,' began Mr. Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, it is you, Mr. Johnson,' she broke in with a hand to her heart,
+and dropped into the chair. 'I believe,' she said with a broken laugh,
+'I was foolish enough to be frightened. I fancied you had gone with
+your friend to the stables,' which was as much as to say that she knew
+he had not. Kelly commenced an apology for so disordering her, but she
+would not listen to it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' she said, 'it is I that am to be blamed. Indeed, such stupid
+fears need chiding. But in a house so lonely and silent they grow on
+one insensibly. Indeed, I have known the mere creak of the stairs keep
+me awake in terror half the night.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She spoke with the air of one gently railing at her own distress, but
+shivered a little to prove the distress genuine, and Kelly, as he
+looked at her, felt a sudden pang of pity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your place, my lady, is not here,' he cried, 'but in the Mall, at the
+Spring Gardens, in the lighted theatres, when even your ladyship's own
+sex would pay you homage for outrivalling them.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nay,' she replied, with the sweetest smile of reproof, 'you go too
+fast, Mr. Johnson. My place is here, for here my duty lies.' She
+looked up to the ceiling with a meek acceptance of the burden laid
+upon her fair shoulders. 'But I am not come to disturb you,' she
+continued briskly; 'I came to fetch a book to read aloud to my lord.'
+At that a sigh half broke from her and was caught back as it were upon
+her lips. 'Perhaps, Mr. Johnson,' she said in a well-acted flurry,
+'you will help me in the selection?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'With all the heart in the world,' said he, laying down his volume.
+The choice took perhaps longer than need have been, for over each book
+there was some discussion. This one was too trivial to satisfy my Lord
+Oxford's weighty mind; that other was too profound to suit his health.
+'And nothing too contentious, I implore you, lest it throw him into a
+heat,' she prayed, 'for my lord has a great gift of logic, and will
+argue with you by the hour over the merest trifle.' This with another
+half-uttered sigh, and so the martyr sought her lord's bedside. It
+appeared, however, that Lord Oxford was sleepy that night, or had no
+mind for the music of his lady's voice, for in a very little while she
+returned to the library and Mr. Kelly, where Wogan presently found
+them discussing in a great animation the prospects of Mr. Law's
+ventures.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are in for a great stake?' she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'For all I have,' replied Kelly, 'and a little more. It is not a great
+sum.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But may become one,' said she, 'and will if a friend's good wishes
+can at all avail.' And so she wished her guests good night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next morning Lord Oxford sent a message that he was so far
+recovered as would enable him to receive his visitors that afternoon.
+Meanwhile Lady Oxford, after breakfast carried off the two gentlemen
+to visit a new orchard she was having planted. The orchard was open to
+the south-west, and Kelly took objection to its site, quoting Virgil
+in favour of a westerly outlook.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah, but the west wind,' she said, 'comes to us across the Welsh
+mountains, which even in the late spring are at times covered deep in
+snow. However, I should be pleased to hear the advice of Virgil,' and
+the Parson goes off to the library and fetches out a copy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a warm day in April, with the sky blue overhead and the buds
+putting out on the trees, and for the most part of that morning Mr.
+Kelly translated the Georgics to her ladyship, on a seat under a great
+yew-tree, in a little square of grass fenced off with a hedge. She
+listened with an extraordinary complaisance, and now and then a
+compliment upon the Parson's fluency; so that Mr. Wogan lost all his
+apprehensions as to her meddling in the King's affairs. For, to his
+thinking, than listening to Virgil, there was no greater proof of
+friendship.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nor was it only upon this occasion that she gave the proof. Lord
+Oxford was a difficult man from his very timidity, and the Parson's
+visit was consequently protracted. His lordship needed endless
+assurances as to the prospects of a rising on behalf of King James,
+before he would hazard a joint of his little finger to support it. Who
+would take the place of the Royal Swede? Could the French Regent be
+persuaded to lend any troops or arms or money, or even to wink? Had
+the Czar been approached? Indeed he had, by Wogan's brother Charles.
+And what office would my Lord Oxford hold when James III. was crowned?
+Each day saw these questions reiterated and no conclusion come to.
+Lady Oxford was never present at these discussions; the face of her
+conduct was a sedulous discretion. It is true that after a little she
+dropped the pretence of laces, and, when the servants were not
+present, styled the Parson 'Mr. Kelly.' But that was all. 'These are
+not women's matters,' she would say with a pretty humility, and then
+rise like a queen and sail out of the room. Mr. Wogan might have
+noticed upon such occasions that the Parson hesitated for a little
+after she had gone, and spoke at random, as though she had carried off
+some part of his mind from affairs with the waft of her hoop. But he
+waited on the lady's dispositions and set down what he saw of his
+friend's conduct at the time as merely the consequence of an endeavour
+to enlist her secrecy and good-will.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">These councils with Lord Oxford took place, as a rule, in the
+afternoon, his lordship being a late riser, and even when risen
+capable only of sitting in a chair, with a leg swathed in a mountain
+of flannel. So that, altogether, Mr. Kelly had a deal of time upon his
+hands, and doubtless would have found it hang as heavy as Nick Wogan
+did, but for the sudden interest he took in Lady Oxford's new orchard.
+He would spend hours over the 'Observations on Modern Gardening,' and
+then,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick,' he would cry,' there's no life but a country life. One wakes
+in the morning, and the eye travels with delight over the green
+expanse of fields. One makes friends with the inanimate things of
+nature. Nick, here one might re-create the Golden Age.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To my mind,' says Nick, 'but for the dogs and horses it would be
+purely insupportable. With all the goodwill in the world I cannot make
+friends with a gatepost, and I'm not denying I shall be mightily glad
+when the wambling old sufferer upstairs brings his mind at last to an
+anchor.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the Parson was already lost in speculation, and would presently
+wake to ask Wogan's opinion as to whether a Huff-cap pear was
+preferable to a Bar-land. To which he got no answer, and so, snatching
+up his Virgil, would go in search of Lady Oxford. He acquired, indeed,
+a most intimate knowledge of apples and pears, and would discourse
+with her ladyship upon the methods of planting and grafting as
+though he had been Adam, and she Flora, or, rather, our mother Eve,
+before the apple was shared between them. For apples the store, the
+hayloe-crab, the brandy-apple, the red-streak, the moyle, the
+foxwhelp, the dymock-red; for pears the squash pear, the Oldfield, the
+sack-pear, never a meal passed but one of these names cropped up at
+the table and was bandied about between Kelly and her ladyship like a
+tennis-ball. Now all this, though dull, was none the less reassuring
+to Wogan, who saw very clearly that Lady Oxford was altogether devoted
+to country pursuits, and wisely inferred that while there might result
+confusion in the quality of the pears, there would be the less
+disorder in the affairs of the Chevalier.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Moreover, her ladyship's inclination towards Mr. Kelly plainly
+increased. He translated the whole of the second book of the Georgics
+to her, five hundred and forty-two mortal lines of immortal poetry,
+and she never winced. Nor did she cry halt at the end of them, but,
+thereafter, listened to the Eclogues; and, all at once, their
+conversation was sprinkled with Melib&#339;us and M&#339;ris, and Lycidas
+and Mopsus, and Heaven knows what other names. Mr. Wogan remembers
+very well coming upon them one wet afternoon in the hall when it was
+growing dark. The lamps had not been lit, and Kelly had just finished
+reading one of the pastorals by the firelight. Lady Oxford sat with
+her hands clasped upon her knees, and, as he closed the book,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh for those days,' she cried, 'when a youth and a maid could roam
+barefoot over the grass in simple woollen garments! But now we must go
+furbelowed and bedecked till there's no more comfort than simplicity,'
+and she smoothed her hand over her petticoat with a great contempt for
+its finery. Lady Mary Wortley, to whom Wogan related this saying
+afterwards, explained that doubtless her ladyship had laced her stays
+too tight that morning; but the two men put no such construction on
+her words, nor, indeed, did they notice a certain contradiction
+between them and Lady Oxford's anxiety for London gossip--the Parson,
+because he had ceased to do anything but admire; Wogan, because a
+little design had suddenly occurred to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was Lady Oxford's patience under the verses which put it into
+Wogan's head. For since she endured to listen to poetry about trees
+and shepherds, poetry about herself must be a sheer delight to her.
+So, at all events, he reasoned, not knowing that Lady Oxford had
+already enjoyed occasion to listen to poetry about herself from Lady
+Mary's pen, which was anything but a delight. Accordingly he hinted to
+his friend that a little ode might set a firm seal upon her
+friendliness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Make her a Dryad in one of the trees of her own orchard, d'ye see?'
+he suggested; 'something pretty and artful, with sufficient allusions
+to her beauty. Who knows but what she may be so flattered as to carry
+the verses against her heart; and so, when some fine day she brings
+her husband's secrets to Mr. Walpole, she may hear the paper crackling
+against her bodice, and turn back on the very doorstep.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She will carry no secrets,' replied Kelly with a huff. 'She is too
+conscious of her duties. Besides, she knows none. Have you not seen
+her leave the room the moment politics are so much as hinted of?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'True,' said Wogan. 'But what's her husband for except to provide her
+with secrets when they are alone to which she cannot listen without
+impertinence in company?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly moved impatiently away. He stood with a foot upon the fender,
+turning over the pages of his Virgil.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You allow her no merit whatsoever,' he said slowly with a great
+gentleness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Indeed, but I do,' replied Wogan. 'I allow that she will be charmed
+by your poetry, and that's a rare merit. She will find it as soothing
+as a soldier does a pipe of tobacco after a hard day's fighting.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I would not practise on her for the world,' says Kelly with just the
+same gentleness, and goes softly out by the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan, however, was troubled by no such delicate scruples. An ode must
+be written, even if he had to write it himself. He slapped his
+forehead as the notion occurred to him. The ode might be dropped as
+though by accident at some spot where her ladyship's eyes could not
+fail to light on it. Wogan heaved a deep breath, took a turn across
+the room, and resolved on the heroical feat. He would turn poet to
+help his friend. For two nights he fortified himself with the perusal
+of Sir John Suckling's poems, and the next morning took pencil and
+paper into the garden. He walked along the terrace, and seated himself
+on the bench beneath the yew-tree. Wogan sucked strenuously at his
+pencil.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Strephon to his Smilinda, running barefoot over the grass in a gale
+of wind,' he wrote at the top, and was very well pleased with the
+title. By noonday he had produced a verse, and was very well pleased
+with that, except, perhaps, that the last line halted. The verse ran
+as follows:--</p>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">
+Nay, sweet Smilinda, do not chide<br>
+The wind that wantons with thy hair;<br>
+The grass will all his prickles hide<br>
+Nor harm thy snowy feet and bare.<br>
+And, listen, the enamoured air<br>
+Makes lutestrings of thy locks so fair.<br>
+At night the stars are mirrors which reflect<br>
+Thine eyes: at least that is what I expect.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan spent an hour and three pipes of tobacco over his unwonted
+exercise, which brought him into a great heat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Having finished the verse he blew out his cheeks and took a rest from
+his labours. It was a fine spring morning, and the sun bright as a
+midsummer day. To his right the creepers were beginning to stretch
+their green tendrils over the red bricks of the garden wall. To his
+left half-a-dozen steps led up to a raised avenue of trees. Wogan
+looked down the avenue, noted the border of spring flowers, and a
+flash of a big window at the extreme end; and in all the branches the
+birds sang. The world seemed all together very good, and his poem
+quite apiece with the world. Wogan stretched his arms and kicked out
+his feet. His feet struck against something hard in a tuft of grass.
+He stooped down and picked it up. It was Kelly's Virgil. The book was
+open, and the pages all blotted and smeared with the dew. It had
+evidently lain open on the grass by the bench all night. Wogan wiped
+the covers dry, and, using it as a desk, settled himself to the
+composition of his second verse. He had not, however, thought of an
+opening for it before a voice hailed him from behind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned round and saw Kelly coming towards him from the direction of
+the orchard, and at that moment the opening of his verse occurred to
+him; Strephon offered to Smilinda his heart's allegiance. Wogan set
+his pencil to the paper, fearful lest he should forget the line.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick,' cries Kelly, waving a bundle of letters, and starts to run.
+Wogan slipped his paper between the leaves of the book; just as he did
+so, Strephon, in return for his heart's 'allegiance,' asked for
+Smilinda's soft 'obedience.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick,' cries Kelly again, coming up to the bench, 'what d'you think?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I think, 'says Wogan, 'that interruption is the true source of
+inspiration.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What do you mean?' asked Kelly, looking at Wogan's pencil.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I mean,' says Wogan, looking at the cover of the book, 'that if I
+lived by my poetry, I would hire a man to rap at my door all day
+long.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly, however, had no ears for philosophy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick,' says he, 'will you listen to me, if you please? I have a
+letter from Miss Oglethorpe. It explains--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes,' interposed Wogan thoughtfully. 'It explains why the best poets
+are ever those who are most dunned by their creditors.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly snatched the Virgil out of Wogan's hand, and threw it on to the
+grass. The book opened as it fell. It opened at the soiled pages, and
+it was behind those pages that Wogan had slipped his poem.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are as contrarious as a woman. Here am I, swollen with the
+grandest news, and you must babble about poets and creditors. Nick,
+there'll be few creditors to dun you and me for a bit. Just listen,
+will you?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He leaned his elbows on the back of the bench, and read from his
+letter. It was to the effect that, during April, an edict had been
+published in France, transferring to Mr. Law's company of the West the
+exclusive rights of trading to the East Indies and the South Seas.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Think of it, Nick!' he cried. 'The actions have risen from 550 livres
+to 1,000, and we are as yet at the budding of May. Why, man, as it is
+we are well to do. Just imagine that, if you can, you threadbare
+devil! We shall be rich before August.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'We shall dine off silver plates in September!' cries Nick, leaping up
+in the contagion of his friend's good spirits..</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And drink out of diamond cups in November,' adds Kelly, dropping at
+once into the Irish accent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Bedad!' shouts Wogan, 'I'll write my poetry on beaten gold,' and he
+sprang on to the seat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You shall,' replies Kelly; 'and your ink shall be distilled out of
+black pearls.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure, George, one does not write on gold with ink, but with a graving
+tool.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'This nonsense, and poetry, are what the lucky heart sings,' said
+Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To a tune of clinking coins,' said Wogan. He stooped down to his
+friend. 'Have it all in solid gold, and tied up in sacks,' said he
+earnestly. 'None of their bills of exchange, but crowns, and pieces of
+eight, and doubloons, and guinea-pieces; and all tied up in sacks.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What will we do with it?' asked Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why, sit on the sacks,' replied Nick, and then grew silent. He looked
+at Kelly. Kelly looked away to the garden-wall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah!' said the Parson, with a great start of surprise. 'There's a
+lizard coming out of the bricks to warm himself,' and he made a step
+away from the bench. Wogan's hand came quickly down upon his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George,' said he, 'I think we are forgetting something. Not a
+farthing of it is mine at all.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Now, that's a damned scurvy ungenerous remark,' replied George.
+'Haven't I borrowed half of your last sixpence before now?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan got down from the seat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Poverty may take a favour from poverty, George, and 'tis all very
+well.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly sat himself down on the bench, crossed his knees, and swung a
+leg to and fro.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I don't want the money,' said he, with a snort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My philosophy calls it altogether an encumbrance,' said Wogan,
+sitting down by his side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly turned his back on Wogan, and stared at the garden-wall. Then he
+turned back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I know,' said he of a sudden, and smacks his hand down on Wogan's
+thigh. 'We'll give it to the King. He can do no more than spend it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He will certainly do no less.' But they did not give it to the King.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan was sitting turned rather towards the house, and as he looked
+down the avenue, he saw the great windows at the end open, and Lady
+Oxford come out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Here's her ladyship come for her Latin lesson,' said Wogan, and he
+rose from his seat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I'll tell her of our good fortune,' said Kelly, and he walked quickly
+to the steps at the end of the avenue. Lady Oxford stopped on the
+first step, with a hand resting on the stone balustrade. George Kelly
+stood on the grass at the foot of the steps, and told her of his news.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The shares,' he ended, 'have risen to double value already.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed to Wogan that her eyes flashed suddenly with a queer,
+unpleasant light, and the hand which was resting idly on the
+balustrade crooked like the claws of a bird. He had seen such eyes,
+and such a hand, at the pharo tables in Paris.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is the best news I have heard for many a day,' she said the next
+instant, with a gracious smile, and coming down the steps, walked by
+Mr. Kelly's side towards the bench.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And what will you do with it?' she asked. It was her first question,
+for she was a practical woman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'In the first flush,' replied Kelly, hesitating as to how he should
+put the answer, 'we had a thought of disposing of it where it is
+sorely needed.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked quickly at Kelly; as quickly looked away. She took a step
+to the seat with her eyes on the ground.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh,' she observed slowly; 'you would give it away.' There was,
+perhaps, a trifle of a pucker upon her forehead, perhaps a shade of
+disappointment in her eyes. But it was all gone in a moment. She
+clasped her hands fervently together, raised her face to the heavens,
+her cheeks afire, her eyes most tender. 'Indeed,' she exclaimed, 'the
+noblest, properest disposition of it! Heaven dispense me more such
+friends who, in a world so niggardly, retain so ancient a spirit of
+generosity,' and she stood for a little, with her lips moving, as if
+in prayer. It was plain to Mr. Wogan that her ladyship had guessed the
+destination of the money. No such thought, however, troubled George
+Kelly, who was wholly engaged in savouring the flattery, and, from his
+appearance, found it very much to his taste.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I would not, however, if a woman might presume to advise,' she
+continued, 'be in any great hurry to sell the shares. Though they have
+risen high, they will doubtless rise higher. And your gift, if you
+will but wait, in a little will grow worthier of the spirit which
+prompts it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam,' returned Kelly, 'it is very prudent advice. I will be careful
+to follow it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Was it relief which showed for an instant in Lady Oxford's face? Kelly
+did not notice; Wogan could not tell; and a second afterwards an event
+occurred which wholly diverted his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All three had been standing with their faces towards the garden-seat,
+the yew-tree and the orchard beyond, Lady Oxford between, and a little
+in advance of Kelly and Wogan, so that each saw her face obliquely
+over her shoulders. Now, however, she turned and sat down, giving thus
+her whole face to the two men; and both saw it suddenly blanch,
+suddenly flush as though all the blood had leaped from her heart into
+her cheeks, and then fade again to pallor. Terror widened and fixed
+her eyes, her lips parted, she quivered as though she had been struck
+a buffet across the face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship--' began Kelly, and, noticing the direction of her
+gaze, he broke off his sentence, and turned him about. As he moved,
+Lady Oxford, even in the midst of her terror, stole a quick, conscious
+glance at his face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure, 'tis a predecessor to George,' thought Wogan; and he too turned
+about.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Some twenty paces away a man was waiting in an easy attitude. He was
+of the middle height, and, judged by his travelling dress and bearing,
+a gentleman. His face was thin, hard, and sallow of complexion, the
+features rather peaked, the eyes dark, and deepset beneath the brows.
+Without any pretension to good looks, the stranger had a certain
+sinister distinction--stranger, for that he was to the two men at this
+time, whatever he may have been to Lady Oxford. Yet George thought he
+had seen the man's eyes before, at Avignon, when the King was there;
+and Wogan later remembered his voice, perhaps at Genoa, which he had
+used much at one time. He stood just within the opening in the hedge,
+and must needs have come through the trees beyond, while Lady Oxford
+and her guests were discussing the Parson's good fortune.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As soon as he saw the faces turned towards him, he took off his hat,
+made a step forwards, and flourished a bow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship's most humble and obedient servant.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laid a stress upon the word 'obedient,' and uttered it with a
+meaning smile. Lady Oxford returned his bow, but instinctively shifted
+her position on the bench towards Kelly, and timidly put out a hand as
+though she would draw him nearer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The stranger took another step forwards. There was no change in his
+expression, but the step was perhaps more swiftly taken.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. George Kelly,' he said quietly, and bowed again. 'The Reverend
+Mr. George Kelly, I think,' and he bowed a third time, but lower, and
+with extreme gravity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan started as the stranger pronounced the name. Instantly the
+stranger turned to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah,' said he, 'Captain Nicholas Wogan, I think,' and he took a third
+step. His foot struck in a tuft of grass, and he stumbled forward; he
+fell plump upon his knees. For a gentleman of so much dignity the
+attitude was sufficiently ridiculous. Wogan grinned in no small
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure, my unknown friend,' said he, 'I think something has tripped you
+up.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes,' said the stranger, and, as he stood up, he picked up a book
+from the grass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is,' said he, 'a copy of Virgil.'</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_05" href="#div1Ref_05">A LITERARY DISCUSSION IN WHICH A CRITIC, NOT
+FOR THE FIRST TIME, TURNS THE TABLES
+UPON AN AUTHOR</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly frowned at Wogan, enjoining silence by a shake of the head. Her
+ladyship was still too discomposed to speak; she drew her breath in
+quick gasps; her colour still came fitfully and went. The only person
+entirely at ease in that company was the disconcerting stranger, and
+even behind his smiling mask of a face one was somehow aware of
+sleeping fires; and underneath the suave tones of his voice one
+somehow felt that there ran an implacable passion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Upon my word,' said he, 'I find myself for a wonder in the most
+desirable company. A revered clergyman, a fighting captain, a lady
+worthy of her quality, and a poet.' He tapped the Virgil as he spoke,
+and it fell open between his hands. His speech had been uttered with a
+provocative politeness, and since no one responded to the provocation,
+he continued in the same strain. 'The story of Dido'--the book was
+open at the soiled pages--'and all spluttered with tears.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It has lain open in the dew since yesterday,' interrupted Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Tears no less because the night has shed them,' he replied; 'and
+indeed it is a sad story, though not all true as the poet relates it.
+For Dido had a gout-ridden husband hidden discreetly away in a dark
+corner of the Palace, and Æneas was no more than an army chaplain,
+though he gave himself out for a general.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly flushed at the words, and took half a step towards the speaker
+of them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is very true, Mr. Kelly. A chaplain, my soul upon it, a chaplain.
+Didn't he invoke his religion when he was tired of the lady, and so
+sail away with a clear conscience? A very parsonical fellow, Mr.
+Kelly. <i>O infelix Dido!</i> he burst out, 'that met with an army
+chaplain, and so became food for worms before her time!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shut up the book with a bang, and, as ill-luck would have it, Mr.
+Wogan's poem peeped out from the covers as if in answer to his knock.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oho,' says he, 'another poet,' and he read out the dedication.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Strephon to his Smilinda running barefoot in a gale of wind.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly laughed aloud, and a faint smile flickered for the space of a
+second about Lady Oxford's lips. Wogan felt his cheeks grow red, but
+constrained himself to a like silence with his companions. His
+opportunity would come later; meanwhile some knowledge was needed of
+who the stranger was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A pretty conceit,' resumed the latter, 'though consumption in its
+effects. Will the author pardon me?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took the sheet of paper in his hand, dropped the Virgil carelessly
+on the grass, and read out the verses with an absolute gravity which
+mocked at them more completely than any ridicule would have done. 'It
+breaks off,' he added, 'most appropriately just when the gentleman
+claims the lady's obedience. There is generally a break at that point.
+&quot;At least, that is what I expect,&quot;' he quoted. Then he looked at each
+of his two adversaries. For adversaries his language and their faces
+alike proved them to be. 'Now which is Strephon?' he asked, with an
+insinuating smile, as he calmly put the verses in his pocket. 'Is it
+the revered clergyman or the fighting captain?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly's face flushed darkly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The revered clergyman,' he broke in, and his voice shook a little,
+'would be happy to be reminded of the occasion which brought him the
+honour of your acquaintance.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A sermon,' replied the stranger. 'I was much moved by a sermon which
+you preached in Dublin upon the text of &quot;Render unto Cæsar the things
+that are Cæsar's.&quot;'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly could not deny that he had preached that sermon; and for all
+he knew the stranger might well have been among his audience. He
+contented himself accordingly with a bow. So Wogan stepped in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And the fighting captain,' he said, with a courtesy of manner no whit
+inferior to his questioner's, 'would be glad to know when he ever
+clapped eyes upon your honour's face, if you please.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Never,' answered the other with a bow. 'Captain Nicholas Wogan never
+in his life saw the faces of those who fought behind him. He had eyes
+only for the enemy.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, Mr. Wogan had fought upon more than one field of which he thought
+it imprudent to speak. So he copied the Parson's example and bowed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Does her ladyship also wish to be reminded of the particulars of our
+acquaintance?' said the stranger, turning now to Lady Oxford. There
+was just a tremor, a hint of passion discernible in his voice as he
+put the question. Both Wogan and Kelly had been waiting for it, had
+restrained themselves to silence in the expectation of it. For only
+let the outburst come, and the man's design would of a surety tumble
+out on the top. Lady Oxford, however, suddenly interposed and
+prevented it. It may be that she, too, had caught the threatening
+tremble of his words, and dreaded the outburst as heartily as the
+others desired it. At all events, she rose from the bench as though
+some necessity had spurred her to self-possession.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No, Mr. Scrope,' she said calmly, 'I do not wish to be reminded of
+our acquaintance either in particular or in general. It was a slight
+thing at its warmest, and I thank God none of my seeking. Mr. Kelly,
+will you give me your arm to the house?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The stranger for a second was plainly staggered by her words. Kelly
+cast a glance at Wogan which the 'fighting captain' very well
+understood, offered his arm to Lady Oxford, and before the stranger
+recovered himself, the pair were up the steps and proceeding down the
+avenue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A slight thing!' muttered Mr. Scrope in a sort of stupor. 'God,
+what's a strong thing, then?' and at that the passion broke out of
+him. 'It's the Parson now, is it?' he cried. 'Indeed, Mr. Wogan, a
+parson is very much like a cat. Whether he throws his cassock over the
+wall, or no, it is still the same sly, soft-footed, velvety creature,
+with a keen eye for a soft lap to make his bed in,' and with an oath
+he started at a run after Kelly. Wogan, however, ran too, and he ran
+the faster. He got first to the steps, sprang to the top of them, and
+turned about, just as Mr. Scrope reached the bottom.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Wait a bit, my friend!' said Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Let me go, if you please,' said Mr. Scrope, mounting the lowest step.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You and I must have a little talk first.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It will be talk of a kind uncommon disagreeable to you,' said Mr.
+Scrope hotly, and he mounted the second step.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan laughed gleefully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why, that's just the way I would have you speak,' said he. Mr. Scrope
+stopped, looked over Wogan from head to foot, and then glanced past
+him up the avenue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have no quarrel with you, Mr. Wogan,' he said politely, and took
+the third step.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And have you not?' asked Wogan. 'I'm thinking, on the contrary, that
+you took exception to my poetry.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Was the poetry yours? Indeed, I did not guess that,' he replied. 'But
+the greatest of men may yet be poor poets.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'In this case you're mightily mistaken,' cried Wogan, and he stamped
+his foot and threw out his chest. 'I am my poetry.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Scrope squinted up the avenue under Wogan's arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Damn!' said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan turned round; Parson Kelly and her ladyship were just passing
+through the window into the house. Wogan laughed, but a trifle too
+soon. For as he still stood turned away and looking down the avenue,
+Mr. Scrope took the last three steps at a bound, and sprang past him.
+Luckily as he sprang he hit against Wogan's shoulder, and so swung him
+round the quicker. Wogan just caught the man's elbow, jerked him back,
+got both his arms coiled about his body, lifted him off his feet, and
+flattened him up against his chest. Mr. Scrope struggled against the
+pressure; he was lithe and slippery like a fish, and his muscles gave
+and tightened like a steel spring. Wogan gripped him the closer,
+pinioning his arms to his side. In a little Scrope began to pant, and
+a little after to perspire; then the veins ridged upon his face, and
+his eyes opened and shut convulsively.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Have you had enough, do you think?' asked Wogan; 'or shall I fall on
+you? But you may take my word for it, whatever you think of my
+love-poems, that I never yet fell on any man but something broke
+inside of him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Scrope was not in that condition which would enable him to
+articulate, but he seemed to gasp an assent, and Wogan put him down.
+He staggered backwards towards the house for a yard or two, leaned
+against one of the trees, and then, taking out his handkerchief, wiped
+his forehead; at the same time he walked towards the house, but with
+the manner of a man who is dizzy, and knows nothing of his direction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Stop!' cried Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scrope stooped, and turned back carelessly, as though he had not heard
+the command. Indeed, he seemed even to have forgotten why he was out
+of breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Wogan,' he said, 'I do not quite understand. It seems you write
+love-poems to her ladyship, and yet encourage the Parson to court
+her.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan was not to be drawn into any explanation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Let us leave her ladyship entirely out of the question. There's the
+value of my poetry to be argued out.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Scrope bowed, and they walked down the steps side by side, and
+through the opening in the hedge. A path led through the trees, and
+they followed it until they came to an open space of sward. Wogan
+measured it across with his stride.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A very fitting place for the argument, I think,' he said, and took
+off his coat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What? In Smilinda's garden?' asked Scrope easily. 'Within view of
+Smilinda's windows? Surely the common road would be the more
+convenient place.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why, and that's true,' answered Wogan. 'It would have been an
+outrage.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' said Scrope, 'merely a flaw in the argument. This is the nearest
+way. At least, I think so,' and he turned off at an angle, passed
+through a shrubbery, and came out opposite a little postern-gate in
+the garden-wall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You know the grounds well,' said Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is my first visit,' replied Scrope, with a trace of bitterness,
+'but I have been told enough of them to know my way.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stepped forward and opened the gate. Outside in the road stood a
+travelling chaise with a pair of horses harnessed to it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There is no one within view,' said Wogan. The road ran to right and
+left empty as far as the eye could reach; in front stretched the empty
+fields.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No one,' said Mr. Scrope, and he looked up to the sky.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, I would as lief take my last look at the sunlight as at
+anything else, and I doubt not it is the same with you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan, in spite of himself, began to entertain a certain liking for
+the man. He had accepted each stroke of ill-fortune--his discomfiture
+at Lady Oxford's hands, the grapple on the steps, and now this
+duel--without disputation. Moreover Wogan was wondering whether or no
+the man had some real grievance against her ladyship and what motive
+brought him, in what expectation, in his chaise to Brampton Bryan. He
+felt indeed a certain compunction for his behaviour, and he said
+doubtfully,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Scrope, you and I might have been very good friends in other
+circumstances.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I doubt it very much, Mr. Wogan.' Scrope shook his head and smiled.
+'Your poetry would always have come between us. I would really sooner
+die than praise it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked up and down the road as he spoke, and then made an almost
+imperceptible nod at his coachman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That field opposite will do, I think,' Scrope said, and advanced from
+the doorway to the side of his chaise as though he was looking for
+something. It was certainly not his sword; Wogan now thinks it was his
+pistols. Wogan felt his liking increase and was inclined to put the
+encounter off for a little. It was for this reason that he stepped
+forward and passed an arm through Scrope's just as the latter had set
+a foot on the step of the chaise, no doubt to search the better for
+what he needed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Now what's amiss with the poem?' asked Wogan in a friendly way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is altogether too inconsequent,' replied Scrope with a sudden
+irritation for which Wogan was at a loss to account.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But my dear man,' said he, 'it was not intended for a syllogism.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scrope took his foot off the step and turned to Wogan as though a new
+thought had sprung into his brain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Wogan,' he said, 'I shall have all the pleasure imaginable in
+pointing out the faults to you if you care to listen and have the
+leisure. Then if you kill me afterwards, why I shall have done you
+some slight service and perhaps the world a greater. If I kill you, on
+the other hand, why there's so much time wasted, it is true, but I am
+in no hurry.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no escape from the duel; that Wogan knew. Mr. Scrope had
+insulted the Parson, Lady Oxford, and himself; he was aware besides
+that the Parson and Wogan, both of them at the best suspected
+characters, were visiting the Earl of Oxford; and he had, whether it
+was justified or no, a hot resentment against the Parson. He might,
+since he knew so much, know also more, as, for instance, the names
+under which the Parson and Wogan were hiding themselves. It would not
+in any case need a very shrewd guess to hit upon their business, and
+if Mr. Scrope got back safe to London, why he might make himself
+confoundedly unpleasant. Wogan ran through these arguments in his
+mind, and was brought to the conclusion that he must most infallibly
+kill Mr. Scrope; but at the same time a little of his company
+meanwhile could do no harm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nor I,' replied Wogan accordingly. 'I shall be delighted to confute
+your opinions.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Scrope bowed; it seemed as though his face lighted up for a
+moment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There is no reason why we should stand in the road,' he said, 'when
+we can sit in the chaise.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Very true,' answered Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scrope mounted into the chaise. Wogan followed upon his heels. They
+sat down side by side, and Scrope pulled out the verses from his
+pocket. He read the dedication once more:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Strephon to Smilinda running barefoot over the grass in a gale of
+wind.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Let me point out,' said he, 'that you have made the lady run barefoot
+at the very time when she would be most certain to put on her shoes
+and stockings. And that error vitiates the whole poem. For the wind is
+severe, you will notice. So when she reprimands the storm, she should
+really reprimand herself for her inconceivable folly.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But Smilinda has no shoes and stockings at all in the poem,' replied
+Wogan triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That hardly betters the matter,' returned Scrope. 'For in that case
+her feet might be bare but they would certainly not be snowy.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stooped down as he spoke and drew from under the seat a bottle of
+wine, which he opened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'This,' he said, 'may help us to consider the poem in a more
+charitable light.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gave Wogan the bottle to hold, and stooping once more fetched out a
+couple of glasses. Then he held one in each hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Now will you fill them?' he said. Wogan poured out the wine and while
+pouring it:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Two glasses?' he remarked. 'It seems you came prepared for the
+conversation.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scrope raised his eyes quickly to Wogan's face, and dropped them again
+to the glasses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'One might easily have been broken,' he explained.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They leaned back in the chaise, each with a glass in his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is to your taste, I hope,' said Scrope courteously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan smacked his lips in contentment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Lord Oxford has no better in his cellars.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I may agree without boastfulness. It is indeed Florence of a rare
+vintage, which I was at some pains to procure.' He laughed with a
+spice of savagery and resumed the consideration of Wogan's verses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You seem to me to have missed the opportunity afforded by your gale
+of wind. A true poet would surely have made great play with the lady's
+petticoats.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Smilinda had none,' again replied Wogan in triumph, and he emptied
+his glass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No shoes and stockings and no petticoats,' said he in a shocked
+voice. 'It is well you wrote a poem about her instead of painting her
+portrait,' and he filled Wogan's glass again, and added a little to
+his own, which was no more than half empty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Don't you comprehend, my friend,' exclaimed Wogan, 'that Smilinda's a
+nymph, an ancient Roman nymph?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, she's a nymph!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes, and so wears no clothes but a sort of linsey-wolsey garment
+kirtled up to her knees.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, let that pass. But here's a line I view with profound
+discontent. &quot;The grass will all its prickles hide.&quot; Thistles have
+prickles, Mr. Wogan, but the grass has blades like you and me; only,
+unlike you and me, it has no scabbards to sheathe them in.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well,' said Wogan, 'but that's very wittily said,' and he laughed and
+chuckled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is not bad, upon my faith,' replied Scrope. 'Let us drink to it in
+full glasses.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He emptied the bottle into Wogan's glass and tossed it into the road.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Now here's something more. The wind, you observe, makes lutestrings
+of Smilinda's hair.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There is little fault to be discovered in that image, I fancy,' said
+Wogan, lifting his glass to his lips with a smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is a whimsical image,' replied Scrope. 'It is as much as to call
+her hair catgut.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan was startled by the criticism. He sat up and scratched his nose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, I had not thought of that,' he said. He was somewhat
+crestfallen, and he looked to his glass for consolation. The glass was
+empty; he looked on to the road where the empty bottle rolled in the
+dust.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have its fellow,' said Scrope, interpreting Wogan's glance. He
+produced a second bottle from the same place. The second bottle
+brought them to the end of the verse. There was, however, a little
+discussion over the last line, and a third bottle was broached to
+assist.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'&quot;At least that is what I expect.&quot; It is a very vile line, Mr. Wogan.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is, perhaps, not so good as the others,' Wogan admitted. 'But you
+must blame the necessities of rhyming.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But the art of the poet is to conceal such necessities,' answered
+Scrope. 'And observe, Mr. Wogan, you sacrifice a great deal here to
+get an accurate rhyme, but in the remaining two lines of the next
+verse you do not trouble your head about a rhyme at all.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, let me see that!' said Wogan, holding out a hand for the paper.
+He had clean forgotten by this time what those two lines described.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Allegiance, Mr. Wogan,' said Scrope, politely handing him the verses,
+'is no rhyme to obedience.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Allegiance--obedience--obedience--allegiance,' repeated Wogan as
+clearly as he could. 'Nay, I think it's a very good rhyme.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh!' exclaimed Scrope in a sudden comprehension. 'If you tell me the
+verses are conceived in the Irish dialect, I have not another word to
+say.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now Mr. Wogan, as a rule, was a little touchy on the subject of his
+accent. But at this moment he had the better part of three bottles of
+admirable Florence wine under his belt and was so disposed to see
+great humour in any remark. He grew uproarious over Mr. Scrope's
+witticism.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure, but that's the most delicate jest I have heard for months,' he
+cried. 'Conceived in the Irish dialect! Ho! Ho! I must tell it at the
+Cocoa Tree--though it hits at me,' and he stood up in the chaise.
+'Obedience--allegiance.' Mr. Scrope steadied him by the elbow. 'Faith,
+Mr. Scrope, but you and I must have another crack one of these days.'
+He put a foot out on the step of the chaise. 'I love a man that has
+some warmth in his merriment--and some warmth in his bottle too.' He
+stepped out of the chaise on to the ground. 'The best Florence I have
+tasted--the best joke I have heard--the Irish dialect. Ha, ha!' and he
+waved a hand at Scrope. Scrope called quickly to the coachman; the
+next instant the chaise started off at a gallop.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan was left standing in the road, shouting his laughter. When the
+coach chaise was some thirty yards away, however, his laughter stopped
+completely. He rubbed his hand once or twice over his bemused
+forehead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Stop!' he yelled suddenly, and began to run after the chaise. Scrope
+stood up and spoke to the driver. The horses slackened their pace
+until Wogan got within twenty yards of it. Then Scrope spoke again,
+and the coachman drove the horses just as fast as Wogan was running.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have forgotten something, my friend,' cries Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And what's that?' asked Scrope pleasantly, leaning over the back of
+the chaise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have forgotten the duel.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' shouted Scrope with a grimace. 'It is you that forgot that.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah, you cheese-curd!--you white-livered coward!' cried Wogan, 'and I
+taking you for a fine man--equal to myself--you chalky cheese-curd!'
+He quickened his pace; Scrope called to the coachman; the coachman
+whipped up his horses. 'Oh wait a bit till I come up with you. I'll
+eat you in your clothes.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan bounded along the road, screaming out every vile epithet he
+could lay his tongue to in the heat of the moment. His hat and wig
+fell off on the road; he did not stop, but ran on bareheaded.</p>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0" style="text-indent:-8pt">
+'But listen, the enamoured air<br>
+Makes lutestrings of thy locks so fair,'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">quoted Scrope, rubbing his hands with delight. Wogan's fury redoubled,
+he stripped off his coat and ran till the road grew dizzy and the air
+flashed sparks at him. But the chaise kept ever at the same distance.
+With this interval of twenty yards between them, chaise and Wogan
+dashed through the tiny street of Brampton Bryan. A horde of little
+boys tumbled out of the doors and ran at Wogan's heels. The more he
+cursed and raved, the more the little boys shouted and yelled. Scrope
+in the chaise shook with laughter, clapped his hands as if in
+commendation of Wogan's powers, and encouraged him to greater efforts.
+They passed out of the village; the children gave up the pursuit, and
+sent a few parting stones after Wogan's back; in front stretched the
+open road. Wogan ran half a mile further, but he was too heavily
+handicapped with his three bottles of wine, and Scrope's horses were
+fresh. He shouted out one last oath, and then in a final spasm of fury
+sat down by the roadside, stripped off his shoe, and springing into
+the middle of the road, hurled it with all his might at the retreating
+chaise. The shoe struck the top of the hood, balanced there for a
+moment, and bounced over on to the seat. Scrope took it up and waved
+it above his head.</p>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0" style="text-indent:-8pt">
+'The grass will all its prickles hide,<br>
+Nor harm thy snowy feet and bare.'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">The driver plied his whip; the chaise whirled out of sight in a cloud
+of dust; and the disconsolate Wogan hobbled back to Brampton Bryan
+with what secrecy he could.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Scrope was on his way with the road to London open, were he
+disposed to follow it. Mr. Wogan seemed to see his chaise flashing
+through the turnpikes, and his sallow cheeks taking on an eager colour
+as the miles were heaped behind him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He knew that Mr. Kelly and Nicholas Wogan were at Lord Oxford's house
+at Brampton Bryan. He knew enough, therefore, to throw some disorder
+on the Chevalier's affairs were he disposed to publish his news. But
+not in that way did he take, at this time, his revenge upon the
+Parson.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_06" href="#div1Ref_06">MR. NICHOLAS WOGAN REMINDS THE PARSON OF A
+NIGHT AT THE MAZARIN PALACE</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">While Wogan pursued in vain a flying foe, Lady Oxford and Parson Kelly
+waited in the house for his return, her ladyship in a great
+discomposure and impatience, and the Parson more silent than ordinary.
+Whatever he may have thought of Scrope's unexpected visit, his pride
+forbade him questions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The most unfortunate affair,' exclaimed her ladyship distractedly.
+'Sure never was a woman so cursed. But indeed I was born under a
+frowning star, Mr. Kelly, and so my lord's friends cannot visit him,
+but some untoward accident puts them into peril.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You need be troubled by no fears on our account,' replied Kelly, 'for
+Nick will ensure the fellow's silence before ever he lets him out of
+his sight.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'True,' said she, with a fresh pang of anxiety, 'Mr. Wogan is with him
+and will doubtless seek an explanation.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly smiled, but without any overwhelming amusement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Neither,' said he, 'need your ladyship fear that he will listen to
+any indiscreet explanation. Words have very little to do with the
+explanations which Nicholas favours.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford remarked the distant stateliness in Kelly's tone and was
+in a hurry to retrieve the slip she had made.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is just that I mean,' she cried, coming over to Kelly. 'If Mr.
+Wogan--kills this man,' and her eyes flashed as though she did in her
+heart desire that consummation, 'here at the Park Gates--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Believe me,' replied Kelly reassuringly, 'he will omit no proper
+ceremony if he does.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No, nor will the county justices either,' retorted Lady Oxford, 'and
+there are Mr. George Kelly and Mr. Nicholas Wogan to explain their
+presence at Brampton Bryan Manor, as best they can, to a bench of
+bumpkins.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Again your ladyship is unnecessarily alarmed. For if Mr. Scrope is
+now no more, Mr. George Kelly and Mr. Nicholas Wogan are still Mr.
+James Johnson and his secretary Mr. Hilton. No harm threatens Brampton
+Bryan Manor from their visit.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This he said no less coldly, and to cut the conversation short,
+stalked with excessive dignity to the door. Lady Oxford was gazing
+ruefully down the avenue from the window, when she heard the knob of
+the door move under his hand. She turned quickly about.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It was not of Brampton Bryan Manor I was thinking,' she said
+hurriedly, 'nor of our safety. Why, in what poor esteem do you hold
+me! Am I then so contemptible a thing?' There was no anger in her
+reproach. Rather it melted in a most touching sadness. 'Have I no
+friends whose safety troubles me?' she added. At that out came her
+handkerchief and fluttered at her eyes. 'Nay, but I thought I had--two
+of the noblest.' It was a mere scrap of a handkerchief, and the
+greater part of that a lace edging. It would not have sopped up many
+tears, but it served her ladyship's turn. For indeed the mere sight of
+it convinced Kelly of his monstrous cruelty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship!' he cried, turning back. 'Tears! And I have caused
+them. Faith, I should be hanged for that. Yet they flow for my friend
+and me, and I am blessed instead.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she would have none of his apologies. She stepped back as he
+approached.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' said she, and wiped an imaginary tear-drop from the dryest of
+eyes; 'you have asked me for an explanation of Mr. Scrope's coming and
+you have a right to ask it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam,' expostulated Kelly, 'I was careful, on the contrary, to ask
+for no explanation whatever. For I have no right to it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, but you have,' returned her ladyship with asperity; and then up
+went her handkerchief again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'All men,' she said, in a voice most pathetical, 'have a right to ask
+any explanation of any woman, at anytime. Women, poor sad creatures,
+are suspect from their cradles, and to distrust them is the
+prerogative of manhood.' Here she tore away her handkerchief and
+lifted her hands in an ardent prayer. 'Oh that some day I might meet
+with one single man who would believe us worthy of respect!' She
+walked away to the window and said in a low voice, 'With what
+friendship would I requite him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus the unfortunate Mr. Kelly was not merely plunged in remorse, but
+brought to see that he had missed the one solitary path which would
+have led him into this great lady's friendship.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship,' he implored, 'mistakes my sentiments altogether.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Kelly,' she replied, proudly, 'we will not, if you please, pursue
+the matter. You have your explanation and I trust you will allow it to
+content you,' and so she sailed majestically out of the room, leaving
+Mr. Kelly in that perturbation that he quite failed to notice he had
+received no explanation whatever. She dropped her stateliness,
+however, when the door was closed behind her, and, hurrying across the
+hall, lay in wait behind a shrubbery for Wogan's return. Wogan, on the
+other hand, had admirable reasons for avoiding all paths, and so
+slipped into the back of the house unseen. Consequently it was not
+until half-an-hour later, when Lady Oxford was fairly distracted, that
+she discovered him, decently clothed, and urging upon Kelly the
+necessity of an immediate retreat. He broke off from his advice as
+Lady Oxford entered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have done him no hurt? 'she asked, looking Wogan over from head
+to foot in search of a speck of blood, and ready to swoon if she saw
+one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Not the least in the world,' replied Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nor he you?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There was never any likelihood of that.' Wogan had to put the best
+face on the matter possible, and since he could not own to the
+humiliating truth, why, the necessary lie might just as well redound
+to his credit. 'I swore him to secrecy upon his bended knees. He took
+the oath on the hilt of this very sword, 'and Wogan hitched forward
+his hanger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A footman at this moment announced that dinner was served.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Will you give me your hand, Mr. Wogan?' asked Lady Oxford, and
+detaining him until Kelly had passed out of the room:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He gave you doubtless a reason for his coming?' she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Surely he did,' said Wogen, who was not for admitting any omission on
+his own part.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And what reason?' asked her ladyship.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan looked at the ground and got a flash of inspiration.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why,' said he as bold as brass, 'precisely the same reason which you
+gave to my friend George Kelly,' in which answer Wogan hit the literal
+truth, although her ladyship looked puzzled, as well she might, and
+then flushed a fine crimson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">However, she made up an ingenious story, and that same day hinted
+rather than told it with a pretty suggestion of sympathy which quite
+melted Mr. Kelly's heart, and threw Wogan into some doubt whether to
+believe her or no. Scrope, it appeared, had been at some indefinite
+time a secretary to Mr. Walpole, and was entrusted with the keeping of
+the good man's accounts. Lady Oxford was then simply Mistress Margaret
+Middleton and intimate with her cousin, Mr. Walpole, although since
+her marriage, as Mr. Kelly and his friend were requested to note, that
+intimacy had entirely ceased. Hence it came about that the rash Scrope
+cast longing eyes upon the humble relation of his patron, and was
+indeed so carried away by passion that Margaret was forced now and
+again to chide him for the forwardness of his demeanour. Also, alas!
+he transgressed in a more serious way. For Mr. Walpole's accounts fell
+into the saddest disorder; there were sums of money of which no trace
+could be found until--well, the deplorable affair was hushed up. Mr.
+Scrope was turned off and set down his dismissal to Margaret, who,
+gentle soul, would not have hurt a fly. From that time he had not
+spared her his resentment, and would go miles out of his way if by any
+chance he might fix a slight upon her. Which conduct she most
+Christianly forgave, since indeed the poor man's head must needs be
+turned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yet he had all the appearances of prosperity,' objected Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I fancied that I said that there were large sums missing,' replied
+her ladyship.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes, you did indeed say so,' said Mr. Kelly, 'but you avoided the
+implication out of your generous pity.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is not in truth very difficult to befool a man who does half the
+fooling himself. Mr. Kelly was altogether appeased by Lady Oxford's
+explanation, which to his friend seemed to explain nothing, but none
+the less he readily acknowledged to Wogan the propriety of hurrying
+his business to a close.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To tell the truth,' said Wogan, as soon as her ladyship had
+withdrawn, 'I feel my cravat stiffening prophetically about my neck.
+My presence does not help you; indeed, it is another danger; and since
+we are but a few miles from Aberystwith, I am thinking that I could do
+nothing wiser than start for that port to-night.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson drew figures with his forefinger on the table for a while;
+then:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I would not have you go, he said slowly. 'I will use what despatch I
+may; but I would not have you go, and leave me here.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly was true to his word, and used so much despatch that within two
+days he extorted a promise from Lord Oxford to undertake the muslin
+trade in England, as the cant phrase went. Possibly he might have won
+that same promise before had used the same despatch. But Lord Oxford's
+foible was to hold long discourses, and Mr. Pope truly said that he
+had an epical habit of beginning everything at the middle. However it
+may be, the two men left the Manor on the morning of the third day.
+Wogan drove back with the Parson as far as Worcester, who for the
+first few miles remained in a melancholy silence, and then burst out
+of a sudden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To think that she should be mewed up in a corner of Herefordshire,
+with no companions but drunken rustics! Mated to an old pantaloon,
+too!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure it was her ladyship's own doing,' murmured Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No woman in all London could hold a candle to her. And we distrusted
+her--we distrusted her, Nick.' He beat a clenched fist into the palm
+of his other hand to emphasise the enormity of the crime. 'Why, what
+impertinent fools men are!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he again relapsed into silence and again broke out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Damme! but Fortune plays bitter tricks upon the world. 'Tis all very
+well to strike at a pair of rascals like you and me, Nick, but she
+strikes at those who offend her least. Faith, but I am bewildered.
+Here is a woman indisputably born to be a queen and she is a nurse.
+And no better prospect when my lord dies than a poor jointure and a
+dull Dower House.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, she told you that, did she?' said Wogan. 'Sure it was a queenly
+complaint.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She made no complaint,' said Kelly fiercely. 'She would not--she
+could not. It is a woman of unexampled patience.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He grumbled into silence, and his thoughts changed and turned moodily
+about himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why did I ever preach that sermon?' he exclaimed. 'But for that I
+might now have the care of half-a-dozen rambling parishes. Instead of
+hurrying and scurrying from one end of Europe to the other, at the
+risk of my neck, I might sit of an evening by the peat fire of an inn
+kitchen and give the law to my neighbour. I might have a little
+country parsonage all trailed over with roses, and leisure to ensure
+preferment by my studies and enjoy the wisdom of my Latin friend
+Tully. I might have a wife, too,' he added, 'and maybe half a score of
+children to plague me out of my five wits with their rogueries.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He fetched up a sigh as he ended which would have done credit to my
+Lady Oxford; and Wogan, seeing his friend in this unwonted pother, was
+minded to laugh him out of it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And a credit to your cloth you would have been,' says he. 'Why, it's
+a bottle you would have taken into the pulpit with you, and a mighty
+big tumbler to measure your discourse by. Indeed there would have been
+but one point of resemblance between yourself and your worthier
+brethren, and that's the number of times you turned your glass upside
+down before you came to an end.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly, however, was not to be diverted from his melancholy. The
+picture of the parsonage was too vivid on the canvas of his desires.
+And since he dreamed of one impossibility, no doubt he went a step
+further and dreamed of another besides. No doubt his picture of the
+parsonage showed the figure of the parson's wife, and no doubt the
+parson's wife was very like to my Lady Oxford.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan, though he had laughed, was, to tell the truth, somewhat
+disturbed, and began to reckon up how much he was himself to blame for
+setting Kelly's thoughts towards her ladyship. He had not thought that
+his friend had taken the woman so much to heart. But whenever the
+Parson fell a dreaming of a quiet life and the cure of souls, it was a
+sure sign the world was going very ill with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I would have you remember, George,' said Wogan, 'that not so long ago
+I saw you stand up before a certain company in Paris and cry out with
+an honest--ay, an honest passion, &quot;May nothing come between the Cause
+and me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly flushed as his words were recalled to him and turned his head
+away. Wogan held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George, am I then to understand that something has come between the
+Cause and you?' And he had to repeat the question before he got an
+answer. Then Kelly turned back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Understand nothing, Nick, but that I am a fool,' he cried heartily,
+and slapped his hand into Wogan's. 'True, the Cause, the Cause,' he
+muttered to himself once or twice. After all, Nick,' he said, 'we have
+got the old man's assurance. My Lord Oxford will lend a hand. We have
+not failed the Cause.' And they did not speak again until they drove
+into Worcester. Then Kelly turned to Nick with a sad sort of smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, have you nothing to say to me? 'said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan could discover nothing to say until he had stepped out of
+the chaise at the post-house and was shaking his friend's hand. Then
+he delivered himself of the soundest piece of philosophy imaginable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Woman,' he said, 'is very much like a jelly-fish--very pretty and
+pink and transparent to look at, but with a devil of a sting if you
+touch it.'</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_07" href="#div1Ref_07">LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU HAS A WORD
+TO SAY ABOUT SMILINDA</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">From Worcester Nicholas Wogan made his way to Bristol, and, taking
+passage there on a brigantine bound for Havre-de-Grace with a cargo of
+linen, got safely over into France. He travelled forthwith to Paris
+that he might put himself at the disposition of General Dillon, and,
+being commanded to supper some few days after his arrival by the Duke
+of Mar, saw a familiar swarthy face nodding cheerily at him across the
+table. The lady was embrowned with the Eastern sun, and, having lost
+her eye-lashes by that disease which she fought so manfully to
+conquer, her eyes were fierce and martial. It was indeed the face of
+the redoubtable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, sister to the Duchess of
+Mar, who chanced to be passing through Paris on her travels from
+Constantinople. Wogan remembered that Mr. Kelly's rustic friend at
+Brampton Bryan had spoken of Lady Mary with considerable spleen. And
+since he began to harbour doubts of her rusticity, he determined to
+seek some certain information from Lady Mary.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary was for a wonder in a most amiable mood, and had more than
+one question to put concerning 'Kelly as the Bishop that was to be
+when your King came to his own.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why, madam, he has a new friend,' said Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary maybe caught a suspicion of uneasiness in Wogan's tone. She
+cocked her head whimsically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A woman?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Who?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My Lady Oxford.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary made a round O of her lips, drew in a breath, and blew it
+out again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There go the lawn-sleeves.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan took a seat by her side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary shrugged her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'In what esteem is she held?' continued Wogan, 'of what character is
+she?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I could never hear,' returned Lady Mary carelessly. 'For her friends
+always stopped abruptly when they chanced upon her character, and the
+rest was merely pursed lips and screwed-up eyes, which it would be the
+unfairest thing in the world to translate in her disfavour. Her
+character, Mr. Wogan, is a tender and delicate plant. It will not grow
+under glass, but in a dark room, where I believe it flourishes most
+invisibly.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary seemed ill-disposed to pursue the topic, and began to talk
+of her journey and the great things she had seen at Constantinople.
+Wogan waited until she came to a pause, and then stepped in with
+another question.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Is Lady Oxford political?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Lady Oxford! Lady Oxford!' she repeated almost pettishly. 'Upon my
+word, the woman has infected you. You can speak of nothing else.
+Political?' and she laughed maliciously. 'That she is, and on both
+sides. She changes her party more often than an ambitious statesman.
+For politics to my Lady Oxford are just pawns in the great game of
+Love.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, Love,' exclaimed Wogan, with a recollection of Mr. Scrope. 'Is
+Love her quarry?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She will play cat to any man's mouse,' returned Lady Mary
+indifferently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And there are many mice?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary shrugged her shoulders and made no reply. However, Wogan's
+appetite for information was only whetted, and to provoke Lady Mary to
+speak more freely he made an inventory of Lady Oxford's charms. He
+dwelt on her attractions. Lady Mary played with her fan, pulled
+savagely at the feathers, opened it, shut it up, while Wogan
+discoursed serenely on item--a dark eye, big, with a glint of light in
+it like sunshine through a thundercloud. Lady Mary laughed scornfully.
+Wogan went on to item--a profusion of blackish-brown hair, very silky,
+with a gloss, and here and there a gold thread in the brown; item--a
+Barbary shape; item--an admirable instep and a most engaging ankle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It would look very pretty in the stocks,' Lady Mary snapped out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan shook his head with a knowing air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">''Twould slip out.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Not if I had the locking of it in,' she exclaimed with a vicious
+stamp of the foot, and rose, as though to cross the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have omitted the lady's most adorable merit,' said Wogan
+thoughtfully. Lady Mary was altogether human, and did not cross the
+room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She has the greatest affection for your ladyship. She spoke of your
+ladyship indeed in quite unmeasured terms, and while praising your
+ladyship's wit would not have it that one single spark was due to the
+cleverness of your ladyship's friends. Upon that point she was most
+strenuous.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary sat down again. The stroke had evidently told.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am most grateful to her,' she said, 'and when did Lady Oxford show
+such a sweet condescension towards me?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But a few weeks ago at Brampton Bryan, where she was nursing her
+husband with an assiduous devotion.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have known her show the like devotion before, when her losses at
+cards have driven her from London.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'So she gambles?' inquired Wogan. 'Altogether, then, a dangerous
+friend for George.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Particularly for George,' said she with a smile. 'For observe, she is
+compact of wiles, and so is most dangerous to an honest man. She is at
+once insatiable in her desires, and implacable if they are not
+fulfilled. She is always in love, and knows nothing of what the word
+means. She is tender at times, but only through caprice; she is never
+faithful except for profit or lack of occasion to be anything else.
+Coquetry is the abiding principle of her nature, and her virtue merely
+a habit of hiding her coquetry. Her mind is larded with affectations
+as is her face with paint, and once or twice she has been known to
+weep--when tears were likely to deceive a man. There, Mr. Wogan, you
+have her likeness, and I trust you are satisfied.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not a character very much to Wogan's liking (Lady Mary, he
+learned later, was quoting from a manuscript 'portrait' of her own
+designing), though he drew a spice of comfort from the thought that
+Lady Mary might have coloured the effigy with her unmistakable enmity.
+But events proved that she had not over-coloured it, and even at that
+time Lady Oxford had no better reputation than Lady Mary Wortley
+attributed to her. The ballad-makers called her gallant, and they did
+her no wrong--the ballad-makers of the <i>ruelles</i>, be it understood,
+not they of the streets, but such poets as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
+herself and his Grace Sophia of Wharton.<a name="div2Ref_01" href="#div2_01"><sup>[1]</sup></a> The street-singers knew
+not Lady Oxford, who, indeed, was on the top of the fashion, and could
+hold her own in the war of written verses. It was in truth to her
+ability to give as good as she took in the matter of ballads that she
+owed Lady Mary's hostility, who had no taste for the counter-stroke.
+There were many such daring Penthesileas of the pen who never gave
+each other quarter; but neither Wogan nor the Parson were at this time
+in their secrets, although subsequently a ballad, not from Lady Mary's
+pen, was to have an astonishing effect upon their fortunes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship can help me to make the best of it, at all events,'
+said Wogan. 'Since you have told me so much, will you tell me this one
+thing more? Have you ever heard of Mr. Scrope?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Scrope? Scrope?' said she casting about in her recollections. Wogan
+told her the story of Mr. Scrope's appearance at Brampton Bryan, and
+the explanation which Lady Oxford had given to account for it. Lady
+Mary laughed heartily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Secretary to Mr. Walpole?' she said. 'And how, then, did he come to
+hear that mad sermon of Mr. Kelly's at Dublin?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure I have been puzzled to account for that myself,' says Wogan.
+'But who is he? Where does he come from? What brought him to Brampton
+Bryan? What took him away in such a mighty hurry? For upon my word I
+find it difficult to believe the man's a coward.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And you are in the right,' replied her ladyship. 'I know something of
+Mr. Scrope, and I will wager it was no cowardice made him run. I doubt
+you have not seen the last of Mr. Scrope. It is a passionate,
+determined sort of creature. He came to London a year or so agone. It
+was understood that he was a country gentleman with a comfortable
+estate in Leicestershire. He had laid his estate at Lady Oxford's
+feet, before she was as yet her ladyship. Lady Oxford would have it,
+and then would have none of it, and married the Earl. Well, he had
+been her valet for a season, and, I have no doubt, thought the service
+worth any price. She gave him her fan to hold, her gloves to caress,
+and what more can a man want? He spent much of his money, and some
+whisper that he turned informer afterwards.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, did he?' asked Wogan, who was now yet more concerned that he had
+let the informer slip through his fingers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes. An informer for conscience' sake--a gentleman spy. His father
+died for Monmouth's affair. He has ever hated the Pretender and his
+cause. He is a Protestant and a fanatic.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she looked at Wogan and began to laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I would have given much to have seen you bouncing down the road after
+Mr. Scrope's chaise,' and she added seriously, 'But I doubt you have
+not heard the last of Mr. Scrope.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That also was Wogan's thought. For Lady Mary's story, though vague
+enough, was sufficiently clear to deepen his disquietude. Well, Mr.
+Wogan would get no comfort by the mere addling his brains with
+thinking of the matter, and he thrust it forth of his mind and went
+upon his way, that led him clean out of the path of this story for a
+while. He was despatched to Cadiz to take charge of a ship, and, in
+company with Captain Galloway of the <i>Resolution</i>, who was afterwards
+seized at Genoa, and Morgan, of the <i>Lady Mary</i>, he spent much
+fruitless time in cruising on and off the coasts of France, Spain, and
+Sweden. It was given out that they carried snuff, or were engaged in
+the Madagascar trade. But they took no cargoes aboard but barrels of
+powder and stands of arms, and waited on the Rising, which never came.
+There were weeks idled away at Morlaix, at Roscoff in Brittany, at
+Lisbon in Portugal, at Alicant Bay in Spain, until Wogan's heart grew
+sick with impatience. At rare times, when the venture wore a face of
+promise, the little fleet would run the hazard of the Channel and
+creep along the English coast, from Dartmouth, across the West Bay to
+Portland, from Portland on to the Isle of Wight. Mr. Wogan would pace
+the deck of his little ketch, <i>Fortune</i>, of a night, and as he looked
+at the quiet fields lying dark beneath the sky, would wonder how the
+world wagged for his friend the Parson, and whether my Lady Oxford was
+shaping it or no, until a longing would seize on him to drop a boat
+into the water and himself into the boat, and row ashore and see. But
+it was not for more than a full twelve months that his longing was
+fulfilled, and during those twelve months the harm was done.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_08" href="#div1Ref_08">MR. KELLY HAS AN ADVENTURE AT A MASQUERADE
+BALL</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">For the greater part of that year Mr. Kelly simply went about his
+business. He travelled backwards and forwards from General Dillon,
+Lord Lansdowne, the Duke of Mar, in Paris, to the Bishop of Rochester,
+in London, and from the Bishop to the others of the five who
+mismanaged the Chevalier's affairs in England, Lord Arran, Lord
+Strafford, Lord North and Grey, Lord Orrery, and last, though not
+least, the Earl of Oxford. Thus business brought him more than once
+knocking again at the doors of Brampton Bryan Manor, though he did not
+always find her ladyship at home to welcome him. On such occasions he
+found the great house very desolate for the want of her footstep and
+her voice, and so would pull out his watch and fall to wondering what
+at that precise moment she was engaged upon in town.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus things dallied, then, until a warm wet night of summer in the
+year 1720. Mr. Kelly was in London and betook himself to His Majesty's
+Theatre in Drury Lane, where he witnessed a farce which was very much
+to his taste. It was entitled 'South-Sea; or the Biter Bit,' and was
+happy not merely in its quips, but in the moment of its performance.
+For the King, or, as the honest party called him, the Elector, and his
+lords had sold out, and were off to Germany with their plunder, and
+the stocks were falling by hundreds every week. Mr. Kelly might well
+laugh at the sallies on the stage and the wry faces with which the pit
+and boxes received them. For he had recently sold out his actions in
+the Mississippi scheme at a profit of 1,200 per cent., and had his
+money safe locked up at Mr. Child's, the goldsmith. Kelly's, however,
+was not a mere wanton pleasure. For the floating of the bubble out of
+reach meant a very solid change in the Jacobite prospects. So long as
+the South-Sea scheme prospered and all the town grew wealthy, there
+would be no talk of changing kings and no chance for Mr. Kelly's
+friends. That great and patriotic bishop whom he served, my Lord of
+Rochester, had said to him this many a month past, 'Let 'em forget
+their politics, let 'em all run mad in Change Alley, and the madder
+the better. For the funds will fall and be the ruin of thousands, and
+when England is sunk into a salutary wretchedness and discontent, then
+our opportunity will come.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was altogether, then, in a very good humour that Mr. Kelly left the
+theatre. The night was young, and he disinclined for his lodgings. He
+strolled across to the Groom Porters, in White Hall, where his spirits
+were mightily increased. For taking a hand there at Bassette, in three
+deals he won nine rich septlevas, and, for once, did not need the
+money, and when he left the Groom Porters his pockets were heavy with
+gold, and his head swimming with the fumes of punch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is not to be wondered at that those same fumes of punch floated
+Lady Oxford into Mr. Kelly's mind. He swaggered up St. James's Street
+with her ladyship consequently riding atop of his bemused fancies. It
+was a gay hour in St. James's, being then about half past one of the
+morning. Music rippled out of windows open on the night. Kelly heard
+the dice rattle within and the gold clink on the green cloth; lovers
+were whispering on the balconies; the world seemed to be going very
+well for those who had not their money in the Bubble, and for no one
+better than for Mr. Kelly. He looked about him, if by chance he might
+catch a glimpse of his divinity among the ladies of fashion as he
+watched them getting into their chairs, pushing their hoops sidelong
+before them, and the flambeaux flaring on their perfections. He
+imagined himself a Paladin rescuing her from innumerable foes. She was
+an angel, a sprite, a Hamadryad, in fact everything tender and
+immaterial.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was roused from these dreams by an illumination of more than
+ordinary brilliancy, and looking up saw that he had wandered to the
+theatre in the Haymarket. A ragged crowd of pickpockets and the like
+was gathered about the portico. Carriages and chairs set down in quick
+succession, ladies in dominoes, gentlemen in masks. Mr. Kelly
+remembered that it was a night of the masquerades; all the world would
+be gathered in the theatre, and why not Lady Oxford, who was herself
+the better half of it? Kelly had a ticket in his pocket, pushed
+through the loiterers, and stood on the inner rim of the crowd
+watching the masqueraders arrive. Every carriage that drew up surely
+concealed her ladyship, every domino that passed up the steps hid her
+incomparable figure. Mr. Kelly had staked his soul with unruffled
+confidence upon her identity with each of the first twelve women who
+thus descended before he realised that he was not the only one who
+waited. From the spot where he stood he could see into the lobby of
+the theatre. Heidegger, M. le surintendant des plaisirs du Roi de
+l'Angleterre,</p>
+<div class="poem1">
+<p class="t0" style="text-indent:-8pt">
+'With a hundred deep wrinkles impressed on his front,<br>
+Like a map with a great many rivers upon 't,'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">was receiving the more important of his guests. The guests filed past
+him into the parterre, Heidegger remained. But another man loitered
+ever in the lobby too. He was evidently expecting someone, and that
+with impatience. For as each coach or chaise drew up he peered eagerly
+forward; as it delivered its occupants he turned discontentedly away.
+It is perhaps doubtful whether Mr. Kelly would have paid him any great
+attention but for his dress, which arrested all eyes and caused the
+more tender of the ladies who passed him to draw their cloaks closer
+about them with a gesture of disgust. For he was attired to represent
+a headsman, being from head to foot in black, with a crape mask upon
+his face and a headsman's axe in his hand. He had carried his
+intention out with such thoroughness, moreover, that he had daubed his
+doublet and hose with red.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly was in a mood to be charmed by everything strange and
+eccentric, and the presence of this bloodsmeared executioner at a
+masquerade seemed to him a piece of the most delicate drollery.
+Moreover, the executioner was waiting like Mr. Kelly, and with a like
+anxiety. Mr. Kelly had a fellow-feeling for him in his impatience
+which prompted him suddenly to run up the steps and accost him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Like me, you are doubtless waiting for your aunt,' said the Parson
+courteously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The impulse, the movement, the words had all been the matter of a
+second; but the executioner was more than naturally startled, as Mr.
+Kelly might have perceived had he possessed his five wits. For the man
+leaped rather than stepped back; he gave a gasp; his hand gripped
+tight about the handle of his axe. Then he stepped close to Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You know me?' he said. The voice was muffled, the accent one of
+menace. Kelly noticed neither the voice nor the menace. He bowed with
+ceremony.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Without a doubt. You are M. de Strasbourg.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The headsman laughed abruptly like a man relieved.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You and I,' he returned, mimicking Kelly's politeness of manner,
+'will be better acquainted in the future.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly was overjoyed with the rejoinder. 'Here's a devil of a fellow
+for you,' he cried, and with his elbow nudged Heidegger in the ribs.
+Heidegger was at that moment bent to the ground before the Duchess of
+Wharton, and nearly stumbled over her Grace's train. He turned in a
+passion as soon as the Duchess had passed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Vas you do dat for dam?' he said all in a breath. Kelly however was
+engaged in contemplating the executioner. He ran his thumb along the
+edge of the axe.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is cruelly blunt,' said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You need not fear,' returned the other. 'For your worship is only
+entitled to a cord.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, so you know me,' says Kelly, stepping close to the executioner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Without a doubt,' replied the latter, stepping back, 'Monsieur le
+Marchand de dentelles.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was Kelly's turn to be startled, and that he was effectually; he
+was shocked into a complete recovery of his senses and an accurate
+estimation of his folly. He walked to the entrance and stood upon the
+steps. The executioner knew him, knew something of his trade. Who,
+then, was M. de Strasbourg? Kelly recalled the tones of his voice,
+conned them over in his mind, and was not a penny the wiser. He
+glanced backwards furtively across his shoulder and looked the man
+over from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At that moment a carriage drove up to the entrance. Mr. Kelly was
+standing on the top of the steps and the face of the coachman on the
+box was just on a level with his own. He stared, in a word, right at
+it, and so took unconsciously an impression of it upon his mind, while
+pondering how he should act with regard to M. de Strasbourg.
+Consequently he did not notice that a woman stepped out of the
+carriage and, without looking to the right or left, quickly mounted
+the steps. His eyes, in fact, were still fixed upon the coachman's
+face; and it needed the brushing of her cloak against his legs to
+rouse him from his reflections.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned about just as she disappeared at the far end of the lobby.
+He caught a glimpse of a white velvet cloak and an inch of blue satin
+petticoat under a muffling domino. He also saw that M. de Strasbourg
+was drawn close behind a pillar, as though he wished to avoid the
+lady. As soon, however, as she had vanished he came boldly out of his
+concealment and followed her into the theatre. Mr. Kelly began
+instantly to wonder whether a closer view of the domino would help him
+discover who M. de Strasbourg really was, and entering the theatre he
+went up into the boxes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At first his eyes were bedazzled by the glitter of lights and jewels
+and the motley throng which paraded the floor. There was the usual
+medley of Chinese, Turks, and friars; here was a gentleman above six
+feet high dressed like a child in a white frock and leading strings
+and attended by another of very low stature, who fed him from time to
+time with a papspoon; there was a soldier prancing a minuet upon a
+hobby horse to the infinite discomfort of his neighbours; and as for
+the women--it seemed to Mr. Kelly that all the goddesses of the
+heathen mythology had come down from Olympia in their customary
+négligé.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Among them moved M. de Strasbourg like a black shadow, very
+distinguishable. Kelly kept his eyes in the man's neighbourhood, and
+in a little perceived a masked lady with her hair dressed in the Greek
+fashion. What character she was intended to represent he could not for
+the life of him determine. He learnt subsequently that she went as
+Iphigeneia--Iphigeneia, if you please, in a blue satin petticoat. To
+be sure her bosom was bared for the sacrifice, but then all the ladies
+in that assembly were in the like case. She had joined a party of
+friends, of whom M. de Strasbourg was not one. For though he kept her
+ever within his sight, following her hither and thither, it was always
+at a distance; and, so far as Kelly could see, and he did not take his
+eyes from the pair, he never spoke to her so much as a single word. On
+the contrary he seemed rather to lurk behind and avoid her notice.
+Kelly's curiosity was the more provoked by this stealthy pursuit. He
+lost his sense of uneasiness in a wonder what the man designed against
+the woman. He determined to wait the upshot of the affair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The night wore away, the masqueraders thinned. The inch of blue satin
+petticoat took her departure from the parterre. M. de Strasbourg
+followed her; Mr. Kelly followed M. de Strasbourg.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lobby was crowded. Kelly threaded his way through the crowd and
+came out upon the steps. He saw the lady, close wrapped again in her
+velvet cloak, descend to her carriage. The coachman gathered up his
+reins and took his whip from its rest. The movement chanced to attract
+Kelly's eyes. He looked at the coachman, at the first glance
+indifferently, at the second with all his attention. For this was not
+the same man who had driven the carriage to the masquerade. And then
+the coachman turned his full face towards Kelly and nodded. He nodded
+straight towards him. But was the nod meant for him? No! Well, then,
+for someone just behind his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly did not turn, but stepped quietly aside and saw M. de Strasbourg
+slip past him down the steps. So the nod was meant for him. M. de
+Strasbourg was still masked, but he had thrown a cloak about his
+shoulders which in some measure disguised his dress. The mystery
+seemed clear to Kelly; the lady was to be forcibly abducted unless
+someone, say Mr. James Johnson, had a word to say upon the matter. The
+carriage turned and drove slowly through the press of chairs and
+shouting link-boys; M. de Strasbourg on the side-walk kept pace with
+the carriage. Kelly immediately crossed the road, and, concealed by
+the carriage, kept pace with M. de Strasbourg. Thus they went as far
+as the corner of the Haymarket, and then turned into Pall Mall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this point Kelly, to be the more ready should the lady need his
+assistance, stepped off the pavement and walked in the mud hard by the
+hind wheels of the carriage. It was now close upon four of the
+morning, but, fortunately, very dark, and only a sullen sort of
+twilight about the south-eastern fringes of the sky.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In Pall Mall the carriages were fewer, but the coachman did not
+quicken his pace, doubtless out of regard for M. de Strasbourg, and at
+the corner of Pall Mall, where the road was quite empty, he jerked the
+horses to a standstill. Instantly M. de Strasbourg ran across the road
+to the carriage, the coachman bent over on that side to watch, and Mr.
+Kelly, on the other side, ran forward to the box. M. de Strasbourg
+wrenched open the door and jumped into the carriage. Mr. Kelly heard a
+woman's scream and sprang on to the box. The coachman turned with a
+start. Before he could shout, before he could speak, Kelly showed him
+a pistol (for he went armed) under the man's nose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'One word,' said Kelly, 'and I will break your ugly face in with the
+stock of that, my friend.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The woman screamed again; M. de Strasbourg thrust his head out of the
+window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Go on,' he shouted with an oath, 'you know where. At a gallop! Kill
+the horses, they are not mine! Flog 'em to death so you go but fast
+enough.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To the right,' said Kelly, quietly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man whipped up the horses. They started at a gallop up St. James's
+Street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To the right,' again whispered Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The carriage turned into Ryder Street, rocking on its wheels. M. de
+Strasbourg's head was again thrust from the window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That's not the way. Are you drunk, man?--are you drunk?' he cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To the left,' says Kelly, imperturbably, and fingered the lock of the
+pistol a little.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The carriage swung into Bury Street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Stop,' said Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The coachman reined in his horses; the carriage stopped with a jerk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Where in the devil's name have you taken us?' cried M. de Strasbourg,
+opening the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly sprang to the ground, ran round the carriage to the open door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To the Marchand de dentelles, M. de Strasbourg,' said he with a bow.
+'I have some most elegant pieces of <i>point d'Alençon</i> for the lady's
+inspection.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. de Strasbourg was utterly dumbfounded. He staggered back against
+the panels of the carriage; his mouth opened and shut; it seemed there
+was no language sufficiently chaotic to express his discomposure. At
+last:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are a damned impudent fellow,' he gasped out in a weak sort of
+quaver.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Am I?' asked Kelly. 'Shall we ask the lady?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He peeped through the door. The lady was huddled up in a corner--an
+odd heap of laces, silks, and furbelows, but with never a voice in all
+the confusion. It seemed she had fainted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile M. de Strasbourg turned on the unfortunate coachman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Get down, you rascal,' he cried; 'you have been bribed, you're in the
+fellow's pay. Get down! Not a farthing will you get from me, but only
+a thrashing that will make your bones ache this month to come.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your honour,' replied the coachman piteously, 'it was not my fault.
+He offered to kill me unless I drove you here.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. de Strasbourg in a rage flung back to Kelly. He clapped a hand on
+his shoulder and plucked him from the carriage door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'So you offered to kill him, did you?' he said. 'Perhaps you will make
+a like offer to me. But I'll not wait for the offer.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He unclasped his cloak, drew his sword (happily not his axe) and
+delivered his thrust with that rapidity it seemed all one motion. Mr.
+Kelly jumped on one side, and the sword just gleamed against his
+sleeve. M. de Strasbourg overbalanced himself and stumbled a foot or
+two forwards. Kelly had whipped out his sword by the time that M. de
+Strasbourg had recovered, and a battle began which was whimsical
+enough. A quiet narrow street, misty with the grey morning, the
+carriage lamps throwing here a doubtful shadow, a masked headsman
+leaping, swearing, thrusting in an extreme passion, and, to crown the
+business, the coachman lamenting on the box that whichever honourable
+gentleman was killed he would most surely go wanting his hire, he that
+had a woeful starving family! Mr. Kelly, indeed, felt the strongest
+inclination to laugh, but dared not, so hotly was he pressed. The
+attack, however, he did not return, but contented himself with
+parrying the thrusts. His design, indeed, reached at no more than the
+mere disarming of M. de Strasbourg. M. de Strasbourg, however, lost
+even his last remnants of patience.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Rascal!' he cried. 'Scullion! Grasshopper!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he threw his hat at Kelly and missed, and at last flung his
+periwig full in Kelly's face, accompanying the present with a thrust
+home which his opponent barely parried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was this particular action which brought the contest to a grotesque
+conclusion quite in keeping with its beginnings. For the periwig
+tumbled in the mud, and the coachman, assured that he would get no
+stiver of his hire, scrambled down from his box, rushed at a prize of
+so many pounds in value, picked it up and took to his heels.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. de Strasbourg uttered a cry and leaped backwards out of reach.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Stop!' he bawled to the coachman. The coachman only ran the quicker.
+M. de Strasbourg passed his hand over his shaven crown and looked at
+the carriage. It was quite impossible to abduct a lady without a
+periwig to his head. He swore, he stamped, he shouted 'Stop!' once
+more, and then dashed at full speed past Kelly in pursuit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly made no effort to prevent him, but gave way to his inclination
+and laughed. The coachman threw a startled glance over his shoulder
+and, seeing that M. de Strasbourg pressed after him, quickened his
+pace; behind him rushed a baldheaded executioner hurling imprecations.
+The pair fled, one after the other, to the top of Bury Street, turned
+the corner and disappeared. Kelly laughed till the tears ran down his
+cheeks, and leaned against the carriage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The touch of the panels recalled him to the lady's presence. The
+street was now fairly roused by the clamour. Night-capped heads peeped
+from the windows; an indignant burgher in a dressing-gown even
+threatened Mr. Kelly with a blunderbuss; and, as he turned to the door
+of the carriage, he saw Mrs. Barnes at a window on the second floor
+looking at him with an air of the gravest discontent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Take me into shelter, good sir, at once, at once,' cried the lady
+from out the confusion of her laces, in a feigned tone of the
+masquerade.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'With all my heart, madam,' said Kelly. 'This is my door, and my
+lodging is at your disposal. Only the street is fairly awake, and
+should you prefer, I will most readily drive you to your own house.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lady looked out of the window. She was still masked so that Kelly
+could see nothing of her face, and she hesitated for a little, as if
+in doubt what answer she should make.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You may make yourself at ease, madam,' said Kelly, believing that she
+was not yet relieved of fear; 'you are in perfect safety. Our worthy
+friend had to choose between your ladyship and his periwig, of which
+he has gone in chase. And, indeed, while I deplore his taste, I cannot
+but commend his discretion.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Very well,' she replied faintly. 'I owe you great thanks already,
+Mr.--' she paused.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Johnson,' said Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Johnson,' she replied; 'and I shall owe you yet more if you will
+drive me to my home.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gave him the address of a house in Queen's Square, Westminster.
+Kelly mounted on the box, took up the reins, and drove off. He looked
+up, as he turned the carriage in the narrow street, towards the second
+floor of his lodging. Mrs. Barnes shook her head at him in a terrible
+concern.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I shall write and tell Mr. Wogan,' she bawled out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Hush, Mrs. Barnes, have you no sense?' cried Kelly, and he thought
+that from within the carriage he heard a stifled peal of laughter.
+'Poor woman,' thought he, ''tis the hysterics,' and he drove to
+Queen's Square, Westminster, at a gallop.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_09" href="#div1Ref_09">WHEREIN THE CHIVALROUS MR. KELLY BEHAVES
+WITH DEPLORABLE FOLLY</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly did not drive very straight perhaps, but to be sure he had
+the streets entirely to himself, and he certainly hit upon Queen's
+Square. The house was unknown to him, and he drove through the square
+before he found it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It made an angle at the south corner, and was conspicuous for a solid
+family air, and a fine new statue of Queen Anne. Level windows of a
+distinguished respectability looked you over with indifference and
+said, 'Here's a house you'll take off your hat to, if you please.'
+'Faith, but those windows must have shuddered in their sashes when
+they saw the Parson driving Madam home at five o'clock of the morning
+from a masquerade ball. A sleepy footman opened the door; a no less
+sleepy maid yawned in the hall. However, they both waked up to some
+purpose when Mr. Kelly jumped down from the box, bade the footman take
+the carriage round to the stables, called the maid to attend upon
+Madam, and himself opened the carriage door. He opened it quickly with
+a thought that Madam might very likely have removed her mask, for he
+was not so tipsy but that he was curious to know who it was that he
+had befriended. Madam, however, had done nothing of the kind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Is my lady ill?' asked the maid, hurrying forward. So Madam was a
+woman of title.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A trifle discomposed, no doubt,' answered Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My lady said nothing whatever. It seemed she was unwilling to speak in
+the feigned voice before her maid, and in the natural voice before Mr.
+Kelly. She took his arm, and, leaning on it somewhat heavily, yet
+walked with a firm enough step into the hall, as Mr. Kelly could not
+but remark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The maid threw open a door on the right. It gave into a little cheery
+room with a wainscot of polished oak, and a fire blazing on the
+hearth. My lady did not release Mr. Kelly's arm, and they both stood
+in front of the fire, and no doubt found the warmth comfortable enough
+after the chill of the morning. Her ladyship, indeed, went so far as
+to untie the strings of her domino, and make as though she would turn
+it back upon her shoulders. But with a glance at Mr. Kelly, she
+changed her mind, and hugged it somewhat closer over her dress than
+before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Were you at the masquerade, Mr. Johnson?' she asked in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly took the movement and the words together, and set them down
+as mere coquetry. Now, coquetry to Kelly at that time was a challenge,
+and it was contrary to his principles of honour to remain under such a
+provocation from man or woman. So he answered:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Indeed, your ladyship, I was, to my eternal happiness. I shall dream
+of blue satin for a month to come.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her ladyship hitched her domino a little tighter still about her neck,
+and quickly tied the strings again, but made no other reply to his
+sally. The action, while it inflamed his curiosity, put him into
+something of a quandary. Was it but another piece of coquetry, he
+asked himself, or did she indeed wish to hinder him from discovering
+who she was? He could answer neither question, but he felt
+constrained, at all events, to offer to take her concealment as a hint
+that he should depart. It seemed a pity, for the adventure promised
+well.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship,' he said, and at that she gave a start and glanced at
+him, 'for so I understand from your maid I may address you,' he added,
+'it grows late, the world is getting on to its legs, and your ladyship
+has had an eventful night.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took a step backwards and bowed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' said she, in a sharp quick voice, and put out a hand to detain
+him. Then she stopped as quickly, and drew in her hand again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly had borne himself very prettily in the little affair with M.
+de Strasbourg. Madam, in fact, was in the typical attitude of woman.
+She knew it was inconvenient to keep him, but for the life of her she
+could not let him go, wherefore she found a woman's way out of the
+trouble. For she staggered on her legs, and fainted to all appearance
+clean away, leaving matters to take their own course and shift for
+themselves. She fainted, of course, towards Mr. Kelly, who caught her
+in his arms and set her in an arm-chair. The maid, who all this while
+had been standing in the doorway, smiled. 'I will run to her
+ladyship's dressing-room for the salts,' she said, and so went out of
+the room, carefully closing the door behind her. Kelly kneeled by the
+lady's side, and taking up her fan, sought to waft her that way back
+into the world. She did not stir so much as a muscle, but lay all
+huddled up in her domino and mask. Mr. Kelly leaned over her, and so
+became aware of a penetrating perfume which breathed out from her
+dress. The perfume was bergamot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly dropped the fan and sat back on his heel. The maid had called
+her 'my lady,' and bergamot was Lady Oxford's favourite perfume. What
+if it was Lady Oxford he had unwittingly rescued! The possibility
+caught his breath away. If that were only true, he thought, why, he
+had done her some slight service, and straightway a great rush of
+tenderness came upon him, which went some way to sober him. In a
+minute, however, he dropped into despondency; for Lord Oxford's house
+was in the northern part of the town, as he knew, though he had never
+as yet been there, and neither the footman nor the maid were of her
+ladyship's household. Yet, if by some miracle the lady might be
+Smilinda! She was of the right height. Mr. Kelly looked at her,
+seeking vainly to trace out the form hidden under the folds of the
+domino. But if it were Smilinda, then Smilinda had swooned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly woke to this conclusion with a start of alarm. He clapped
+his hand into his pocket, pulled out his snuff-box, opened it quickly,
+and held it close beneath her ladyship's nose. The effect of the snuff
+was purely magical, for before she could have inhaled one grain of
+it--before, indeed, Mr. Kelly's box was within a foot of her face, up
+went her hands to the tie-strings of her mask.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the swoon was counterfeit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam,' said Kelly, 'you interpret my desires to a nicety. It is your
+face I would see, but I did not dream of removing your mask. I did but
+offer to revive you with a pinch of snuff.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She took the box from his hand, but not to inhale the macawba.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is for your own sake, Mr. Johnson, that I do not unmask. 'Tis like
+that I am a fright, and did you see my face you would take me for a
+pale ghost.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam,' said Kelly, 'I am not afraid of ghosts, nor apt to take your
+ladyship for one of those same airy appearances. A ghost! No,' he
+cried, surveying her. 'An angel! It is only the angels in Heaven that
+wear blue satin petticoats.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lady laughed, and checked the laugh, aware that a laugh betrays
+where a voice does not.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ghost or angel,' she said,' a being of my sex would fain see herself
+before she is seen. 'Tis a mirror I seek.' She was still holding Mr.
+Kelly's snuff-box. It was open and within the lid a little
+looking-glass was set; and as she spoke she turned away and bent over
+it with a motion as if she was about to lift her mask.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nay,' said Kelly abruptly; he stretched out his hand towards the
+snuff-box. 'The glass will be unfaithful, for the snuff has tarnished
+it. Madam, I beseech you, unloose that mask and turn your face to me
+and consult a truer mirror, your servant's eyes.' He spoke, perhaps,
+with a trifle more of agitation than the occasion seemed to warrant.
+Madam did indeed turn her face to Mr. Kelly, but it was in surprise at
+his agitation, and the mask still hid her face. Mr. Kelly could see no
+more than a pair of eyes blazing bright and black through the eyelet
+holes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are gallant, I find, as well as brave,' she said, 'unless some
+other cause prompted the words.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What cause, madam? You wrong me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why,' said she, 'you still hold out your hand.' Mr. Kelly drew it
+away quickly. 'Ah,' she continued, 'I am right. There was a reason.
+You would not have me examine your snuff-box too closely.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In that she was right, for the snuff-box was at once the dearest and
+the most dangerous of Mr. Kelly's possessions. It was a pretty toy in
+gold and tortoiseshell, with brilliants on the hinges, and had been
+given to Mr. Kelly on a certain occasion when he had been presented to
+his king at Avignon. For that reason, and for another, he was mightily
+loth to let it out of his possession. What that other reason was Madam
+very soon discovered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is a dangerous toy,' she said. 'It has perhaps a secret to tell?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam, has not your mask?' returned Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There is a mystery behind the mirror.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, then, it's mystery for mystery.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For all that he spoke lightly he was in some uneasiness. For the lady
+might not be Smilinda, and her fingers played deftly about the setting
+of the mirror, touching a stone here and there. To be sure she wore
+gloves, and was the less likely therefore to touch the spring. But
+give her time enough--however, at that moment Kelly heard the maid's
+footsteps in the hall. He stepped to the door at once and opened it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have the salts?' he asked. 'You have been the deuce of a time
+finding them.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The maid stared at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But her ladyship fainted,' she argued.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well,' said he, 'wasn't that why you went for the salts?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To be sure,' says she. ''Twas an order to go for the salts.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She pushed open the door. My lady was still fingering the box. The
+maid paid no attention to the box, but she looked at my lady's mask;
+from the mask she looked towards Kelly with a shrug of the shoulders,
+which said 'Zany' as plain as writing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly had no thoughts to spare for the maid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam,' he said, 'here is your maid, to whose attentions I may leave
+you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He advanced, made a bow, took up his hat, held out his hand for his
+snuff-box.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But I cannot let you go,' she answered, 'without I thank you'--all
+the time she was running her fingers here and there for the spring.
+Kelly noticed, too, with some anxiety, that while he had gone to the
+door she had made use of the occasion to strip off her glove--'and
+thank you fitly, as I should have done ere this. But the trouble I was
+in has made me backward.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nay, madam,' said Kelly impatiently, and taking a step nearer, 'there
+is no need for thanks. No man could have done less.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her ladyship's fingers travelled faster in their vain attempt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But you risked your life!' said she in admiration.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is worth very little,' said he with a touch of disdain; 'and,
+madam, I keep you from your bed.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The maid turned her eyes up to the ceiling, and then Madam by chance
+pressed on a diamond which loosed a hidden spring; the glass in the
+snuff-box flew down and showed a painting of the Chevalier in
+miniature.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh!' cried my lady with a start in which, perhaps, there was a trace
+of affectation. Then she turned to the maid and bade her bring some
+wine and glasses. She spoke quickly, now forgetting for the moment to
+disguise her voice. Mr. Kelly recognized it with absolute certainty.
+The voice was Smilinda's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The maid went out of the door. Kelly looked at the lady, and seeing
+that she was seemingly engrossed in the contemplation of the little
+picture, stole after the maid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Betty!' he called in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sir? 'she asked, coming to a stop.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took a crown from his pocket, spun it in the air, and caught it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The Margout,' said he, 'will doubtless be more difficult to discover
+than the salts,' he suggested.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It might indeed be necessary to go down to the cellar,' she replied
+readily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And that would take time,' said Kelly, handing her the crown.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It would take an entire crown's worth,' said the maid, pocketing the
+coin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly slipped back into the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lady seemed not to have noticed Mr. Kelly's absence, so fondly did
+she study the portrait; but none the less, no sooner had he closed the
+door than she cried out, not by any means to him but in a sort of
+ecstasy, '<i>Le Roi!</i>' Then she hid the snuff-box suddenly and glanced
+with a shudder round the room. The panic was altogether misplaced,
+since there could be no other person in the room except the owner of
+the box, who, if her ladyship was guilty for admiring, was ten
+thousand times more so for possessing it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She caught with her hand at her heart when she perceived Mr. Kelly,
+then her eyes smiled from out of her mask, as though in the extremity
+of her alarm she had forgotten who he was, and so fell back in her
+chair with an air of languor, breathing deep and quick.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Upon my word, I fear, Mr. Johnson,' she said, 'that if I have escaped
+one danger by your help I have fallen into another. You seem to me to
+be a man of dangerous company.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Indeed I find it so when I am with you, madam, since you discover my
+secrets and show me nothing of your own,' replied Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The maid it appears, had no less perversity than her mistress, for
+precisely at this moment she rapped on the door, and without waiting
+for any answer sharply entered the room, bearing the wine and glasses
+on a salver. There was a distance of three yards between Kelly and her
+ladyship. The maid measured the distance with her eyes, and her face
+showed some disappointment. Her ladyship dismissed her, filled both
+the glasses and took one in her hand. Mr. Kelly drained the other, and
+the bumper carried off the remnant of his brains.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You run no danger from my knowing your secret, Mr. Johnson,' said
+she, 'for--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Breaking off her sentence, she turned her head aside, swiftly pushed
+up her mask and kissed the portrait in the box, stooping her fragrant
+hair over it. Mr. Kelly, speeded by the wine, was this time too quick
+for her ladyship. Before she could raise her face he had paid the same
+compliment to her lips as she to his Majesty. She lifted her head with
+a bewitching air of anger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Lady Oxford!' he cried out as if in amazement, since he had bottomed
+the mystery for now some time. 'Forgive me, madam, if my hasty loyalty
+to my Sovereign prevented me from recognising his latest adherent. The
+Cause must now infallibly triumph.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sir,' she began, looking up at him with her eyes melting from anger
+to reproach, 'your apology is something graceless. For though my
+colour be gone'--it was only the worse or artificial part of her
+matchless complexion which the mask had rubbed off--'you yet had time
+to know and respect a face you--'and then she came suddenly to a stop,
+as she untied the strings of her domino and threw it back from her
+shoulders. 'You blame me,' she said pitifully. Her ladyship was a
+ready woman, and even went more than half-way to meet an attack. At
+Brampton Bryan the talk had been of duty and the charms of a rustic
+life; but here the dutiful country wife, violently disarrayed in the
+extreme of fashion, had been alone to a masquerade ball and Mr. Kelly
+might conceive himself tricked. And so 'You blame me,' she said, 'you
+blame me even as you blamed me at Brampton Bryan, and with no more
+justice.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'At Brampton Bryan!' exclaimed Kelly suddenly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'M. de Strasbourg! M. de Strasbourg was Scrope.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her ladyship nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And 'twas he attacked <i>you</i>--would have carried you off.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her ladyship shivered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And I let him go. Curse me! I let him go even as Nick did. But the
+third time! Oh, only let the third time come.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her ladyship shook her head with the most weariful resignation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It will come too late, that third time,' she said; 'too late for me.
+I have no husband who can protect me, and no friend so kind as to
+serve me in his place.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nay, madam,' cried Kelly, instantly softened by the lonely picture
+which her words called up in his mind. She was transfigured all at
+once into Una, Andromeda, Ariadne, or any other young woman of great
+beauty and virtue who has ever been left desolate to face a wintry
+world. 'Believe me, you have one friend whose only aspiration is to
+serve you with his life-blood. 'Faith, madam, had you but shown me
+your face when first I came to the door of your carriage, I would
+never have let M. de Strasbourg run away until I had offered you his
+smoking heart on the point of my sword.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her ladyship gave the Parson to understand that she had gone to the
+ball on the King's service. Had his brain been of its customary
+sobriety the adventure would doubtless have surprised him more than it
+did. He might have questioned the nature of the service which took her
+ladyship to the masquerade. But she had sufficient art to tell him
+nothing and persuade him that she told all. Moreover, he had other
+matters to engage him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There is no need to extend more particularly the old story of a young
+man's folly with a woman of Lady Oxford's kind. She had sought to hide
+who she was, she said, because she dared not trust herself; and the
+fact that she was not living in her own house, which was being
+repaired, but in one that she had borrowed, with the servants, from a
+friend who had gone to the Bath, seemed to make her intention
+possible. But Heaven had been against her. Mr. Kelly was readily
+beguiled into the sincere opinion that she had fought against her
+passion, but that her weakness and his transcendent bravery, of which
+she would by no means allow him to make light, had proved her ruin. It
+was all in a word set down to gratitude, which was a great virtue, she
+suggested. Love, indeed, was just the charge of powder which would
+have never flashed--no never--had not gratitude served as a flint and
+thrown off the spark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Well, Mr. Kelly walked home in the dawning of a new day and painted
+his thoughts with the colours of the sky. For weeks thereafter he
+seemed in his folly to tread on air; and no doubt he had more than
+ordinary warrant for his folly. He had a fortune safely lodged with
+Mr. Child, the goldsmith; his mistress was no less fair than she
+showed fond; and so fond she was that she could not bring herself to
+chide the coachman who was discovered the next morning drunk with
+drugged wine at a tavern near the Haymarket, whither one of Scrope's
+hirelings had lured him. Mr. Kelly was prosperous in the three great
+games of life, love, and politics. For he was wholly trusted by the
+Bishop, by Lord Oxford and the rest; he took his place in the world
+and went and came from France with hanging matter in his valise. The
+valise weighed all the lighter for the thought that he was now serving
+Lady Oxford as well as the King. She was at this time always in his
+dreams. His passion indeed was in these days extreme, a devouring fire
+in brain and marrow. He believed her a most loyal conspirator, and, of
+course, all that he knew came to her ladyship's ears. But his bliss in
+the affection of Lady Oxford quite blinded him to danger, and he
+seemed to himself to walk invisible, as though he had the secret of
+fernseed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a season, then, Mr. Kelly was the happy fool, and if the season
+was short--why, is it ever long? Mr. Wogan is not indeed sure that the
+Parson has got altogether out of her ladyship's debt, in spite of what
+happened afterwards. For when the real morning broke and the true love
+came to him, troubles followed apace upon its coming. It is something
+to have been a happy fool, if only for a season and though the
+happiness ended with the folly.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_10" href="#div1Ref_10">WHAT CAME OF MR. KELLY'S WINNINGS FROM THE
+SOUTH SEA</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Luck is a chameleon, and in November of that same year 1720, thought
+fit to change its complexion. The date, to be precise, was the 17th of
+the month. Mr. Wogan can determine on the particular day, for the
+reason that Mrs. Barnes carried out her threat, and sent him a
+laborious long letter concerning the Parson's moral iniquities. The
+letter reached Mr. Wogan in October, who was then cleaning his ship at
+Morlaix in Brittany, and what with his fifteen months of purposeless
+cruises, felt himself as encrusted with idleness as his ship's bottom
+with barnacles. It was just this eternal inactivity which no doubt
+induced him to take the serious view of Mrs. Barnes's epistle. 'It is
+a most cruel affair,' said he to Mr. Talbot, who was with him, 'and of
+the last importance that I should hurry to London and set it
+straight.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But you are fixed here,' said the Crow, for so Talbot was commonly
+called from the blackness of his complexion. 'Can I undertake the
+business for you?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' says Nick, shaking his head very solemn; though maybe his eye
+twinkled. Mr. Wogan forgets what point the plot was at then, for since
+the black year, 1688, there had been but one plot, though it had
+changed and shifted shape like the faces you see in the dark before
+you sleep. But he could not hear that anything immediate was intended;
+and it would be, therefore, the most convenient occasion to refit his
+ketch <i>Fortune</i>. He gave orders to that effect, travelled to Paris,
+obtained from General Dillon a month's leave to dispose of his own
+affairs, and went whistling to London like a schoolboy off on his
+holidays. For, to tell the truth, he was not greatly concerned at
+George Kelly's backslidings, but on the contrary was inclined to
+chuckle over them, and trusted completely to his friend's discretion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He arrived in London on November 20, and drove boldly to Kelly's
+lodging in Bury Street. For the Glenshiel affair had completely blown
+over--there had never been more than a rumour that he was there--and
+as for the Fifteen, why Mr. Wogan had his pardon like the rest. That
+he got for his behaviour to Captain Montagu at Preston; moreover, who
+could know the boy Wogan that ran away from Westminster School, and
+his task of copying Lord Clarendon's history, in Mr. Hilton, the man
+of six feet four in his stockings. He found Kelly's lodgings empty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A letter came for him three days ago,' explained Mrs. Barnes, 'and he
+set off almost on the instant in an agitation so great that he did not
+wait to pack his valise, but had it sent after him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Where to?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I do not know,' replied Mrs. Barnes with a sniff of the nose and a
+toss of the head, 'and no doubt I am a better woman for not knowing.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No doubt, replied Wogan gravely. 'But, Mrs. Barnes, who signed the
+letter? Where did it come from?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And how should I know that?' she cried. 'Would I demean myself by
+reading the letters of a nasty trull? For she's no better for all her
+birth, and that's not so high neither.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah,' says Wogan, 'I see you don't know who signed the letter.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And that's truth,' said she, 'but I saw the superscription. As for
+the letter, he hid it in his bosom.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, that's as good as showing the signature. Who carried his valise
+after him?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Francis Vanlear,' she said, 'the porter who plyed in St. James's
+Street and Piccadilly and lodged at the Crown ale-house in Germain
+Street.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thither Wogan sent for him, and when he was come asked him whither he
+had carried the valise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To Mr. Gunning's at Mussell Hill,' Vanlear answered, where he had
+found a horse ready saddled at the door and 'Mr. Johnson' in a great
+fume to be off.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan gave the porter a crown for his trouble and went forthwith to
+Mr. Gunning's, whom he had not seen since the occasion of his coming
+down from Glenshiel. From Mr. Gunning he learned that Kelly had
+undoubtedly taken the Aberystwith road, since he had left the horse he
+borrowed at Beaconsfield, and thither had Mr. Gunning sent to fetch
+it. Kelly's destination was consequently as clear to Wogan as the
+urgency of his haste, and coming back into London he dropped in at the
+Cocoa Tree, where he found the story of Lady Oxford and Mr. Kelly a
+familiar pleasantry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He heard of it again that night at Will's coffeehouse in Covent
+Garden, and at Burton's in King Street, where Mr. Kelly was very well
+known. For, besides being close to Kelly's lodging, it was one of the
+houses to which his letters were directed under cover. From Burton's
+Wogan came back to Bury Street, and, while smoking a pipe in the
+parlour before going to bed, he chanced to notice his strongbox. It
+stood on the scrutoire by the side of Mr. Kelly's big Bible, where
+Wogan had left it eighteen months before. It was the brother to Mr.
+Kelly's strong-box, in every particular but one, and that one a
+stouter lock. Wogan remembered that when he had placed the box on the
+scrutoire the key was attached to it by a string. Now, however, he
+noticed that the key was gone. He was sufficiently curious to cross
+the room and try the lock. But the box would not open; it was securely
+locked. There were papers too within it, as he found out by shaking
+it. Kelly, then, was using the box--but for what purpose? His own box
+served for his few political papers. Any other papers that needed the
+shelter of a strong box must be love-letters. Here, then, were
+amorous, not political epistles. Besides, he was in the habit of
+burning all those which had done their work, and the rest which he
+needed he carried about in his own dispatch-box.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Now, I wonder,' said Wogan, tapping the lid, 'I wonder whether a
+certain letter, signed--shall we say Smilinda?--and summoning my
+friend to Brampton Bryan, is locked up inside you.' Wogan's guess hit
+the truth even to the signature, though he was destined to get little
+satisfaction from this proof of his sagacity. The letter, he later
+learned, lay in box with not a few others in the same handwriting, and
+they all ended in the same manner with a request: 'Burn this.' Mr.
+Kelly would have been honester had he obeyed it, but, like many a man
+when passion gets hold of him, he could not part with them. Faint
+whispers breathed, as it seemed, from Heaven, and caught and written
+loud in my lady's hand, pure diamonds fetched up from the obscure
+mines of a woman's heart, sure he treasured them up beyond all jewels,
+and locked them up in Mr. Wogan's despatch-box to his own undoing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This letter was, (Wogan learned afterwards) the most laconic of them
+all, and it was the most momentous. It began, 'My own Strephon,' and
+then Strephon was crossed out and again written on the top, and it was
+signed 'Smilinda' in a doubtful hand; as though, at first, Brampton
+Bryan had recalled to her ladyship the beginning of their affections
+with so overpowering a compulsion that she must needs use the names
+which were associated with it, and then the dear woman's modesty
+timidly crossed them out, and in the end love got the upper hand and
+wrote them in again. At least that was a small portion of all the
+great meanings which Kelly read in the hesitation of her ladyship's
+address. Between the Strephon and the Smilinda there was but one
+line--'Come; there is a secret. I have great need of you.' But this
+had been quite enough to send Mr. Kelly spurring out into the November
+night with such speed that he came to Oxford the next day, where he
+found the snow lying very deep. The snow troubled him, no doubt,
+because it delayed him, but he took little account of the cold beyond
+a sharp pang or two lest Smilinda might have caught a chilblain. For
+himself--well, Smilinda had need of him--the great lady turned for
+help to the Irish outlaw. Wasn't it always so? Her Majesty throws her
+glove to the page, my lord the King Cophetua goes clean daft for a
+beggar wench, and the obliging Cupid builds a rickety bridge whereby
+the despairing lovers leap into each other's arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Smilinda needed him! There was a tune ravished from Heaven! His whole
+frame moved to it as the waves to the direction of the moon. It sang
+in his blood, his heart beat to it, the hooves of his horse drummed it
+out on the road. Even the boughs of the trees whispered the words with
+a tender secrecy to the wind, much as the reeds whispered that other
+saying, ages ago, which the Queen in the fable had entrusted to them.
+And, 'faith, when you come to think of it, there was little difference
+in meaning between the two remarks. Smilinda needed Mr. Kelly! It was,
+after all, as much as to say 'Mr. Kelly has ass's ears.' He made such
+haste that on the evening of the second day after his departure from
+London he cantered up the drive of the Manor House.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford met him in the hall, and Mr. Kelly's heart gave a great
+jump of pride when he saw her stately figure all softened to an
+attitude of expectation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I knew you would come,' she said; and, as Mr. Kelly bent over her
+hand, she whispered, 'My Strephon,' for all the world as if her
+emotion choked her. Then she raised her voice for the servants to
+hear: 'My lord is from home, Mr. Johnson, but he has commissioned me
+at once to pay you his regrets and to act as his deputy in your
+business.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly was all impatience to broach his business, but her
+ladyship's solicitude would not allow him to speak until he had
+supped. She came near to waiting upon him herself, and certainly plied
+him with her best wine, vowing that it was ill weather for travellers,
+and that if he kept his glass full beside his elbow it was a sure sign
+he hated her. This, of course, after the servants had been dismissed.
+Mr. Kelly chided her for the thought, and, with a shake of the finger,
+quoted her a text: 'We are bidden not to look upon the wine when it is
+red,' said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And a very good text, too,' says she; 'so, if you please, shut your
+eyes and drink it,' and, coming behind him, she laid her cool hand
+upon his eyes and forehead. So Mr. Kelly drank, and the bumper floated
+his wits into my lady's haven.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Now,' says my lady; and, leading the way into her boudoir, she sat
+herself down before the fire, and, clasping her hands at the back of
+her head, smiled at Mr. Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Strephon,' she murmured on a lilt of her voice, and with all the
+provocation that witchery could devise. Mr. Kelly was on his knees at
+her side in a moment. She laid a white hand upon his breast, and,
+gently holding him off:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Tell me,' says she, 'why I sent for you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Because my Smilinda needed me,' he answered with a laugh of pride.
+Her hand caressed his shoulder. She nodded, bit her under lip and
+smiled very wisely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What is the service Strephon can do?' cried Kelly. 'Is it to lift the
+world? Give me but your love and I'll accomplish that.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Smilinda clapped her hands with delight, like a child.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is nothing so important,' said she. 'It is not in truth any
+service you can do for me, but rather one that I can do for you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly's face lost all its light, and dropped to the glummest
+disappointment. He had so nursed that aspiration of doing her some
+great service. Through the night, through the day, it had borne him
+company. Some great service--that was to be the bridge of Cupid's
+building whereby they were to stand firm-footed on equal ground. And
+now it was some service Lady Oxford was to do for him. Lady Oxford
+noticed the change; it may have been to read the thought which it
+expressed, and that the thought touched her to unwonted depths. For
+the smile faded from her lips, her eyes became grave, thoughtful,
+there was a certain suspense in her attitude.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Must the woman always owe, the man always pay?' she asked, but in a
+broken way, and with almost a repugnance for herself. Indeed, she
+barely finished the question, and then, with an abrupt laugh, crossed
+to the window, drew aside the curtains, and gazed out upon the
+darkness and the glimmering snow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A strange, cold world,' she said in an absent voice, 'with a strange
+white carpet.' Mr. Kelly in truth had given her a glimpse into a world
+yet stranger to her ladyship than that which her eyes beheld--a world
+that had an odd white carpet too, though the feet of those who paced
+it as often as not were stained--a world of generous impulses and
+unselfish devotions. Into this world Lady Oxford was peering with an
+uneasy curiosity. Perhaps for a moment she compared it with her own;
+perhaps she was caught by it and admired it; but, if so, it was with a
+great deal of discomfort. For she dropped the curtain petulantly
+across the window, and, coming back to the fire--well, what she would
+have said it is impossible to guess, for a gentle tap on the door was
+followed by a servant's entrance into the room. He carried a letter on
+a salver, and, advancing to Lady Oxford, offered it to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, Mr. Kelly was standing almost at the centre of the mantelpiece,
+Lady Oxford at one end; and they faced one another. So the man
+inevitably stopped between them, and, when he lifted up the salver, it
+was impossible but that the Parson should observe the superscription.
+He recognised the handwriting of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Lady
+Oxford recognised it too, for she flushed as she picked the letter up.
+But she flushed deeper as she read it through, and then crumpled it up
+and flung it into the fire with an anger which showed very clearly she
+would have done the like for Lady Mary were the writer instead of her
+letter within reach of her vindictive fingers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A strange, incomprehensible creature is Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,'
+said Lady Oxford with a laugh and a glance at Mr. Kelly. 'The most
+whimsical contradiction. She offers you a kindness with one hand and
+slaps you in the face with the other. For instance, this letter here.
+'Twas written out of pure kindness. It completes the friendliest
+service, yet it ends with so rough a jest that but for Strephon's sake
+I should be much drawn to reject the service.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'For my sake? 'asked Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why, to be sure. Lady Mary gave me a piece of news a week ago in
+town. It was that news which made me send for you, and she writes now
+expressly to confirm it. But, let my Strephon answer me,' and she
+asked whether he had yet sent his winnings from the Mississippi to be
+used for the King's service.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, Mr. Kelly was, after all, a human being. It was all very well in
+the first flush of prosperity to propose to scatter his few thousands,
+but afterwards he had come to see that they would not go so very far.
+Besides, he had now obvious reasons for desiring to cut as agreeable a
+figure as he could. At all events the money still remained with Mr.
+Child, the goldsmith, and so he told her ladyship, with a little
+remorse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then,' she cried in joy,' that chance has come for which Smilinda has
+been longing. My presents, Strephon, you have always refused,' which
+was true enough; indeed, on the other hand, she had Mr. Kelly's royal
+snuff-box and a few of his jewels. 'But now I can make your fortune,
+and with yours my own. There's the sweetness of it,' she said, and
+clasped her hands on her heart. 'Your fortune, too!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My fortune you have made already,' said he, with other compliments
+proper to the occasion. But her ladyship was in a practical mood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Listen,' says she. 'I am made acquainted that the tide has turned. I
+mean, you know, in the Straits of Magellan. The South-Sea stock that
+has been falling so long will certainly rise in a week; the Elector is
+buying secretly. Lady Mary has it from Mr. Pope, and he at the first
+and best hands from Mr. Craggs, the secretary. Mr. Craggs will insert
+my name in the next list and your money I shall send to the directors
+with my own. You shall be rich, Strephon, on the level of your
+merits.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly was very well content with his one speculation, but the
+evident joy with which Lady Oxford anticipated serving him was worth
+more than his thousands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My gold shall be in Smilinda's coffers the morning that I get back to
+town, 'he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You must go at once,' she exclaimed, 'we must lose no time. Stay. I
+will travel with you to-morrow morning if you will favour me with your
+company'; and so a new flow of compliments carried the South Sea out
+of sight. But a minute or two later Mr. Kelly, chancing to look down
+at the hearth, said, quite inconsequently:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'We must not forget to thank Lady Mary.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Smilinda followed the direction of his eyes, and saw that Lady Mary's
+letter had tumbled out of the fire and now lay, half burnt, but the
+other half only curled up and scorched. She shivered as though she was
+cold, and the better to warm herself knelt down on the hearth-rug.
+Then she took up the letter (which Kelly must not see) and carelessly
+tossed it into the fire.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You know Lady Mary,' she said. 'Yes, you told me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I do, indeed,' said Kelly, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I could wish you did not,' said her ladyship with a frown. Smilinda
+made it plain that she was jealous. Kelly laughed heartily at the
+assumption, which was in truth ridiculous enough.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Who am I,' said he, 'that I should attract Lady Mary's fancy,'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are--my Strephon,' replied Smilinda, with a sigh of exquisite
+tenderness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly argued the matter on other grounds. Smilinda listened to them
+all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have no doubt you are right,' she said, with a meek resignation.
+'But I remember you spoke very warmly of the friendship you had for
+her, and ever since--' here she broke off shyly. 'A weak woman's empty
+fears,' she continued,' but they keep her awake at nights. Well, she
+must even make the best of them.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Smilinda lying awake at nights out of jealousy! There was a notion to
+convict Mr. Kelly of slow murder. He was on his knees in a moment, and
+swore that for the future on earth and in Heaven he would avoid Lady
+Mary's company as though she was the devil in person. It was a
+confused sort of oath and deprived Mr. Kelly for a time of a very good
+friend; but on the other hand it undoubtedly raised a load from Lady
+Oxford's anxieties.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She left Brampton Bryan the next morning and travelled with Mr. Kelly
+up to London, where the coach set them down at the King's Head in the
+Strand. Kelly went straight from the King's Head to the goldsmith and
+his money was carried to Queen's Square that same afternoon. It would
+seem, however, that Mr. Pope had been choused, for the market fell
+from little to nothing. But when the Bubble presently burst into air,
+Smilinda burst into tears, and Mr. Kelly was smitten to the heart for
+her distress.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have ruined thee, my Strephon,' she sobbed. She had covered her
+face with her hands and the tears trickled through her fingers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Love arms me against such ill-fortunes,' replied Kelly. 'It is only
+Smilinda's tears that hurt. Each one of them falls upon Strephon's
+heart like a drop of molten lead.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah, Strephon,' she cried. 'Thou art ruined and Smilinda's hapless
+hand hath dealt the blow. The arrow came from her quiver,' she being
+one of Dian's nymphs, you are to suppose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Mr. Kelly fell to comparing himself to Procris in the fable, who
+was shot by her lover, and said that it was sweet to perish by her
+inadvertent shaft. It seems that kind of love-making has now gone out
+of date. But that was the humour of it when Kelly and Wogan were
+young. Men and women, let them but fall in love, and they were all
+swains and nymphs, though they dabbled in the stocks and were as
+hard-headed as before and afterwards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That odious Lady Mary,' exclaimed Smilinda. 'She was born to be my
+bane and curse. 'Twas her counsel that ruined my Strephon. My Strephon
+has kept his oath?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her Strephon had, but on the other hand, Mr. Wogan had sworn no oath,
+and would not have kept it if he had done so. He paid a visit to Lady
+Mary soon after Kelly's return from Brampton Bryan. She asked him his
+news and gave him a budget of gossip in return.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And Lady Oxford has sold her diamonds!' she ended.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan asked how that came about, and she answered:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Lady Oxford was here at the bassette table three weeks since. Her
+stakes were ever inordinately high, and she lost to me all night. She
+drew a queen when she should have chose the knave, the knave was
+Sonica. &quot;There go my diamonds,&quot; she said, and vowing she would punt no
+more, went home in her chair. I could not see her or hear of her for a
+little. I guessed that she had run away into the country until she
+could wheedle enough money to pay me out of the dotard husband. So at
+a venture I wrote a polite letter to her, hoping that the country air
+would restore her credit. Well, here she is back in London and her
+losses paid. That means selling her diamonds.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan laughed over Lady Oxford's straits and came home to the lodging
+in Bury Street. Wogan's time was getting short and he must return to
+Morlaix. But, as has been said, he left Brittany in a hurry with very
+little money in his pocket, and what was left at his journey's end he
+had since spent in London. So he said to the Parson:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George, my friend, I must dip into your winnings after all. For here
+am I with a couple of crowns,' he took them out and laid them on the
+table. George flushed crimson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick,' said he, 'you have two crowns more than I have.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan turned away to the window and looked out into the street,
+bethinking him of what Lady Mary had told him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure, Nick, it's the truth,' Kelly pleaded, entirely miscomprehending
+Wogan's action. 'I drew the money out of the Mississippi and sunk it
+in the South Sea. It's all gone. I have not two penny pieces to rub
+together until this day week, when my pension is paid. Nick, you'll
+believe that. Why, Nick, you would ha' been welcome to all that I had.
+But you know that. Sure you know it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan had no such mean thought as Kelly in his fluster attributed to
+him. He turned back to the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'So you are as poor as an Irish church mouse again, are you?' he said
+with a smile. 'Well, here's two crowns--one for me, one for you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pocketed one coin and pushed the other over to the Parson. The
+Parson took it up and turned it over blinking his eyes. For a moment
+there was an awkward sort of silence. Wogan laughed; the Parson blew
+his nose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I hear,' said Wogan, 'that Lady Oxford has lost her diamonds.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly looked up in perplexity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Lost her diamonds!' said he. 'Why, she wore them last night!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I thought the rumour was untrue,' said Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly slipped his crown into his pocket. There was no more said
+about the matter between them, though perhaps they clasped hands at
+parting with a trifle more than their ordinary heartiness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan, however, told Lady Mary of the Parson's loss, and she was
+at no pains to discover the explanation. Lady Oxford had paid Lady
+Mary with the Parson's guineas. They had never been in the South Sea
+Bubble.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I should like to send the money I won back to Mr. Kelly,' said Lady
+Mary.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That's plainly impossible,' returned Wogan, and to this Lady Mary
+perforce agreed. '<i>Olet</i>,' the Latin-learned lady said, and Wogan
+remarked, 'Certainly,' so she put the money aside, thinking that some
+day she might employ it on Mr. Kelly's behalf. That night Wogan
+borrowed his travelling money from Mr. Carte, the historian, whom he
+met at the Cocoa Tree, and so set out the next morning for Brittany.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_11" href="#div1Ref_11">THE PARSON DEPARTS FROM SMILINDA AND LEARNS
+A NUMBER OF UNPALATABLE TRUTHS</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan then returned to Morlaix, and, finding his ketch by this
+time cleaned and refitted, and two others (the <i>Revolution</i>, a big
+ship of 40 guns, under Morgan, which was afterwards seized by
+Commodore Scot at Genoa, and the <i>Lady Mary</i>, a smaller vessel of 14
+guns, commanded by Captain Patrick Campbell) at anchor in the harbour,
+he set sail for the Downs. There they picked up four thousand small
+arms and a couple of hundred kintals of cannon powder, for traffic, it
+was alleged, on the coasts of Brazil and Madagascar. But the arms and
+ammunition travelled no further than Bilboa, where they were stored in
+the country house of Mr. Brown, an Irish merchant of that part,
+against the next expedition to England. At Bilboa the three ships
+parted, and Mr. Wogan, taking in upon freight such goods as he could
+get, sailed to Genoa, and lay there behind the Mole.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nor was the Parson to tarry long behind him in London; for less than a
+fortnight after Wogan's departure, he was sent to carry to Rome, for
+the Chevalier's approval, a scheme of a lottery for raising a quarter
+of a million pounds, which Mr. Christopher Layer (later hanged) most
+ingeniously imagined. With the scheme he carried some silk stockings
+as a present for the Chevalier and his spouse. This was none of the
+Bishop of Rochester's work, who knew nothing of Mr. Layer, and of what
+was later plotted by bold and impatient spirits. The Parson had sad
+work parting with Smilinda, but made light of the separation to save
+the lady from distress, and she had happily broken a bank at pharo
+that same night, which withheld her from entirely breaking her heart.
+Still, it was as affecting an affair as one could wish for.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson received certain orders of Atterbury's as to business with
+General Dillon, the Chevalier's manager in Paris, just before he was
+to start; and, coming from the Deanery at Westminster where the Bishop
+resided, he walked at once through Petty France to Queen's Square.
+Lady Oxford's house was all in a blaze of light with figures moving to
+and fro upon the blinds of the windows. 'Mr. Johnson' was announced,
+but for some little while could not get a private word with her
+ladyship, and so stood of one side, taking his fill of that perfumed
+world of fans and hoops, of sparkling eyes and patches and false
+hearts wherein Lady Oxford so fitly moved. Many of the faces which
+flitted before his eyes were strange to him, but one he remarked in
+particular--a strong, square sort of face set on the top of an elegant
+figure that wore the uniform of the King's Guards. Mr. Kelly had seen
+that face under the oil-lamp of a portico in Ryder Street on the
+occasion when he and Nicholas Wogan set out on their first journey to
+Brampton Bryan, and the officer who owned the face was now a certain
+Colonel Montague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly remarked him because he was playing at the same table with her
+ladyship, and losing his money to her with all the grace in the world.
+At last Lady Oxford rose, and, coming towards him:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well?' she murmured, 'my Strephon is pale.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I leave for Rome to-morrow morning,' he returned in a whisper. At
+that her hand went up to her heart, and she caught her breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Wait,' said she, and went back to her cards. As the guests were
+departing some two hours later, she called to Kelly openly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Johnson leaves for Paris to-morrow morning, and has the great
+kindness to carry over some of my brocades, which indeed need much
+better repairing than they can get in London.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It made an excuse for Mr. Johnson to stay, but none the less provoked
+a smile here and there; and Colonel Montague, deliberately coming to a
+stop a few paces from Kelly, took careful stock of him. The Colonel
+did not say a word, but just looked him over. Mr. Kelly was tickled by
+the man's impudence, and turned slowly round on his heels to give him
+an opportunity of admiring his back. Then he faced him again. The
+Colonel gravely bowed his thanks for Mr. Kelly's politeness, Mr. Kelly
+as gravely returned the bow, and the Colonel stalked out of the door.
+It was in this way that Mr. Kelly and the Colonel first met.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the moment Smilinda and Strephon were left alone!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh,' wailed Smilinda, and her arms went round Strephon's neck.
+'<i>Heureuse en jeu, malheureuse en amour</i>. O fatal cards, would that I
+had lost this dross!' cries she, with her eyes on the glittering heap
+of guineas and doubloons strewed about the table. 'Oh, Strephon, thou
+wilt forget me in another's arms. I dread the French syrens.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then Mr. Kelly to the same tune:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Never will I forget Smilinda. If I come back with the King, and he
+makes me a Bishop, with a pastoral crook, thy Strephon will still be
+true.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereat the lady laughed, though Kelly was jesting with a heavy heart,
+and vowed that Lady Mary would write a ballad on 'Strephon, or the
+Faithful Bishop.' Then she fell into a story of lovely Mrs. Tusher,
+the Bishop of Ealing's wife, who was certainly more fair than
+faithful. Next she wept again, and so yawned, and gave him her
+portrait in miniature.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You will not part with it--never--never,' she implored.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The portrait was beautifully set with diamonds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It shall be buried with me,' said Kelly, and so Lady Oxford let him
+go, but called him back again when he was through the door to make him
+promise again that he would not part with her portrait. Mr. Kelly
+wondered a little at her insistence, but set it down to the strength
+of her affection. So he departed from the cave of the enchantress with
+many vows of mutual constancy and went to Rome, and from Rome he came
+back to Genoa, where he fell in with Nicholas Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan remembers very well one night on which the pair of them,
+after cracking a bottle in Grimble's tavern, came down to the
+water-gate and were rowed on board of Wogan's ketch. This was in the
+spring of the year 1721, some four or five months since the Parson had
+left England, and Wogan thought it altogether a very suitable occasion
+for what he had to say. He took the Parson down into his cabin, and
+there, while the lamp flecked the mahogany panels with light and
+shade, and the water tinkled against the ship's planks as it swung
+with the tide, he told him all that he had surmised of Lady Oxford's
+character, and how Lady Mary had corroborated his surmises. At the
+first Mr. Kelly would hear nothing of his arguments.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is pure treason,' said he. 'From any other man but you, Nick, I
+would not have listened to more than a word, and that word I would
+have made him eat. But I take it ill even from you. Why do you tell me
+this now? Why did you not tell it me in London, when I could have
+given her ladyship a chance of answering the slander?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why,' replied Wogan, 'because I know very well the answer she would
+have made to you--a few words of no account whatever, and her soft
+arms about your neck, and you'd have been convinced. But now, when you
+have not seen her for so long, there's a chance you may come to your
+senses. Did you never wonder what brought Scrope to Brampton Bryan?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No need for wonder since she told me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She told you, did she? Well, I'm telling you now, and do you sit
+there until I have told you, for Mr. Scrope's history you are going to
+hear. Bah, leave that bodkin of a sword alone. If you draw it, upon my
+soul I'll knock you down and kneel on your chest. Mr. Scrope went
+before you in her ladyship's affections.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here Mr. Kelly flinched as though he had been struck, and thereafter
+sat with a white stern face as though he would not condescend to
+answer the insinuation. 'Sure he was a gentleman--out of
+Leicestershire, and of some fortune, which fortune Lady Oxford spent
+for him. He was besides a sad, pertinacious fellow, and nothing would
+content him but she must elope with him from her old husband, and make
+for themselves a Paradise on the Rhine. It appears that he talked all
+the old nonsense--they were man and wife in the sight of God, and the
+rest of it. Her ladyship was put to it for shifts and excuses, and at
+the last, what with his money being almost spent, and his suit more
+pressing, she fled into the country where we met her. Scrope was no
+better than a kitten before its eyes are opened, and, getting together
+what was left of his fortune, followed her with a chaise, meaning to
+carry her off there and then. However, he found us there, and I take
+it that opened his eyes. And I would have you beware of Mr. Scrope,
+George. A kitten becomes a cat, and a cat has claws. It is Lady Mary's
+thought that you have not heard the last of him, for his conscience
+hath made him a kind of gentleman spy on the honest party.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George, who in spite of himself could not but see how exactly Wogan's
+account fitted in with and explained Scrope's attempt after the
+masquerade, caught at Lady Mary's name with an eager relief.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah, it was she gave you this flimsy story,' he cried, leaning forward
+over the table. 'There's more malice in it than truth, Nick. The pair
+of them have been at loggerheads this long while. Lady Mary never
+could suffer a woman who can hold her own against her. Why, Nick, you
+have been gulled,' and he lit his pipe, which he had let go out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, and have I? Well, at all events, I have not stripped myself of
+every penny in order to pay Lady Oxford's losses at cards. Scrope is
+not the only man whom her ladyship has sucked dry.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What do you mean?' cried Kelly, letting his pipe slip out of his
+fingers and break on the floor. Wogan told him of his visit to Lady
+Mary, and the story was so circumstantial, the dates of the loss at
+cards and the payment so fitted with Lady Oxford's message to Kelly
+and her proposal as to the placing of his fortune, that it could not
+but give him pause.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is not true,' was all he could find to say, and 'I'll not believe
+it,' and so fell to silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You'll be wanting another pipe,' said Wogan. He fetched one from a
+cupboard and filled it. The two men smoked for a while in silence.
+Then Kelly burst out of a sudden:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick, the fool that I was ever to preach that sermon in Dublin,' and
+stopped. Wogan knew well enough what the Parson meant. His thoughts
+had gone back to the little parsonage, and the rambling cure of half a
+dozen parishes, and the quiet library, and evenings by the inn-fire,
+where he would tell his little trivial stories of the day's doings. It
+was always that dream he would play with and fondle when the world
+went wrong with him, though to be sure, could the dream have come
+true, he would have been the unhappiest man that ever breathed Irish
+air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Shall we go on deck?' Wogan proposed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a fine clear night, but there was no moon. The riding-lights of
+ships at anchor were dotted about the harbour, the stars blazed in a
+rich sky; the water rippled black and seemed to flash sparks where the
+lights struck it; outside the harbour the Mediterranean stretched away
+smooth as a slab of marble. Kelly stood in the chains while Wogan
+paced up and down the deck. The Parson was in for his black hour, and
+silent companionship is the only alleviation for the trouble. After a
+time he came towards Wogan and caught him by the arm, but so tight
+that Wogan could feel his friend's finger-nails through the thick
+sleeves of his coat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I'll not believe it,' Kelly argued; but it was against himself he was
+arguing now, as Wogan perceived, and had the discretion to hold his
+tongue. ''Faith,' he continued, 'she came into my life like a glint of
+the sun into a musty dark room,' and then he suddenly put his hand
+into his bosom and drew out something at which he looked for a moment.
+He laughed bitterly and swung his arm back. Before, however, he could
+throw that something into the sea Wogan caught his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure,' said he, 'I saw a sparkle of diamonds.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly opened his hand and showed a miniature.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Lady Oxford's diamonds,' he answered bitterly, 'which she did not
+sell, but gave out of a loving, generous heart.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George, you're moon-struck,' said Wogan. 'Diamonds, after all, are
+always diamonds.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'True,' said Kelly, 'and I promised never to part with them,' he
+sneered. He put the miniature back in his pocket, and then dropping
+his arm to his side said,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Put me ashore, Nick. I will see you to-morrow. I am very tired.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But in the morning he was gone, and a few days later Nick, who was not
+spared certain prickings of conscience for the hand he had taken in
+bringing about the Parson's misfortunes (he had just now, by hindering
+him from throwing away the miniature, taken more of a hand than he
+guessed), sailed out from Genoa.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The rest of that year '21 was a busy time for all engaged in
+forwarding the Great Affair. England itself seemed ripe for the
+attempt, and it was finally determined to hazard it in the spring of
+the next year, when the Elector would be in Hanover. The new plan was
+that the exiled Duke of Ormond, whom the soldiers were thought to
+love, should sail from Spain with the Earl Marischal, Morgan, and
+Halstead, commanding some ragged regiments of Mr. Wogan's countrymen.
+The Duke was to land in the west, the King was to be at Antwerp ready
+to come over, and the young Prince Charles of Wales, who would then be
+not quite two years old, was to be carried to the Highlands. A mob was
+to be in readiness in town, with arms secretly buried; the soldiers
+were expected to declare for High Church and Ormond; and in a word the
+'honest party' was to secure its interest on its own bottom, without
+foreign help, which the English people has never loved. The rich
+lords, but not Bishop Atterbury, knew of the beginning of this scheme,
+but abandoned it. They did not know, or only Lords North and Grey
+knew, that the scheme lived on without them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly therefore had his hands full, and it was very well for him
+that it was so. There were things at stake of more moment than his
+love-affairs, as he was the first to recognise. Yet, even so, he had
+time enough, in the saddle and on the sea, to plumb the black depths
+of his chagrin and to toss to and fro that shuttlecock of a question,
+whether he should accuse her ladyship for her trickeries or himself
+for misdoubting her. However, he got a complete answer to that
+question before the year was out. It was his habit now, whenever he
+was in London, to skulk out of sight and knowledge of Lady Oxford, to
+avoid theatres, routs, drums, and all places where she might be met,
+and Mr. Carte the historian took his place when it was necessary to
+visit Lord Oxford in the country. Mr. Carte had a ready pretence, for
+Lord Oxford kept a great store of old manuscripts concerning the
+history of the country, and these beauties, it is to be feared, came
+somewhat between Mr. Carte and his business, just as her ladyship's
+eyes had come between Mr. Kelly's and his. Accordingly the Parson saw
+little of her ladyship and heard less, since his friends avoided all
+mention of her and he himself asked no questions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Saw little,' and the phrase is intended. For often enough of an
+evening his misery would fetch him out of the coffee houses and lead
+him like a man blindfold to where her ladyship was accustomed to
+visit. There he would stand in the darkness of the street until the
+door opened and Lady Oxford, all smiles and hooped petticoats, would
+trip gaily out to her chair. But very likely habit--the habit of her
+conversation and appearance--had as much to do with this particular
+folly as any despairing passion. How many lovers the wide world over
+fancy they are bemoaning their broken hearts, when they are only
+deploring their broken habits! Well, Mr. Kelly, at all events, took
+the matter <i>au grand sérieux</i>, and so one night saw her ladyship come
+out from the porch of Drury Lane theatre in company with Colonel
+Montague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There is one unprofitable piece of knowledge which a man acquires who
+has ever had a woman make love to him; he knows when that woman is
+making love to someone else. Lady Oxford's modest droop of the head
+when the Colonel spoke, her shy sidelong smile at him, her red lips a
+trifle parted as though his mere presence held her in a pleased
+suspense--all these tokens were familiar to Mr. Kelly as his daily
+bread, and he went home eating his own heart, and nursing a quite
+unjustifiable resentment against Nicholas Wogan for that he ever saved
+the Colonel's life. It did not take Kelly long to discover that his
+suspicions were correct. A few questions to his friends, who for his
+sake had kept silence, and the truth was out. Lady Oxford's constancy
+had lasted precisely seven weeks before the Whig colonel had stepped
+into the Jacobite parson's shoes. Mr. Kelly put his heart beneath his
+heel and now stamped her image out of it. Then he went upon his way,
+and the King's business took him to Avignon.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_12" href="#div1Ref_12">THE PARSON MEETS SCROPE FOR THE THIRD TIME,
+AND WHAT CAME OF THE MEETING</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">It was early in the year 1722 when Mr. Kelly came to <i>la ville
+sonnante</i>, and took a lodging at L'Auberge des Papes in the Rue des
+Trois Faucons. He brought with him a sum of 5,000<i>l</i>. collected in
+England, and this sum he was to hand over to a messenger from the Duke
+of Ormond, who was then at Corunna in Spain, and, what with his
+disbursements in the purchase of arms, and the support of Irish
+troops, was hard put to it for money.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was therefore of the last importance that this sum should come safe
+to Corunna, and so extraordinary precautions were taken to ensure that
+result. The Parson, since he did not know who the messenger might be,
+was to wait every morning between the hours of nine and ten on the
+first bench to the left of the Porte du Rhone in the boulevard outside
+the city walls, until a man should ask him if he had any comfortable
+greeting for Aunt Anne, that being the cant name for the Duke. This
+man was thereafter to prove to Mr. Kelly's satisfaction that he was
+indeed the messenger expected.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, the messenger was delayed in his journey, and so for a week
+George Kelly, having deposited his money with Mr. Philabe, the banker,
+sat every morning on his bench with what patience he might. He came in
+consequence to take particular notice of an oldish man and a rosebud
+of a girl who walked along the boulevard every morning at the time
+that he was waiting. They were accompanied by a French poodle dog, and
+indeed it was the poodle dog which first attracted Mr. Kelly's
+attention to the couple. It has already been said that Mr. Kelly had a
+trick of catching a woman's eyes, though this quality implies no great
+merit. On the other hand he drew dogs and children to him, and that
+implies a very great merit, as you may observe from this, that there
+is never a human being betwixt here and Cathay will admit that dogs
+and children have a dislike for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The poodle dog, then, comes to a halt opposite Mr. Kelly's bench on
+the very first morning that he sat there, cocks his ears, lifts a
+forefoot from the ground, and, looking after the old man and the young
+girl, says plain as print, 'Here, wait a bit! There's something on
+this bench very well worth looking into.' However, his master and
+mistress were in a close conversation and so the poodle puts his foot
+on the ground and trots after them. But the next morning he came up to
+the bench, puts his head of one side to display the fine blue riband
+round his neck, squats on his haunches, and flops a paw on to the
+Parson's knee.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'How d'ye do?' says the Parson politely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I think I'll stretch myself, thank you,' says the poodle, and
+promptly proceeds to do so, using Mr. Kelly's knee as a purchase for
+his paws. He was still engaged upon this exercise when his young
+mistress missed him. She whistled; the poodle looked at the Parson
+with the clearest invitation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Won't you come too?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have not been presented,' replied the Parson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thereupon the girl turned round.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Harlequin,' she called to the dog, and showed Mr. Kelly as sweet a
+face as a young man ever deserved to see. It was fresh and clear as
+the morning dew, with frank eyes and a scarlet bow of a mouth ready
+for a laugh. 'Harlequin!' said Mr. Kelly to himself with a start, as
+he looked towards the girl. Harlequin trotted off to his mistress, and
+got prettily chided for his forwardness, of which chiding he made
+little or no account, and very properly. It is not every dog that
+achieves immortality by stretching itself against a stranger's knee.
+But Harlequin did. For had Harlequin not made Mr. Kelly's
+acquaintance, he would never have found a niche in Mr. Swift's verses.</p>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">
+Now let me tell you plainly, Sir,<br>
+Our witness is a real cur,<br>
+A dog of spirit for his years,<br>
+Has twice two legs, two hanging ears,<br>
+His name is <i>Harlequin</i>, I wot,<br>
+And that's a name in every plot:</p>
+
+<p class="t2" style="letter-spacing:20pt; margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt">* * * * *</p>
+
+<p class="t0">His answers were extremely witty<br>
+Before the secret wise Committee;<br>
+Confest as plain as he could bark,<br>
+Then with his fore-foot left his mark:</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">wrote the Dean of St. Patrick's concerning this very poodle dog of
+Miss Rose Townley.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For Rose Townley was the girl's name, as the Parson now knew, and the
+old gentleman was her father, who had tended Mr. Nicholas Wogan after
+his wounds in the year '15 at Preston. Mr. Wogan had more than once
+spoken to Kelly of Dr. Townley and his daughter Rose, who had retired
+to Avignon, after the Rising, and he had made mention of their poodle
+Harlequin, of which poodle the present or reigning dog, Harlequin II.,
+was the son and heir. So that, hearing the name called out by Rose,
+Kelly was aware who the two people were. Dr. Townley had been
+suspected in the Rising, and therefore had settled at Avignon as
+physician to the Duke of Ormond, and when the nobleman left the town,
+remained because he was grown old, and had lost his taste for politics
+and warrings. He had, moreover, received his pardon for his share in
+the struggle, and was indeed at this very time preparing to return
+into England. But of this Kelly was not aware.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next morning Kelly was again on his bench, and again Dr. Townley
+and his daughter passed him. Harlequin came forward at once to wish
+the Parson good-morning. Rose spoke to her father, plainly telling him
+of Harlequin's new friendship, for the Doctor looked up towards Mr.
+Kelly and the girl looked away. In consequence there sprang up a queer
+sort of acquaintance between the Doctor and his daughter on the one
+hand, and Parson Kelly on the other. Every morning they looked for him
+on his bench; every morning he had a few words with Harlequin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Doubtless he would have pursued the acquaintance further, but for
+Rose. She it was who kept the Parson from approaching Dr. Townley. For
+he was still sore with Lady Oxford's treacheries, and feminine beauty
+was <i>vanitas vanitatum</i> to him. Moreover, though he had snatched her
+ladyship's image out of his heart, some of her sayings had stuck in
+his mind, and amongst her sayings not a few were aimed at girls.
+Smilinda was a woman, and saw a rival in each youthful beauty. 'Girls
+of our time,' she would say with a sneer, 'were very kind, at all
+events, whatever one might think of their looks. And to hear them
+speak of marriage, why one would fancy oneself in the company of rakes
+dressed up like the other sex for a masquerade.' She would gloat over
+the misadventures of poor Mistress Dolly Walpole, the Minister's
+sister, by the hour, she had even written a ballad thereon, 'The
+Dolliad,' and since Mr. Kelly had never had been much in the society
+of young unmarried women, he had insensibly imbibed a deal of
+Smilinda's philosophy upon this head. And so he waited for the
+messenger in silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, upon the fourth day Mr. Philabe the banker sent round for the
+Parson to L'Auberge des Papes, and, when he was come, told him that on
+that morning a man called at the bank with a letter which he gave to a
+clerk. The clerk carried the letter to Mr. Philabe, who opened it. It
+enclosed a second letter superscribed to Mr. George Kelly, and prayed
+the banker to add to the superscription Mr. Kelly's address. This Mr.
+Philabe would not do, but sent out word that he would take care the
+letter came into Kelly's hands. The man, however, who had brought it
+immediately replied that it was of the last importance the letter
+should be delivered at once: otherwise there was no use in delivering
+it at all. If Mr. Philabe would send a messenger at once, well and
+good; if not, would he kindly return the letter forthwith.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This request roused Mr. Philabe's suspicions. For if he sent a
+messenger, as he was prayed to do, the man could follow him, and as
+easily discover the address as if Philabe had written it on the note.
+He replied consequently that neither could he accede to this request,
+but that Mr. Kelly should most certainly have the letter that day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Upon this the man insisted that the letter should be returned to him,
+but the more strenuously he insisted, the stronger became Mr.
+Philabe's suspicions, until he determined not to part with the letter
+at all, and the man finally went away very ill-pleased.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Philabe, as he told this story, handed the letter to Mr. Kelly,
+who broke open the seal, and found nothing but a clean sheet of paper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Little doubt,' said he, 'why the fellow wanted his letter back. It is
+a pure trick to know where I lodge. What was he like?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He wore a travelling-dress,' said Mr. Philabe, 'and a cocked hat.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And very likely a pair of boots,' added Kelly. 'But this tells me
+very little of his looks.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Philabe was a poor hand at a description, and beyond that the man
+had a nose, two eyes, a mouth, two legs, and a pair of arms, Kelly
+learned nothing whatever of his appearance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That very day, however, the mystery was to be made clear. Between
+daylight and dark Mr. Kelly chanced to walk up the narrow Rue St.
+Agricole, and had just come abreast of the broad flight of steps which
+leads upwards to the church, when a man leaped down in front of him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I beg your pardon,' said the Parson politely stepping aside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That is not enough,' said the other, and, turning on his heel, he
+faced Kelly and barred the way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly recognised the voice, recognised the face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah,' cried he, 'Mr. Scrope.' His first feeling was one almost of
+exultation. In the face of his enemy he forgot altogether that there
+was no longer any amorous reason for his enmity. He almost forgot,
+too, what he had heard from Wogan about Mr. Scrope's supposed quality
+as a gentleman spy. 'The third time,' he said with a laugh. 'I
+promised myself the third time.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scrope nodded his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'We are of one mind, then.' He looked up and down the street. It was
+empty from end to end. 'There is a little square terrace at the top of
+these steps, with blank walls upon the two sides, and the church door
+upon the third. The terrace will be very suitable and quiet.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned as he spoke and set a foot upon the lowest step.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'One moment,' said Kelly. During Scrope's words he had reflected.
+Scrope and himself, politics apart, were really in the like case. For
+if he had followed Scrope in her ladyship's caprices, Montague had
+followed him, 'as Amurath to Amurath succeeds.' His enmity quite died
+away, and gave place to something very like a fellow-feeling.
+Moreover, he had to consider the messenger from the Duke of Ormond and
+the 5,000<i>l</i>. in Mr. Philabe's keeping.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'One moment,' he said. Scrope stopped with a sneer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'If you can remain a few days at Avignon,' he continued, 'I shall be
+happy to oblige you in whatever you will. For the moment I have
+duties.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Of course,' interrupted Scrope. 'Duties are wonderful convenient
+things when one's bones are in danger. The pious Æneas knew that very
+well, Mr. Kelly; but then the worthy army-chaplain had not a Scrope
+upon his heels for the best part of a twelvemonth.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh,' cried Kelly, 'then it is you who have followed me.' More than
+once he had heard that his steps were dogged.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Over a wearisome stretch of Europe,' agreed Scrope.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It was you who came to Philabe this morning?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Who else? So, you see, I have been at some pains to come up with you,
+and those duties must wait.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Those duties,' replied Kelly, 'are so urgent that I am in two minds
+whether to take to my heels.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To any man who was acquainted with the Parson this statement would
+have been proof enough that there was all the necessity in the world
+for delay. But then Scrope knew very little of his opponent, and:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am not at all surprised to hear that,' he replied contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly reddened at the sneer, but kept a tight hold upon his
+patience.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Understand me,' said he quietly. 'If I ran away now, I should most
+certainly follow you afterwards, as you have followed me, and when I
+came up with you I should kill you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And understand me,' broke in Scrope. His cold, sneering face suddenly
+lighted up with a fierce passion. 'Neither you will follow me, nor I
+you. We stand face to face, as I have hoped we should until I have
+dreamed the hope true. You have robbed me of what I held most
+precious. You have done worse. You have proved to me that what I held
+most precious was never worth so much as a cracked farthing. That
+morning I came to Brampton Bryan, I came at Lady Oxford's bidding. We
+were to have done with pretences for good and all. Oh, she had
+forgotten, if you will, but if she had forgotten, who made her forget?
+You, Mr. Kelly, the sneaking cuckoo! I would have worn her proudly,
+for all the world to see--the star upon my coat, the scarf across my
+breast. I would have faced my fellows with one arm for her waist, and
+the other for a naked sword to silence their slanders with. Well,
+there's no waist, but there's still the naked sword.' As he spoke,
+with his left hand he jerked his sword out of the scabbard, and caught
+it by the hilt with his right. 'There's still the naked sword,' he
+laughed, with a sort of thrill in the laugh, and made the blade
+whistle through the air. There's still the sword and a vile cuckoo of
+a parson--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That's enough,' cried Kelly, marching to the steps in an anger now
+not a whit less than Scrope's, for there was a certain sting of truth
+in Scrope's abuse which put him to shame; 'more than enough.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No, not more than enough,' said Scrope quietly, and he followed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You want a little more?' said Kelly, who had reflected. 'Very well;
+your heroics may be candid enough, but it is less Mr. Scrope the lover
+and rival than Mr. Scrope, the spy, that I regard with a certain
+misliking.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'<i>Assez</i>, you die!' said Scrope, with a hiss in his voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The space at the top of the steps was a pretty enough spot for their
+purpose. It was open only on the side towards the street, which was
+quite deserted, and raised so high above the pathway that a passer-by
+would see nothing of what was doing. On the other hand, however, the
+light was failing. Scrope was for bringing the encounter to a speedy
+end, and drove at the Parson in an impetuous fury. His sword glittered
+and darted very chill and cold in that grey twilight. He thrust swift
+as a serpent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The blood of the Parson was also up. He had at first regarded Scrope's
+challenge as a pure piece of irony. Why should two men fight for a
+hilding who had equally jilted and cheated the pair? That had been
+George's first thought; but now his rapier was drawn for the Cause,
+and to rid it of a dangerous enemy. Scrope was probably on the track
+of Ormond and the gold, as well as on that of his rival.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson was as brave as steel, but (though he never knew it) was no
+true master of the play. The men rushed at each other; their swords
+were locked, they were breast to breast; George wrenched his blade
+free, leaped back to get his distance, struck his heel against a
+cobble, and the next moment he felt Scrope's blade burn into his side.
+Kelly clasped his hand over the wound, and sank on to the ground. The
+blood came through between his fingers; he snatched the cravat from
+his neck, and made a poor shift to bandage it about his body. The one
+thought in his mind was of the Duke of Ormond's messenger. Perhaps the
+very next morning he might come to Avignon and find no one on the
+bench.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A surgeon,' he whispered to Scrope, saving his breath. Scrope was
+quietly wiping his sword, and made no reply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A surgeon,' repeated Kelly. 'I must live.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Or die,' said Scrope carelessly. He pulled on his coat, and came
+close to Kelly. Then he suddenly felt in his pockets.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' he said, with an air of disappointment. 'I was hoping that I had
+a copy of Virgil wherewith to soothe your last moments. Shall I take a
+message to her ladyship?' He picked up his hat. 'Or shall I ask Mr.
+Nicholas Wogan to write a ballad--&quot;Strephon's Farewell to his
+Smilinda&quot;? Mr. Wogan would, I think, be extremely amusing with so
+pathetical a subject for his Muse. Well, it grows late. You will, no
+doubt, excuse me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He made a bow to the Parson, clapped his hat on his head, and walked,
+whistling to the steps. He stopped when he had descended a couple of
+them, and, turning, shook his head thoughtfully at Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But I am grieved I have no Virgil,' he said, and so disappeared below
+the level of the terrace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly listened till the sound of his feet died slowly down the street.
+Then he began to drag himself painfully upon his knees towards the
+steps. He did not dare to get to his feet, lest his blood should flow
+faster from his wound. He did not dare to shout. He crawled forward
+over the flags for miles, it seemed; then the knot of the bandage got
+loose, and a great faintness came over him. With fumbling fingers he
+re-tied the knot; the flags began to heave before his eyes like waves
+of the sea, the silence roared in his ears. He looked upwards, and a
+spinning procession of houses and churches turned him giddy. He sank
+down on his side, and then he was aware of something wet that rasped
+along his hand. He looked down. There was a joyous little bark, and
+the something wet rasped along his check.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Harlequin!' he thought, with a pang of hope. He summoned all his
+strength, all his will; the houses ceased to spin. He let himself down
+to his full length, with great care drew a scrap from one pocket, a
+pencil from the other, and laboriously wrote. Then he poked the paper
+underneath the ribbon round the poodle's neck. 'Home!' he cried,
+clapping his hands; and fainted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But ten minutes afterwards Miss Rose Townley unfolded a slip of paper,
+with here and there the mark of a bloody thumb, and written on it
+these words, 'Help Harlequin's friend'; and at her feet a bright-eyed
+poodle dog stood, wagging his tail, ready to conduct her to the spot
+where Harlequin's friend lay in sore need.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_13" href="#div1Ref_13">OF THE ROSE AND THE ROSE-GARDEN IN AVIGNON.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Life is not wholly the lopsided business that some would have you
+esteem it. Here was the Parson paying, with a sword-thrust of the
+first quality, for a love-affair that was dead already; over and
+ended. That was bad, but, to balance his accounts, the Parson waked up
+from his swoon in Dr. Townley's house, with the Doctor's beautiful
+daughter, Rose, to be his nurse-tender. Lady Oxford had caused his
+duel with Scrope, to be sure, but she had thereby, as it were, cast
+him straight into the girl's arms, and in that very condition which
+was likely to make her most tender to him. Carry the conceit a little
+farther, and you'll see that here was Mr. Kelly, through her
+ladyship's behaviours, imprisoned in the hands of one of those very
+creatures which she was ever persuading him to avoid: namely, that
+terrible monster a girl, and she very young, frank, and beautiful.
+When the Parson came to his senses, he called Dr. Townley to his side,
+and telling him who he was, and how that, being a friend of Mr.
+Wogan's, he knew the doctor from hearing his daughter call the dog
+Harlequin, he continued:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You were at Preston with my friend, and I therefore have the less
+reluctance in asking a service of you beyond those you have already
+done me;' and he began to tell the Doctor of the expected messenger
+from Spain whom he was to meet on the boulevard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the Doctor interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Wogan is indeed my friend, though I have seen nothing of him
+these past six years; and his name is a passport into our friendship,
+as my daughter will assure you. So, Mr. Kelly, such kindness and
+hospitality as we can show you you may count upon; but--well, I had my
+surfeit of politics at Preston. I have no longer any faith in your
+cause, in your King. I do not think that he will come before the
+coming of the Coquecigrues. I am, indeed, leaving Avignon in a few
+months, and hope for nothing better than a peaceful life in some
+village of my own country under the King who now sits on the throne.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This he said very kindly, but with a certain solemnity which quite
+closed Mr. Kelly's lips; and so, giving him a sleeping potion, the
+Doctor left the room. In spite of the potion, however, the Parson
+made but a restless night of it, and more than once from under his
+half-closed lids he saw the doctor come to his bedside; but towards
+morning he fell into something of a sleep and woke up in the broad
+daylight with a start, as a man will who has something on his mind. In
+a minute or two Mr. Kelly remembered what that something was. He got
+out of his bed, and, holding the door open, listened. There was no
+sound audible at all except the ticking of a clock in the parlour
+below. Mr. Kelly drew on his clothes carefully, so as not to disarrange
+the bandages of his wound, and, taking his shoes in his hand, crept
+down the stairs. It was a slow, painful business, and more than once he
+had to sit down on the steps and rest. He glanced into the parlour as
+he passed, and saw, to his great relief, that it was only half past
+eight in the morning. What with fomentations and bandages Mr. Kelly
+had kept the tiny household out of bed to a late hour, and so no one
+was astir. He drew back the bolt and slipped out of the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Half an hour later, Dr. Townley came into the bedroom and found it
+empty. He scratched his head to ease his perplexity, and then wisely
+took counsel with his daughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There was a man he expected to come for him,' he said. 'He was very
+urgent last night that I should see to it. But I cut him short, and so
+do not know where they were to meet with each other.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At that moment the clock in the parlour struck nine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I know!' cried Rose on a sudden, and dragged her father off to the
+boulevard outside the Porte du Rhone, where they discovered Mr. Kelly
+sitting bolt upright on his bench, with a flushed red face and
+extraordinarily bright eyes, chattering to himself like a monkey.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson lay for a week after that at death's door, and it needed
+all Dr. Townley's skill and Rose's nursing to keep him out of the
+grave. Meanwhile the Duke of Ormond's messenger arrived from Corunna,
+and kicked his heels on the boulevard until Mr. Kelly recovered his
+senses and summoned Mr. Philabe to his aid. Mr. Philabe the next
+morning took Kelly's place on the bench, and that day the money
+changed hands and the messenger started back post-haste to Corunna. At
+Corunna he told the story of the Parson's misfortune in more than one
+café, and so it came shortly to Wogan's ears, who put in with his ship
+at that port in order to give up his command.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The reason for this change in Wogan's condition was simple enough.
+Sufficient arms and ammunition had now been collected at Bilboa, and
+it was become urgent that the plans for the rising of the soldiers in
+England, and the capture of the Tower of London, should be taken
+earnestly in hand. The Duke of Ormond, who was to land in the West,
+was supposed a great favourite with the English troops, but it was
+none the less necessary that their favour should be properly directed.
+To that end Mr. Talbot, Tyrell, and Nicholas Wogan, amongst others,
+were deputed to travel into England, ready for the moment of striking.
+Nick was to have the rank of a colonel, and was bidden to repair to
+Paris by a certain date, where he was to take his instructions from
+General Dillon and the Earl of Mar. Now that date gave him half a week
+or so of leisure, and he knew of no better use to which he could put
+it than in stopping at Avignon, which lay directly in his path to
+Paris.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But before he reached the olives of Provence Mr. Kelly was
+convalescent and much had happened. How it had happened Mr. Wogan only
+discovered by hints which the Parson let slip unconsciously. For
+George had a complete distaste for the sensibilities, and, after all,
+a true man, even in the company of his closest friend, never does more
+than touch lightly upon the fringe of what he holds most sacred. He
+said that he was recovered of two fevers at one and the same time, and
+by the same ministering hands, and so was come forth into a sweet,
+cool life and a quiet air. His affairs, whether of stocks in the
+Mississippi scheme or of the Great Business, went clean out of his
+mind. His heart was swept and garnished like the man's in the Parable,
+and almost unawares a woman opened the door and stepped in, bringing
+with her train seven virtues, as of modesty, innocence, faith,
+cheerfulness, youth, courage, and love--qualities no better nor no
+fairer than herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How did it begin? Why, at the first there would be a smiling face at
+the doorway to wish him a good morning, or if he had slept ill a sweet
+look of anxious fear which would make up for a dozen sleepless nights.
+When he could get up from his bed and come into the parlour, the dog
+Harlequin, and Rose, and he became children and playfellows together,
+for the brute had been taught a hundred pretty tricks that would make
+a dying man laugh; until at length the girl grew familiar, and was
+seated at the very hearth and centre of his affections, where her
+memory remains enshrined.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly spoke frankly of the matter only once in Mr. Wogan's
+hearing, and that was many years afterwards, and then he was not
+speaking of the matter at all. It was Lady Mary Wortley who set him on
+to it one night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For she quoted a saying of some sage or another. 'In a man,' said she,
+'desire begets love, and in a woman love begets desire.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And that is true,' said Kelly. 'I do think the steadfast and
+honourable passions between our sex and women are apt to have their
+beginnings on the woman's side, and then, being perceived and most
+gratefully welcomed, light up as pure a flame in the heart of a man.
+For otherwise, if a man sees a woman that she is fair, as King David
+saw Bathsheba, and so covets her, his appetite may in the end turn to
+love or may not. But if his eyes are first opened to an innocent
+woman's love, he being at best a sinful creature, he is then stirred
+with a wonderful amazement of grateful tenderness which never can pass
+away, but must endure, as I hold, even after death.' Which was all
+very modish and philosophical, and meant--well, just what anyone who
+had visited Avignon in February of the year '22 might have seen with
+half an eye. Rose was in love with the Parson and the Parson knew it,
+and so fell in love with Rose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan reached Avignon in the afternoon. The Doctor's house stood a
+stone's throw from the Palace of the Emperor Constantine, with a
+little garden at the back which ran down to the city wall. The top of
+the wall was laid out as a walk with a chair or two, and there Wogan
+found the Parson and Rose Townley. It was five years and more since
+Wogan had seen Rose Townley, and she was grown from a child to a
+woman. He paid her a foolish compliment, and then the three of them
+fell into an awkward silence. Mr. Wogan asked Kelly for a history of
+his wound, and then:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'So 'twas Scrope. Lady Mary was right when she warned me we had not
+seen the last of him. 'Faith, George, it was my fault. For, d'ye see,
+if I had not been so fond of my poetry I should have made my account
+with the gentleman at the gates of Brampton Bryan Manor, and you would
+never have been troubled with him at all.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Brampton Bryan?&quot; asked Rose. &quot;Where is that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly made no answer, and perhaps Wogan's remark was not the
+discreetest in the world. Miss Rose would not forget that name,
+Brampton Bryan. At all events, the three of them fell to silence once
+more, and Mr. Wogan knew that he was trespassing and that he would
+have done better to have journeyed straight to Paris. Rose, however,
+came to the rescue and made him tell over again, as he had told her
+often before, his stories of the march to Preston. But, whereas before
+she had listened to them with a great enthusiasm and an eagerness for
+more, now her colour came and went as though they frightened her, and
+she would glance with a quick apprehension towards the Parson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And the battles are to be fought all over again,' she said, clasping
+her hands on her knees, and then plied Wogan for more details. She
+shivered at the thought of wounds and cannon-balls and swords, yet she
+must know to the very last word all that was to be described of them.
+So, until the sun sank behind the low green hills of the Cevennes, and
+the Rhone at their feet, in that land of olives, took on a pure olive
+tint. Then she rose and went into the house to prepare the supper,
+leaving the two friends together; and it presently appeared that Rose
+Townley was not the only one who was frightened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson watched her as she went down the garden, brushing the pink
+blossoms from the boughs of a peach tree or two that grew on the lawn.
+There was an old moss-grown stone sundial close to the house; she
+paused for a moment beside it to pick up a scarf which was laid on the
+top and so passed through the window, whence in a moment or two a
+lamp-light shone. The Parson seemed sunk in a reverie.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am afraid, Nick,' he said slowly. 'I am afraid.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What! You too?' exclaimed Wogan. 'Afraid of the wars?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The wars--no, no,' replied Kelly scornfully dismissing the
+interpretation of his fears, and then following out his own train of
+thoughts, 'you have known her a long time, Nick?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Six years.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I would that I too had known her six years ago,' said the Parson with
+a remorseful sigh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She has changed in those six years.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'How?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why, she has grown a foot, and grown a trifle shy.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah, but that's only since--' began the Parson with a nod, and came to
+a sudden stop. Rose's shyness was the outcome of her pride. She was
+shy just because she knew that she loved a man who had breathed no
+word of love to her. Mr. Kelly sat for a little longer in silence.
+Then,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But I am afraid, Nick,' he repeated, and so went down into the house
+leaving Nick in some doubt as to what he was afraid of.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson repeated his remark the next morning after breakfast. Mr.
+Wogan was smoking a pipe upon the wall; the Parson was walking
+restlessly about as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am afraid,' said he, and looks towards the house. As soon as he
+looked, he started. So Wogan looked too. Rose Townley had just come
+from the window and was walking across the lawn more or less towards
+them with an infinite interest and attention for everything except the
+two figures on the city wall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She comes slowly,' said Kelly in a great trepidation, as though he
+had screwed up his courage till it snapped like a fiddle-string. 'She
+is lost in thought. No doubt she would not be disturbed,' and he
+glanced around him for means of escape. There was, however, only one
+flight of narrow steps from the wall down to the garden; and if he
+descended that he would be going to meet her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan laughed. 'She comes very slowly,' said he. 'No doubt she saw you
+from the window.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is plain she did not,' replied the Parson, 'for, as you say, she
+comes very slowly.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The vanity of the creature!' cried Wogan. 'D'ye think if she saw you
+she would run at you and butt you in the chest with her head?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' says Kelly quickly. 'I do not. But--well, if she saw us here she
+would at the least look this way.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Would she?' asked Wogan. ''Faith, my friend, you'll have to go to
+school again. Your ignorance of the ways of women is purely
+miraculous. She does not look this way, therefore she does not know
+you are here! She looks to every other quarter; observe, she stops and
+gazes at nothing with the keenest absorption, but she will not look
+this way. Oh, indeed, indeed, my simple logician, she does not know
+you are here. Again she comes on--in this direction, you'll observe,
+but how carelessly, as though her pretty feet knew nothing of the path
+they take. See, she stops at the dial. Mark how earnestly she bends
+over it. There's a great deal to observe in a dial. One might think it
+was a clock and, like herself, had stopped. There's a peach tree she's
+coming to. A peach tree in blossom. I'll wager you she'll find
+something very strange in those blossoms to delay her. There, she
+lifts them, smells them--there's a fine perfume in peach blossoms--she
+peers into them, holds them away, holds them near. One might fancy
+they are the first peach blossoms that ever blossomed in the world.
+Now she comes on again just as carelessly, but perhaps the
+carelessness is a thought too careful, eh? However, she does not look
+this way. Watch for her surprise, my friend, when she can't but see
+you. She will be startled, positively startled. Oh, she does not know
+you are here.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl walked to the steps, mounted them, her face rose above the
+level of the wall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh,' she cried, 'Mr. Kelly!' in an extremity of astonishment. Wogan
+burst out into a laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What is it?' asked Rose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure, Mr. Kelly will tell you,' said Wogan, and he strolled to the
+end of the walk, turned, walked down the steps and so left them
+together.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What was it amused Mr. Wogan?' asked Rose of Kelly as soon as Wogan
+had vanished. The Parson left the question unanswered. He balanced
+himself on one foot for a bit then on the other, and he began at the
+end, as many a man has done before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I can bring you nothing but myself,' said he, 'and to be sure myself
+has battered about the world until it's not worth sweeping out of your
+window.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then I won't,' said she with a laugh. The laugh trembled a little,
+and she looked out over the river and the fields of Provence with eyes
+which matched the morning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You won't!' he repeated, and then blundered on in a voice of intense
+commiseration. 'My dear, I know you love me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not precisely what Rose expected to hear, and she turned
+towards the Parson with a look of pride. 'And of course I love you
+too,' he said lamely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You might almost have begun with that,' said she with a smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Was there need?' he asked. 'Since I thought every blade of grass in
+your garden was aware of it.' Then he stood for a second silent.
+'Rose,' said he, savouring the name, and again 'Rose,' with a happy
+sort of laugh. But he moved no nearer to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Rose began to smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am glad,' said she demurely, 'that you find the name to your
+liking.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is the prettiest name in the world,' cried he with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am much beholden to my parents,' said she.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But, my dear,' he continued, 'you put it to shame.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl uttered a sigh which meant 'At last!' but Mr. Kelly was in
+that perturbation that he altogether misunderstood it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But you mustn't believe, my dear, it's for your looks I love you,' he
+said earnestly. 'No, it's for your self; it's for the shining
+perfections of your nature. Sure I have seen good-looking women before
+to-day.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have no doubt of that,' she said, tapping with her foot on the
+pavement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes, I have,' said he. 'But when I looked at them 'twas to note the
+colour of their eyes or some such triviality, whereas when I look at
+your eyes, it's as though a smiling heart leaned out of them as from a
+window and said, &quot;How d'ye do?&quot; Sure, my dear, I should love you no
+less if you had another guess nose, and green eyes.' (He reflectively
+deformed her features.) 'It's your shining perfections that I am on my
+knees to.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Are you?' she interrupted with a touch of plaintiveness. He was
+standing like a wooden post and there was at the least a couple of
+yards between them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Just your shining perfections. 'Faith, you have the most
+extraordinary charm without any perversity whatever, which is a pure
+miracle. I am not denying,' he continued thoughtfully, 'that there's
+something taking in perversity when it is altogether natural, but, to
+be sure, most women practise it as though it were one of the fine
+arts, and then it's nothing short of damnable--I beg your pardon,' he
+exclaimed waking up of a sudden. 'Indeed, but I don't know what I am
+saying at all. Rose,' and he stepped over to her, 'I have no prospects
+whatever in the world, but will you take them?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Well, she did. Mr. Kelly had come to his meaning in a roundabout
+fashion enough, as he acknowledged that same day to Nicholas Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Upon my conscience, but I made a blundering ass of myself,' said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You would,' said Wogan. 'My dear man, why didn't you tell me of your
+intention and I would have written you out a fine sort of speech that
+you could have got by heart?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure I should have stammered over the first sentence and forgot the
+rest,' said Kelly with a shake of the head. 'To tell the truth, the
+little girl has sunk me to such a depth of humility and diffidence
+that I find it wonderful I said anything at all.' Then he grew silent
+for a minute or so. 'Nick,' said he secretly, drawing his chair a
+trifle closer. 'There's a question troubles me. D'ye think I should
+tell her of My Lady Oxford?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It would be entirely superfluous,' replied Wogan with decision,
+'since the thing's done with.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But is it?' asked Kelly. 'Is it, Nick? Look you here. We thought it
+was done with a year ago, and up springs Mr. Scrope at Avignon. Mr.
+Scrope does his work and there's not the end of it. For I am carried
+here and so my very betrothal is another consequence. It is as though
+her ladyship had presented me to Rose. Well, how are we to know it's
+done with now? If it ends here it is very well. But, d'ye see, Nick,
+it was after all not the most honourable business in the world, and am
+I to make this great profit out of it? Well, perhaps my fears confuse
+my judgment. I am all fears to-day, Nick,' and he stopped for a moment
+and clapped his hand into his pocket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I'll confess to you a very childish thing,' said he. 'Look!' and out
+of his pocket he drew a pistol.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What's that for?' asked Nick.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It's loaded,' replied Kelly. 'I went up to my room, after the little
+girl had taken me, and loaded it and slipped it into my pocket,' and
+he began to laugh, perhaps something awkwardly. 'For, you see, since
+she prizes me, why I am grown altogether valuable.' He put back the
+pistol in his pocket. 'But don't misunderstand me, Nick. The new fears
+are quite overbalanced by a new confidence. Sure, it's not the future
+I am afraid of.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I understand,' said Wogan gravely. 'It's what's to come.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes, that's it,' said Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Being afraid, and being a man of honour, Kelly did nothing, said
+nothing on the head of his old love affair, and trembled with
+apprehension of he knew not very well what. A path of flowers
+stretched before him, but a shadow walked on it, a tall, handsome
+shadow, yet unfriendly. It is Mr. Wogan's firm belief, based on
+experience, that a woman always finds everything out. The only
+questions are, when, and how will she take it? Sometimes it is a
+letter in the pocket of an old coat which the dear charitable creature
+is giving to a poor devil of a chairman. Sometimes it is a glance at a
+rout, which she shoots flying. Now it is a trinket, or a dead flower
+in a book, or a line marked in a poem, but there is always a trail of
+the past, and woman never misses it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George's wooing seemed as flowery as the meadows about Avignon, white
+with fragrant narcissus, or as the gardens purple with Judas trees in
+spring. Rose was all <i>parfait amour</i>, and, in her eyes, Mr. Kelly was
+a hero, a clerical Montrose, or a Dundee of singular piety. Wogan has
+known women more zealous for the Cause, such as her Grace of
+Buckingham, or Madame de Mézières, who had ever a private plot of her
+own running through the legs of our schemes, like a little dog at a
+rout, and tripping us up. To Miss Townley George was the Cause, and
+the Cause was George, so that, in truth, she was less of a Jacobite
+than a Georgite.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There never had been such a George as hers for dragons. Why did he
+fight Mr. Scrope? She was certain it was all for the Cause! Indeed,
+that <i>casus belli</i>, as the lawyers say, proved a puzzle. Why, in fact,
+did the Parson come to be lying on the flags, in receipt of a
+sword-thrust of the first quality? George was the last man to brag of
+his services, but he was merely obliged to put the sword-thrust down
+to his credit with the Cause. His enemy had been a Whig, a dangerous
+spy, which was true, but not exactly all the truth, about as much of
+it as a man finds good for a woman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Rose clasped her hands, raised her eyes to Heaven, and wondered that
+it did not better protect the Right. What other deeds of arms had her
+warrior done? She hung on George imploring him to speak of deadly
+'scapes, and of everything that it terrified her to hear. Mr. Kelly,
+in fact, had never drawn sword in anger before; he was, by profession,
+a man of peace and of the pen. If ever he indulged a personal
+ambition, it would have been for a snug Irish deanery, and he
+communicated to Miss Townley a part of his favourite scheme, for
+leisure, a rose-hung parsonage, and Tully, his Roman friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the girl put this down to his inveterate modesty, remarked by all
+Europe in his countrymen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nay, I <i>know</i> you have done more,' she said one day alone with him in
+a bower of the garden. 'You have done something very brave and very
+great, beyond others. You helped to free the Queen from the Emperor's
+prison at Innspruck!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I!' exclaimed Mr. Kelly in amazement. 'What put that notion into the
+prettiest head in the world? Why, it was Nicholas's brother Charles,
+with other Irish gentlemen, Gaydon, Misset, and O'Toole, who did that
+feat; the world rings of it. I was in Paris at that time.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then you did something greater and braver yet, that is a secret for
+State reasons, or else, why does the King give you such rich
+presents?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly blushed as red as the flower after which his lady was named.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Now,' he thought, 'how, in the name of the devil, did she hear of the
+box the King gave me, and I gave to Lady Oxford?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That trinket was lying on Lady Oxford's table, but the face behind the
+mirror was now that of a handsomer man than either his Majesty, or Mr.
+Kelly, or Colonel Montague. Kelly knew nothing about that, but he
+blushed beautifully when Miss Townley spoke of a rich royal present.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You blush,' cried the girl, before he could find an answer. 'I know
+you are hiding something, now.' (And here she added to his pleasure
+without taking anything from his confusion), 'Tell me why you blush to
+find it fame?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Troth, isn't my face a mirror, and reflects your rosy one, my Rose?'
+answered Mr. Kelly, putting on a great deal of the brogue, to make her
+laugh. For, if a woman laughs, she is apt to lose sight of her idea.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I must be told; I cannot trust you to show me how brave you are.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly was upon dangerous ground. If he was expected to talk about
+the box given by the King, and if Rose wished to see, or to know what
+had become of it, Kelly had not a fable ready, and the truth he could
+not tell. He made a lame explanation:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, then, I blushed, if I did, for shame that the King has to
+borrow money to help better men than me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I don't care if he borrowed the money or not, for he could not have
+borrowed for a better purpose than to give you--what I have seen.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly was pale enough now. What in the wide world had she seen?
+Certainly not the snuffbox.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Seen in a dream, my dear; sure the King never gave me anything but my
+little pension.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then you know other kings, for who else give diamonds? Ah, you are
+caught! You have the Queen's portrait set with diamonds.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The Queen's portrait?' cried Kelly in perplexity. He was comforted as
+well as perplexed. 'Twas plain that Rose knew nothing of the royal
+snuffbox, now the spoil of Lady Oxford's spear and bow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes,' cried Rose. 'Whose portrait but the Queen's should it be that
+lies on your table? So beautiful a lady and such diamonds!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly groaned in spirit. The snuff-box was not near so dangerous
+as this new trail that Rose had hit. She had seen, in his possession,
+the miniature of Smilinda, and had guessed that it was a royal gift;
+the likeness of the Princess Clementina Sobieska, who had but lately
+married the King.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I saw it lying on your table the day we brought you home from the
+seat on the boulevard, when we thought'(here Miss Rose hid her face on
+her lover's shoulder, and her voice broke) 'that--you--would--die.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now was this rose wet with a shower, and when Kelly, like the glorious
+sun in heaven, had dried these pretty petals, what (Mr. Wogan puts it
+to the casuists) was the dear man to say? What he thought was to curse
+Nick for holding his hand when he was about throwing Smilinda's
+picture into the sea.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What he said was that, under Heaven, but without great personal
+danger, he had been the blessed means of detecting and defeating a
+wicked Hanoverian plot to kidnap and carry off from Rome the dear
+little Prince of Wales, and Mrs. Hughes, his Welsh nurse. This
+prodigious fable George based on one of the many flying stories of the
+time. It satisfied Miss Townley's curiosity (as, indeed, it was very
+apt to do) and George gave her the strictest orders never to breathe a
+word of the circumstance, which must be reckoned a sacred mystery of
+the royal family. He also remarked that the portrait flattered her
+Majesty (as painters will do), and that, though extremely pretty and
+gay, she had not that air of dignity and command, nor was so dark a
+beauty. 'In fact, my dear,' said George, 'you might wear that portrait
+at the Elector's Birth Night rout (if you could fall so low) and few
+people would be much the wiser. These Roman painters are satisfied
+with making a sitter pretty enough to please her, or him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George was driven to this flagrant incorrectness because, though Miss
+Townley had not yet seen the Queen's portrait (her father having
+changed sides) she might see one any day, and find Mr. Kelly out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl was satisfied, and the thing went by, for the time. But, on
+later occasions, his conscience gnawing him, the good George very
+unwisely dropped out general hints of the unworthiness of his sex, and
+of himself in particular, as many an honest fellow has done. In Mr.
+Wogan's opinion, bygones ought to be bygones, but it takes two to that
+bargain. Meanwhile Miss Rose might make as much or as little of her
+lover's penitences as she chose, and, indeed, being a lass of gold,
+with a sense of honour not universal in her sex, and perfectly sure of
+him, she made nothing whatever, nor thought at all of the matter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But there was another dragon in the course that never yet ran smooth.
+The excellent surgeon, who had not recovered the fright of Preston,
+was obdurate. He had no dislike for Mr. Kelly, but a very great
+distaste for Mr. Kelly's Cause. Rose might coax, the Parson might
+argue, Wogan might use all his blandishments--the good man was iron.
+In brief, Kelly must cease to serve the King, or cease to hope for
+Rose. This was a hard choice, for indeed Mr. Kelly could not in honour
+leave hold of the threads of the plot which were then in his hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So much Dr. Townley was at last brought to acknowledge, and thereupon
+a compromise was come to. Mr. Kelly was to go over to England once
+again, on the last chance. The blow was to be struck in this spring of
+the year 1722. If it failed, or could not be struck, Mr. Kelly was to
+withdraw from the King's affairs and earn his living by writing for
+the booksellers, and instructing youth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson was the more ready to agree to this delay, because of a
+circumstance with which he was now acquainted. The Doctor and his
+daughter were themselves on the point of returning to England. Mr.
+Kelly and Rose had no great difficulty in persuading the surgeon that
+he would find it more convenient to live in London than in the
+country, of the miseries of which they drew a very pathetic and
+convincing picture; and so, being assured that the delay would not
+mean a complete separation, they accepted the plan and fell to mapping
+out their lives.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They chose the sort of house they would live in and where, whether in
+Paris or in England: they furnished it from roof to cellar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There must be a room for Nick,' said the Parson, 'so that he can come
+in and out as if to his own house.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan had borne his part in persuading Dr. Townley, without a
+thought of the great change which the Parson's marriage meant for him.
+But these words, and the girl's assent, and above all a certain
+unconscious patronage in their voices, struck the truth into him with
+something of a shock.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan escaped from the room, and walked about in the garden. These
+two men, you are to understand, had been boys together, George being
+by some years the older, and had quarrelled and fought and made
+friends again twenty times in a day. Mr. Kelly bore, and would bear
+till his dying day, a little scar on his cheek close to his ear, where
+he was hit by a mallet which Wogan heaved at him one day that he was
+vexed. Wogan never noticed that scar but a certain pleasurable
+tenderness came over him. His friendship with the Parson had been, as
+it were, the heart of his boyhood. And in after years it had waxed
+rather than diminished. The pair of them could sit one on each side of
+a fire in perfect silence for an hour together, and yet converse
+intelligibly to each other all the while. Well, here was Mr. Wogan
+alone in the darkness of the little garden at Avignon now. The Rhone
+looked very cold beneath the stars, and the fields entirely desolate
+and cheerless. Yet he gazed that way persistently, for if he turned
+his head toward the house he saw a bright window across which the
+curtains were not drawn, and a girl's fair hair shining gold against a
+man's black periwig. Mr. Wogan had enough sense to strangle his
+jealousy that night, and was heartily ashamed of it the next morning
+when he bade the couple good-bye and set out for Paris.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly took his leave a few days later, being now sufficiently
+recovered to travel. The precise date was the eighth of April. To part
+from Rose you may well believe was a totally different matter from his
+adieus to Smilinda. Nothing would serve the poor girl, who had no
+miniature and diamonds to give, but to sacrifice what she prized most
+in the world after her father and her lover.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You cannot take me,' she said with a tearful little laugh, 'but you
+shall take Harlequin, who made us acquainted. That way you will not be
+altogether alone.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harlequin wagged his tail, and sat up on his hind legs as though he
+thoroughly approved of the proposal, and Mr. Kelly, to whom the poodle
+could not but be an inconvenience, had not the heart to refuse the
+gift.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George had to give as well as to take, and felt even less blessed in
+giving than in receiving. For Miss Rose must have a souvenir of him,
+too, and what should it be but that inestimable testimony to her
+lover's loyalty and courage, the Portrait of the Queen! There was no
+way of escape, and thus, as a memorial of Mr. Kelly's singular
+attachment to the best of Causes and of Queens, Miss Townley was
+treasuring the likeness of the incomparable Smilinda. The ladies, in
+the nature of things, could never meet, George reckoned, for the
+daughter of the exiled country physician would not appear among the
+London fashionables.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In Paris, on his road to London, Mr. Kelly visited the Duke of Mar,
+who most unfortunately took notice of the dog, and asked him what he
+purposed to do with it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My Lord,' replied Kelly, 'when I am on my jaunts Harlequin will find
+a home with the Bishop of Rochester, whose wife has a great liking for
+dogs. The poor lady is ill, and, alas, near to her death; the Bishop
+is fretting under the gout, and his wife's sickness, and the
+jealousies among the King's friends. Moreover, he is much occupied
+with building his tomb in the Abbey, so that, altogether, their house
+is of the gloomiest, and Harlequin may do something to lighten it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the poodle had more accomplishments than any dog that ever the
+Parson had met with, and this he demonstrated to the Duke of Mar by
+putting him through his tricks. The Duke laughed heartily, and
+commended the Parson's kindliness towards his patron. But in truth the
+Parson never did a worse day's work in the whole of his life.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_14" href="#div1Ref_14">OF THE GREAT CONFUSION PRODUCED BY A BALLAD
+AND A DRUNKEN CROW</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">From this time until Saturday, May 19, the world seemed to go very
+well for those concerned in the Bishop of Rochester's plot, which was
+a waiting plot; and in the other scheme, the scheme for an immediate
+rising, which was a hurrying scheme, and not at all known to the good
+Bishop. There was a comforting air of discontent abroad; the losses
+from the South Sea made minds heavy and purses light. Mr. Walpole had
+smoked nothing of what was forward, so far as a man could see; and
+within a month the country was to rise. Mr. Wogan from Paris travelled
+to Havre-de-Grace, whence James Roche, an Irishman, settled in that
+port, and a noted smuggler upon the English coast, set him across the
+Channel, and put him ashore at the Three Sheds and Torbay near
+Elephant Stairs in Rotherhithe. Mr. Wogan took his old name of Hilton,
+and went about his business, paying a visit now and again to the Cocoa
+Tree, where amongst other gossip he heard that Lady Oxford was still
+on the worst of friendly terms with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and the
+best of loving terms with Colonel Montague. There was more than one
+jest aimed at Mr. Kelly on this last account, since a man who has been
+fooled by a woman is ever a fair mark for ridicule; and when James
+Talbot began to talk of the Parson with a mock pity, Wogan could no
+longer endure it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure your compassion is all pure waste, Crow,' said he. 'I could tell
+you a very pretty tale about the Parson were I so minded.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of course he <i>was</i> minded, and he told the story of the Parson's
+betrothal with a good many embellishments. He drew so tender a picture
+of Rose, that he became near to weeping over it himself; he clothed
+her in high qualities as in a shining garment, and you may be sure he
+did not spare Lady Oxford in the comparison. On the contrary, he came
+very near to hinting that it was the Parson jilted Lady Oxford, who
+therefore fell back upon Colonel Montague to cover her discomfiture.
+At all events that was the story which soon got about, and Mr. Wogan
+never said a word to correct it, and in due time, of course, and in a
+way not very agreeable, it came to her Ladyship's ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson arrived in London on a Wednesday, the 13th of April. The
+weather had been terrible on the sea, and the unhappy dog Harlequin
+had contrived to slip his leg by a fall on deck. However, he soon
+recovered of his injury, thanks to the care of Mrs. Barnes, and Mr.
+Kelly carried him to the Bishop's house at Bromley, where his lady lay
+a-dying. There, too, as he had good cause afterwards to remember, he
+wrote certain letters for the Bishop, to the King, the Duke of Mar,
+and General Dillon, and put them in the common post. They did but
+carry common news, and excuses for delay. The Bishop's lady died on
+the 26th of April, and on that very day Harlequin's hurt broke out
+again, and the poor creature went whining lugubriously about the
+gloomy house, as though it was mourning for its mistress. This fact
+should be mentioned, because the Duke of Mar had made an inquiry in a
+letter as to how Harlequin fared, and whether <i>Mr. Illington</i>, as the
+Bishop was called, had as yet received the dog. Kelly replied that
+'<i>Illington</i> is in great tribulation for poor Harlequin, who is in a
+bad way, having slipped his leg again,' which was true, for since the
+dog by his tricks greatly lightened his lady's sickness, the Bishop
+grew very fond of him, though at the Bishop's trial, when these things
+were brought up to prove that Illington and he were the same man, it
+was said 'he never loved a dog.' So much for Mr. Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Rose and her father reached London a fortnight or more after the
+Parson. Wogan had no knowledge of her arrival, for since he left
+Avignon he had not so much as clapped his eyes upon the Parson, who,
+what with the Bishop's grief for his wife, and what with the Bishop's
+gout, was much occupied at Bromley. It was not until that calamitous
+day, the 19th of May, that the two friends met again. Events moved
+very quickly upon that same day. It seemed they had been hatching this
+long while out of sight, like thunderclouds gathering on a clear day
+under the rim of the sea. Seven breathless hours saw the beginning and
+the end. For it was not until six o'clock of the afternoon that Mr.
+Wogan chanced upon the ballad, that was our ruin, and by three of the
+morning all was over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, on the 19th of May, in the morning, Mr. Wogan found himself far
+enough from London, at the seat of Sir Harry Goring, a gentleman of
+Sussex, and a very loud friend of the Cause.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This noisy Sir Harry drove Mr. Wogan back to town, in very great state
+and splendour, and drew up before Burton's coffee-house, at an hour
+when the streets had lost the high sun of the day. Mr. Wogan alighted,
+thinking to seek his letters at Burton's, and the baronet's carriage
+rolled off to his town house. Wogan entered the coffee-house; the
+great room was extraordinary full, and there was an eager buzz of
+talkers, who dropped their voices, and looked oddly at Mr. Wogan as he
+passed through, and so upstairs to a little chamber kept private for
+himself and his friends.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he went he heard roars of laughter, and a voice chanting in the
+deplorable, lamenting tone of the street ballad-singer. Mr. Wogan
+caught a name he knew in this ditty, and knocking hastily in the
+manner usual and arranged, was admitted. The room was thick with
+tobacco smoke, and half-a dozen empty bottles made mantraps on the
+floor. Through the Virginia haze Wogan saw two men; one was Tyrell, a
+friend of the Cause, the other was a tall man, very black, in whom he
+recognised his friend Talbot, of his own country and politics,
+nicknamed the Crow from his appearance. The Crow was swaying on his
+legs as he steadied himself by the table, and he sang:--</p>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">Let Weapons yield them to the Gown,</p>
+<p class="t3">The Latin Singers say:</p>
+<p class="t0">Ye Squires and Ladies of renown,</p>
+<p class="t3">The tune is changed to-day!</p>
+<p class="t0">A Lady loved a Parson good,</p>
+<p class="t3">And vowed she'd still be true,</p>
+<p class="t0">Alas, the Sword goes o'er the Hood,</p>
+<p class="t3">The Sword of Montague!</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">'What ribaldry have you got now?' said Wogan, but the Crow hastily
+embraced him in the French manner, holding the paper of the ballad
+over his shoulder, and still chanting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The little Parson is made immortal,' quoth he. 'Here is the newest
+ballad, all the story of his late amorous misfortune. Why do you look
+so glum?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For Wogan had gently disengaged himself from Mr. Talbot's embrace, who
+exhaled a perfume of wine and strong waters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Crow, you fool, be quiet,' said Wogan; 'this is miching mallecho! Who
+wrote that rant?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'We think it is Lady Mary Montagu, from the Latin tags; it is headed
+<i>Cedat Armis Toga</i>.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Lady Mary was not the writer, though she got the credit of the
+mischievous nonsense, as was intended, and 'hence these tears,' as the
+Parson said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan had snatched the ballad into his hands by this time, where
+he intended to keep it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Gentlemen,' he asked, 'are you entirely sober?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Does my speech betray me? 'said Tyrell, who, to do him justice, was
+wholly in his right mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That is no answer; but, if it were, and if you don't care for a
+lady's name--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She jilted the Parson!' cried the Crow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Have you no thought of the reputation of--Mr. Farmer?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Farmer?' exclaimed Tyrell. Mr. Farmer was the cant name for the
+Chevalier, and Tyrell scratched his head, wondering what on earth the
+Chevalier had to do in the same galley with the Parson's love affairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Farmer!' replied the Crow, blinking his eyes reproachfully.
+'Indeed, it is yourself has been drinking, Nick. What has the ballad
+of poor George's misfortune to do with Mr. Farmer, a gentleman of
+unbleb--upblem--I repeat, sir,' said the Crow with solemnity, 'a
+gentleman of unblemished reputation?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mark how a long word trips you up, and the evening so young!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Farmer's health! I buzz the bottle!' cried the Crow, putting out
+his hand to the bottle, that was nearly empty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan stopped his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I tell you, Crow, the Affair hangs on your nonsense. We may all hang
+for it,' he said in a certain tone of voice, which made Tyrell open
+his mouth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan read through the ballad, which was full of insults enough to
+drive any woman mad, let alone Lady Oxford. He knew what a woman wild
+with anger can do, and blessed his stars that for so many months her
+Ladyship had not met Kelly, and could know nothing of the inner plot
+for an immediate rising. Still, she knew enough to do a power of
+mischief. The ballad was written in a feigned hand, which Wogan did
+not know.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'James,' he said to Talbot,' where did you get this thing? You are not
+haunting the fine ladies who pass these wares about? Where did you get
+it?' he said, shaking the Crow, who had fallen half asleep, as he
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Got it from my friend Mr. Pope,' answered the Crow drowsily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You got it from Mr. Pope! <i>You!</i> Where did you meet Mr. Pope?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'At the Little Fox under the Hill, down by the water.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This tavern was precisely the shyest meeting-place of the party, where
+the smugglers came to arrange crossings and receive letters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Alexander Pope at the Fox under the Hill! Crow, you are raving!
+What kind of man is your friend Mr. Pope?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Who's Mr. Pope? Don't know the gentleman. Hear he's poet.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The gentleman who gave you the ballad.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Didn't say Pope, said Scrotton,' answered the Crow. 'Very honest man,
+my friend Mr. Scrotton. Met him often. Exshlent judge of wine, Mr.
+Scrotton. Exshlent judge of plots. Mr. Scrotton applauded our scheme.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You told him about it? What plot did you tell him of? Not of the
+rising? Not of this immediate Blow? Crow, you should be shot!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I told him! You inshult me, sir. Very good plot, very good wine. Mr.
+Scrotton told me about plot. Often talked it over a bottle. I'm a most
+cautious man. I don't drink except with very honest men. Dangerous!'
+murmured the Crow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are sure his name is Scrotton?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Quite certain. Said &quot;Pope&quot; because of poetry. Soshiation of ideas.
+Mr. Pope's poet. You'd know that, but you are drunk, Mr. Wogan.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was nothing more to be got out of the Crow. Invited to give a
+personal description of Mr. Scrotton, he fell back on his moral
+character as 'a very honest man.' He might be, or, again, he might be
+a spy. In any case, here was the ballad, and there was the furious
+woman ready for any revenge.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Go home; go to bed! Tyrell and I will walk with you to your rooms,'
+said Mr. Wogan, who, stepping to the letter-rack, picked up an epistle
+for Mr. Hilton. The handwriting of the superscription made him look so
+blank that the others noticed his face and were silent. The letter was
+in Lady Oxford's hand. He put it in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They led the Crow to his door in Germain Street. He behaved pretty
+well on the whole, only insisting that his fortune would be made if
+Wogan would but give him the ballad and let him sing it at the corner
+of St. James's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Affluence would be mine,' he said, and dropped a tear. 'Oh,
+Wilton--Hogan, I would say--'tis a golden opportunity!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But if the opportunity was golden, Wogan was of iron, and they did not
+leave the debased Crow till he slept in the sheets, which on the night
+before it was probable that his limbs had never pressed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When the Crow was slumbering like a babe, Mr. Wogan and Tyrell stepped
+out, turning the key of his chamber on the outside and entrusting it
+to his landlady.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Talbot has a fever,' Wogan told her, 'and will see nobody. He
+must on no account see anyone except Mr. Tyrell, nor must he be
+disturbed before his physician calls.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Accompanied by the gift of a crown, the key was pocketed by the woman
+of the house, who expressed anxiety for the health and repose of so
+quiet a gentleman as Mr. Talbot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And now, what is all this pother about?' Tyrell asked when they were
+got into the street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Come towards the Park and I will instruct you. I need quiet for
+thought, and sylvan repose. What have you been doing all day?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Watching the Crow play the fool at Burton's.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have no news?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have seen nobody.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They walked for a hundred yards or so in silence, Wogan frowning, and
+Tyrell much perturbed with Wogan's perturbation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The new ballad is a true ballad,' said Wogan after a pause.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Devil a doubt of it; but what then?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The greater the truth, the greater the libel.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'<i>Et après?</i>'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And the greater is the rage of the libelled. This ballad must have
+run through all the boudoirs before it reached the Crow.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And yet I do not smoke you. Where does this touch the affair?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The lady that's libelled knew George very well.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Tyrell nodded his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George knew everything,' continued Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Tyrell stopped and caught Wogan by the elbow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then, what George knew the lady knows?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No. Thank God, she knows nothing of what is immediately intended. It
+is a year and more since George and she have spoken. She knows nothing
+of the Blow. But she knows the men who are directing it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'May be she's staunch,' said Tyrell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan quoted Lady Mary:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Politics are nothing more to her than pawns in the game of love.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The two men stood looking at each other for a moment. The matter was
+too serious for them even to swear. Then they walked on again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Do you think,' asked Nick, 'she will be in the best of tempers when
+she hears she is sung about in coffee-houses? Do you think she will
+blame anybody but Kelly for blabbing? She will give the ballad to Lady
+Mary Wortley Montagu, and isn't Kelly of Lady Mary's friends? No, he
+did not blab, but never mind. She will think he did. And do you know
+that she is a kinswoman of the minister, Mr. Walpole? Let her say a
+word, and she <i>will</i> say it, and where is Mr. Farmer's affair?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Where the Elector's hat and wig often are--in the fire,' answered
+Tyrell, looking serious enough.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That letter which I took up was from her; I know her hand. She is
+stirring.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan opened the scented letter as he walked. It was but to say that
+Lady Oxford had heard that Mr. Hilton was in town, and begged the
+favour of his company at her rout that night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He told Tyrell what there was to tell, both of them looking very
+unlike a May sunset as they walked under the trees. Since he left
+Brampton Bryan, Mr. Wogan had not been favoured with any compliments
+from Lady Oxford. Why did she begin her favours to-day?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She is stirring,' he said again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By this time they were got within the Park.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There much was stirring. Carts were streaming in and out with soldiers
+driving, soldiers lounging among the burdens of planks, tents, picks,
+and spades. Beside the Walnut Walk soldiers in their shirt sleeves
+were digging, trenching, measuring; a child could see what was
+toward--they were meting out a camp.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan looked at Mr. Tyrell, Mr. Tyrell looked at Mr. Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The lady <i>has</i> stirred,' said Tyrell in dismay. 'And what is more she
+knows of the Blow.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Or Mr. Scrotton is not a very honest man,' said Wogan, and whistled
+&quot;Lilliburlero.&quot; He was disposed on the whole to agree with Tyrell.
+Somehow Lady Oxford had got news of the inner plot; perhaps through
+this mysterious Mr. Scrotton.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Walnut Walk was all astir and agape with evening loungers; it
+hummed with gossip. The two gentlemen went to the Cake House, sat
+down, and called for glasses of ratafia. Studying the face of Mr.
+Tyrell, of which his own was no doubt the very likeness, Mr. Wogan
+inferred that they needed this refreshment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They listened, with conscious grins of innocence, to the talk at the
+tables, being a little comforted to hear many questions, but no
+certain answers. The soldiers, it seems, being asked, could or would
+give no answer but that they had orders to make a camp. Fair ladies,
+smiling on private men, could get no other reply. It might be only for
+practice. It might be that the French were expected. Mr. Wogan
+heartily wished that they were, but nobody was expected, so far as he
+knew, save these same ragged regiments of his countrymen with the
+Duke. And, lo! a welcome was being got ready for them. As for the
+regiment that had been tampered with in the Tower, they were pitching
+tents in the Park. The two gentlemen, who had been conversing on faro
+and Newmarket, and laying each other fantastic odds, arose and walked
+eastwards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I think the air of the waterside would be wholesome,' remarked Mr.
+Tyrell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have to see a friend,' said Mr. Wogan, and they shook hands and
+parted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You will warn the Crow to be on the wing?' said Wogan over his
+shoulder, and the other nodded. Mr. Wogan could not but smile to think
+of the Crow winging an unsteady flight across the Channel. He managed
+to steer across, after all, thanks to Tyrell. Then Wogan read Lady
+Oxford's <i>billet</i> again, and he walked to Bury Street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He knocked, and the door was opened by Mrs. Barnes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Johnson at home?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It would appear, Mr. Hilton, that I did not give satisfaction,' said
+Mrs. Barnes, whose aspect was of a severity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Give satisfaction?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Kelly has thought to better himself, and if he prefers
+bed-fellows such as shall be nameless, and the coals disappearing, and
+his letters pryed into, and if he thinks that I ever mention my
+gentlemen's affairs...!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here Mrs. Barnes threw her apron over her head, but gulps of
+lamentation escaped aloud, though her emotion was veiled like that of
+the Greek gentleman in the picture.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan was not unpractised in the art of consoling Mrs. Barnes. He
+led her within, she was slowly induced to unshroud her pleasing
+features, and, at last, revealed the strange circumstance that Kelly
+had left her rooms two days before without giving in any sound
+justifying plea for this treason. Mr. Wogan, who was well aware of
+Mrs. Barnes's curiosity and the fluency of her tongue, was in no doubt
+as to the cause which had led the Parson to leave her, and thought the
+step in this posture of their affairs altogether prudent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But he will return,' he reassured her. 'What!--you know Mr. Johnson,
+he will never desert you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'So he said. He would come back in a month, and paid in advance to
+reserve the rooms, but it would seem that I do not give satisfaction.
+And here's all his letters to all manner of names. Look at them! Look
+at them! And how many of them are signed Ugus? Oh, I know what that
+will end in, and I'm just going to send the girl round with them--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I'll carry them myself, Mrs. Barnes,' said Wogan, interrupting her.
+He picked up the letters from the table, and glanced about the room,
+if by chance Mr. Kelly had left anything inconvenient behind him. But,
+except the letters, there was not so much as a scrap of paper about to
+show that ever he had lodged there. Wogan looked at the scrutoire on
+which the strong-box he had given to his friend at Paris was used to
+rest. It had held Lady Oxford's letters in the old days, but of late
+it had lain unused, and the dust had gathered thick upon the lid, so
+that in his haste the Parson might well have forgotten it. But he had
+carried it away, and with it his big Bible, which had stood beside it
+in such an incongruous juxtaposition.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I'll carry them myself,' said Wogan, and putting the letters in his
+pocket he went down the steps. He marched some twenty yards down the
+street and then came to a stop. He looked round. Mrs. Barnes was
+watching him from the doorway with as grim a smile as her cheery face
+could compass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But, my dear woman, where will I carry them to? 'asks Wogan, coming
+back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That's it,' cried she with a triumphant toss of her head. 'One minute
+Mrs. Barnes is a tattling, troublesome woman, and, if you please,
+we'll not take so much trouble as to say good-bye to her, and the next
+it's Mrs. Barnes that must help us, and tell us where we are to go.
+Mr. Johnson lodges at Mrs. Kilburne's in Ryder Street.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mrs. Kilburne's! Why, she's your bosom friend, Mrs. Barnes.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan was a trifle surprised that the Parson should leave Mrs.
+Barnes because of her curiosity and take a lodging with Mrs. Barnes's
+bosom friend, who, to tell the truth, was no less of a gossip.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well,' said Mrs. Barnes, firing up. 'D'ye think I would let him go to
+those I know nothing of, who would rob him and starve him of his last
+crust of bread. No, for all that he scorns and despises me! No, he
+asked me where he should go and I told him to Mrs. Kilburne.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, he asked you,' said Wogan. 'Well, it is a very Irish proceeding.
+I'll go to Mrs. Kilburne's and find him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You may go to Mrs. Kilburne,' said she as Wogan turned away, 'but as
+to finding him,' and she shrugged her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why, what do you mean?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A man in that moppet's livery, for moppet she is, my Lady or not my
+Lady, brought a note yesterday and he that had been hiding from her,
+like the honest man he used to be before she came trapesing after
+him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A note? Was it anything like this?' asked Wogan, pulling from his
+pocket his own invitation to Lady Oxford's rout.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It was very like that,' said Mrs. Barnes. 'I sent the fellow on with
+the scented thing.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A note from Lady Oxford to George, an heroic epistle from Ariadne to
+Theseus! An invitation too! Ariadne invites Theseus to her rout, and
+for something more, conjectured Wogan, than the pleasure of winning
+his money at cards. Wogan's anxiety concerning Lady Oxford's attitude
+was much increased. There was the ballad, the camp in Hyde Park, there
+were the letters of invitation. Mr. Wogan thought it high time to see
+Theseus, and leaving Mrs. Barnes with a becoming blush on her features
+that laughed through their tears, he walked to Ryder Street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan knocked at the door in the deepening dusk. The landlady
+opened. She knew Wogan, who, indeed, had occupied her chambers at one
+time. She smiled all over her jolly face:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Hilton! Taller than ever, and welcome as ever.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Thank you, Mrs. Kilburne, I shall soon rival the Monument, but I can
+still get under your lintel by stooping. Where is Mr. Johnson?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Johnson? Oh, sir, what a life that poor gentleman lives. Out all
+night, home in the morning with mud or dust on him to the shoulder,
+and so to bed all day.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then Mr. Johnson must be wakened. I can do it, were he one of the
+seven sleepers. George!' cried Mr. Wogan, lifting up his voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, sir, be quiet! A very dainty gentleman has my first floor, and he
+will be complaining of the noise. You always were that noisy, Mr.
+Hilton!' She walked down the passage as she spoke and threw open a
+door upon the right. 'Mr. Johnson, he has my ground floor, but you
+can't waken him, loud as you are, nor any man, so be quiet, Mr.
+Hilton.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Have I to weep for my poor friend's decease?' asked Wogan, as he
+entered the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No, sir, or I would not be laughing at your nonsense.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no doubt this was the Parson's lodging. For as Wogan stood
+just within the door, he saw by the window Mr. Kelly's scrutoire. It
+was the first thing indeed on which his eyes fell. He stepped across
+the room and threw open the lid. He saw a dispatch-box, and from the
+lock he knew it to be that in which Kelly kept safe the papers of the
+Bishop's plot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'So there's another lodger in the house,' said Nick thoughtfully. He
+took up the box and tried the lid. It was locked. But Mr. Wogan would
+have preferred that the Parson should have kept the papers in the box
+which he had given him at Paris, of which the lock was stouter. That
+box he saw further back in the scrutoire, half hidden in news-sheets.
+But that too he found to be locked, and shaking it in his hand, was
+aware that, like the other, it held papers. The lid of the box was
+covered with dust, as though it had not been touched for months. Lady
+Oxford's letters had been locked up there. No doubt they were there
+still. Mr. Wogan wondered for a little at the strange sentiment which
+makes a man keep such dead tokens of a dead passion. He put the box
+back amongst the news-sheets, and turning to Mrs. Kilburne,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But where is the man?' he cried. 'George!' and he rapped on the table
+with his cane.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You can't waken Mr. Johnson,' said Mrs. Kilburne 'because he awoke an
+hour ago, and dressed in a hurry, but braver than common, with his
+silver-hilted sword, Alençon ruffles, black coat and satin lining,
+silver shoulder-knots, and best buckles, and out he goes. He was
+summoned by a man in the livery of my Lord, the good Bishop of
+Rochester.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Will you tell him, when he returns, that Mr. Hilton waited on him,
+and greatly desires to see him in his best before he goes to bed?'
+Wogan pulled the letters from his pocket and laid them on the table
+which stood in the centre of the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I will, sir, but, if you call again, pray, sir, be very quiet. My
+first floor gentleman is such a dainty gentleman.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A mouse shall be noisy in comparison. I have a great tenderness, Mrs.
+Kilburne, for the nerves of fine gentlemen.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Kilburne grinned in a sceptical sort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But,' Wogan added suddenly, 'it is very like I shall fall in with Mr.
+Johnson before then.' He took some half-a-dozen of the letters again
+into his hand and looked them over. They were inscribed to such cant
+names as Illington, Hatfield, Johnson, Andrews, and were evidently
+dangerous merchandise. Mr. Wogan thought they would be safer in his
+pocket than on Mr. Kelly's table. He picked up the rest, but as he put
+them back into his pocket, one fell on to the floor. Wogan caught
+sight of the handwriting as it fell. Then it stared up at him from the
+floor. The letter was written in a woman's hand, which Mr. Wogan was
+well enough acquainted with, although it was neither Lady Oxford's nor
+the hand of Rose. It was in the handwriting of Lady Mary Wortley
+Montagu. Wogan stooped down and picked it up. For a letter, it was
+extraordinary light. Wogan weighed it in his hand for a second,
+wondering what it might be. However, there was no answer to be got
+that way, and Mr. Wogan had weightier matter to engage his thoughts.
+He put it into his pocket and marched to his own lodgings, which were
+hard by in the same street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Several problems, a swarm of skirmishing doubts, trooped through his
+mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What did my Lady Oxford mean by writing to Kelly?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To this Wogan answered that she meant the same thing by Kelly as by
+himself, and for some reason had bidden him to her rout. As to her
+motive for that act of unexpected hospitality, Wogan had his own
+thoughts, which he afterwards confided to his friend. 'But who,' he
+pondered, 'can answer for a woman's motives when the devil of
+perversity sits at her elbow?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Next, why had Kelly made himself such a beau? It could not be merely
+to do honour to a mourning prelate who would never glance at his
+secretary's satin and point d'Alençon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan inferred that his first guess was right, that Lady Oxford
+had bidden Kelly to her rout, and that, by the token of his raiment,
+Mr. Kelly meant to accept the invitation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly knew nothing of the camp, and the discovery which it seemed to
+speak of, when he left the lodgings where he had slept all day. Of the
+ballad, too, it was like that Kelly knew nothing, and, in Wogan's
+opinion, the ballad was the cause of the military stir. Lady Oxford,
+inflamed with anger, blaming Lady Mary for the ballad, and blaming
+Kelly for blabbing her fault to her enemy, Lady Mary; had doubtless
+visited Mr. Walpole. The innocent Kelly, innocent of all these things,
+would be going to Lady Oxford's to fathom the causes of her renewed
+friendship.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan puzzled his brains over these matters while he supped in
+solitude at his lodgings. His friends have hinted that his mental
+furnishing is not in a concatenation with his bodily stature. He has
+answered that, if it were so, he would be Shakespeare and the Duke of
+Marlborough rolled into one. Though refreshed with Burgundy, his head
+felt weary enough when he turned to the question, 'What was he, Wogan,
+to do next?' In his opinion, the boldest plan is ever the best;
+moreover, he had a notion that there was no safer place in London for
+him, that night, and perhaps for Mr. Kelly, than Queen's Square in
+Westminster which Lady Oxford had taken for a permanence. For
+if Lady Oxford had blabbed, the last place in London where the
+Messengers would be like to look for the Parson was her ladyship's
+withdrawing-room. Unless of course she was laying a trap, which did
+not seem likely. In the face of this new ballad, Lady Oxford would not
+dare to have the Parson arrested within, or even near her house. It
+would provoke too great a scandal. He decided, therefore, first to go
+to the Dean's house, at Westminster, where the Bishop of Rochester
+stayed, see Mr. Kelly, if he could, and unfold his parcel of black
+news. Next, he would take Kelly to Lady Oxford's, if Kelly would come,
+for Wogan not only deemed this step the safest of his dangers, but
+expected to enjoy a certain novelty of the emotions, in which he was
+not disappointed. He therefore, imitating the clerical example, began
+to decorate himself in his most seductive shoulder knots to do honour
+to Lady Oxford.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It may be that Wogan's mind, already crowded by a number of
+occurrences and dubitations, had exhausted its logical powers, for
+there was one idea which should have occurred to him earliest, and
+which only visited him while he was shaving. Who was the first person
+he was likely to encounter at Lady Oxford's? Why, the very last person
+whom at this juncture it was convenient for him to meet--namely,
+Colonel Montague. Wogan heartily wished he had left the Colonel
+between two fires at Preston barricade. But now there was no help for
+it, go he must. The Colonel, like other people, might not remember the
+boy in the man and under a new name, or, if he did--and then a fresh
+idea occurred to Wogan which made him smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I was born,' he said, 'to be a lightning conductor!'</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_15" href="#div1Ref_15">AT THE DEANERY OF WESTMINSTER</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan finished the work of adorning his person, and stepped into the
+street. The night was serene, with a full moon, the air still, the
+pavements were clean as the deck of his ketch. He thought that he
+would walk from his rooms to the Dean's by way of St. James's Park,
+and consequently he passed through Ryder St. and in front of Mr.
+Kelly's new lodgings. Just as he came to Mr. Kelly's lodgings, the
+door opened. A gentleman came forth; the moonlight was full on his
+face. Mr. Wogan muffled his face in his cloak, and stepped stealthily
+back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The gentleman was Colonel Montague. He bade the chairmen carry him to
+Queen's Square; Mr. Wogan heard the word of command with an
+inexpressible confusion of dismay. He had hardened his heart to
+encounter the enemy whose life, in a youthful indiscretion, he had
+saved at the risk of his own, but what was the Colonel doing in
+Kelly's lodgings?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By this time the warrior and his chair had turned the corner, and Mr.
+Wogan abandoned himself to meditation. Up and down Ryder Street he
+paced, puzzling over the Colonel's visit to Kelly, whom, at all
+events, he could not have found at home. Was he Was he carrying a
+cartel to his predecessor in Lady Oxford's heart? In that case it was
+all the more necessary to meet him and play the part of Dr. Franklin's
+kite, which had not at that time been flown, but is now making talk
+enough for the learned. On this point Mr. Wogan's mind was constant.
+Should he question Mrs. Kilburne, he asked himself? Mr. Wogan crossed
+the road. But the Colonel was little likely to have told her a word of
+his business. Mr. Wogan stopped.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was another point: for whatever reason the Colonel had called at
+George's lodgings, George must be told of the visit. Here was
+something which pressed, without question. Mr. Wogan marched towards
+the Dean's house in Westminster, where the Bishop of Rochester lay. He
+knew the road very well, being himself an old Westminster boy. It was
+but seven years since he had run away to join his brother Charles and
+raise the North for King James. He could not tell, at this moment,
+whether he had deserted his studies for King James's sake, or to
+escape his dull task of writing out my Lord Clarendon's weary history
+in a fair hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he entered the precincts, Wogan felt much like a truant boy, and it
+was as if Time had stood still while <i>he</i> ran. Nothing was changed,
+except that the new dormitory, which Bishop Atterbury had just built,
+shone white among the black old stones. There were lights in the
+windows that suddenly went out: the lads were abed. Wogan looked up at
+the blank windows, and thought of seven years agone, and of his life
+since then, an unprofitable contemplation, which his mind gladly
+deserted. He marched up under the arch, through the darkling cloister,
+and tapped, gently but firmly, at the Dean's door. He must see Mr.
+Kelly. As it chanced, and by the merest accident in the world, Wogan
+timed his taps thus: 1--2, 3, 4, 5, 6--7.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were stealthy steps within, with a movement of yellow light, and
+then a voice that Mr. Wogan knew very well came through a judas.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Is it my father's knock?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Is it your granny's knock, Sam?' asked Wogan through the judas. The
+voice was that of Sam Wesley, a young usher in Wogan's time, one whom
+he had always liked and tormented.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The steps moved away, and the light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sam!' whispered Mr. Wogan, very loud for a whisper, through the
+judas. 'Sam, you remember me. Nick Wogan.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The steps were silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sam, remember Lord Clarendon! Remember Nick, who kicked the bully for
+beating your little brother Jack.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The steps shuffled back to the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have not the password,' said the voice through the judas.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Damn the password,' whispered Wogan. 'I want George Kelly. I must see
+him in the name of the Blackbird. Hawks are abroad.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is clean against all rules,' came the voice from within.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Open, in the name of the cobbler's wax I once put on your chair, or
+I'll break the windows. You know me, Sam!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wesley knew Mr. Wogan. He undid the lock, Mr. Wogan smuggled
+himself within, and nearly choked Mr. Wesley in his embrace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is a giant!' said Mr. Wesley, putting up his candle to Wogan's
+face. The wind blew on the light that flickered in the absolute
+darkness, all the house being hung with black for Mrs. Atterbury's
+death.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A son of Anak, Sam, who would have battered down your old door in a
+minute.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I verily believe you would, Nick,' said Sam, leading the way up the
+black stairs to a den of his own, where he was within call of the
+Bishop. On tiptoe he marched, placing his finger on his lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When they were got among Sam's books and papers of the boys'
+exercises, the usher said, 'It is a very extraordinary thing, purely a
+Providence.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I deserve one; the purity of my life deserves one,' said Mr. Wogan.
+'But wherein do you see the marvel?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You did not know it, but you gave my father's knock,' said Sam
+in a voice of awe. 'It is Old Jeffrey's doing--directed, of
+course--directed.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Old Jeffrey? Is it a cant name for an honest man?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'For a very honest spirit,' said the usher, and explained to Mr. Wogan
+that the particular knock and the passwords to follow (which Mr. Wogan
+did not know) were his own invention. His father's house at Epworth,
+in the year 1716, had been troubled, it seems, by an honest goblin
+that always thumped and routed with a particular malevolence when the
+Elector was prayed for as 'the King.' Old Mr. Wesley's pet knock,
+though, the sprite could not deliver. Mr. Wesley had a conceit that
+the goblin might be the ghost of some good fellow who died at Preston.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He keeps his politics in the next world,' said Mr. Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Wit might say much on that head, wisdom little,' whispered the usher,
+wagging his kind head. 'You have special business with Mr. Johnson?'
+he asked. 'He is with my Lord, hard by. The Bishop's voice was raised
+when Mr. Johnson entered. I caught angry words, but now for long they
+have been quiet.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Johnson has a way with him,' said Wogan, who had learned from
+Goring that the reverend Father in God was of a hasty temper. 'How
+doth his Lordship?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Very badly. I never saw him in a less apostolic humour. I know not
+what ill news he has had from France, or elsewhere, but he has been
+much troubled about Mr. Johnson's dog, Harlequin. The poodle has been
+conveyed out of town as craftily as if he were the Chevalier, I know
+not why, and is now skulking in the country, I know not where.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was, indeed, Mr. Wesley's part to know nothing. He was the Bishop's
+man, and as honest as the day, but had no more enterprise than another
+usher.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan, he has said, knew Harlequin, second of that name, and had seen
+him coddled by Mrs. Barnes. He was cudgelling his brains for
+Harlequin's part in the Great Affair, when a silver whistle sounded,
+thin and clear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wesley beckoned to Wogan to be still, crept out of the room, and
+returned on tiptoe with Kelly. The Parson's elegant dress was a trifle
+disarranged; his face and hands were somewhat stained and blackened as
+with smoke, but the careful man had tucked up his Alençon ruffles
+beneath his sleeves. On seeing Wogan George opened his eyes and his
+mouth, but spoke never a word. He carried a soft bundle wrapped in a
+tablecloth, and when the door was shut he handed this to Mr. Wesley.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have the key of the Dean's garden?' he whispered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes; but wherefore?' answered Sam.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'His Lordship bids me ask you to have the kindness to bury the
+contents of this--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I know not what is in the bundle,' said Mr. Wesley, with an air of
+alarm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And you need not be told,' said George. 'But can you let me and my
+friend Mr. Hilton--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Hilton?' gasped Sam, as Kelly put his hand out to Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I must present you to Mr. Hilton,' George said, and Wogan bowed and
+grinned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I was about to entreat you, Mr. Wesley, while you are playing the
+sexton, to permit me and Mr. Hilton the convenience of a few moments
+of privacy in your chamber.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'With all my heart,' said the puzzled Sam, hospitably opening a
+cupboard in his bookcase, whence he lugged out glasses and a bottle of
+Florence. Then he put list shoes over his own, and stole forth on his
+errand like a clerical cat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All this while Wogan had said not one word to Kelly, nor Kelly to
+Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan had sat down to sample the bottle, and Kelly stared at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'How did you make your way in here?' he asked at length.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Old Jeffrey,' said Wogan airily. 'I drink Old Jeffrey's health,
+wherever he is.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I believe you are the devil himself. That password is known to no
+mortal but Mr. Wesley and me. The Bishop does not know it. His
+servants never see me come or go--only Sam. Whence got you the word?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan very gently tapped 1--2, 3, 4, 5, 6--7 on the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I know many things,' he said. 'But, George, what do <i>you</i> know?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I know you should be aboard, Nick, and down to the waterside you step
+from this house.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am already promised,' said Mr. Wogan with an air of fashion. 'I sup
+with Lady Oxford.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are mad.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nay, <i>you</i> are mad. I know many things. When you were carried hither
+in your chair, you knew nothing. George, what did the Bishop tell you?
+Why was he wroth with you? In brief, George, what do you know?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The Bishop angry with me! Nick, you know too much. You are the
+devil.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I want to know a great deal more. Come, unpack, and then it is my
+turn. But first step into Mr. Wesley's bedchamber and wash these
+hands, which go very ill with silver shoulder-knots; and pour the
+blackened water out of window. Any man or messenger could see that you
+have been burning a mort of papers.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly hastily adopted Mr. Wogan's precautions. When he entered the
+room again the conspirator had vanished, the clerical beau remained.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Now,' said Wogan, 'you are fit to carry out your worldly design of
+pleasure, and I shall not be ashamed to sup in your company at Lady
+Oxford's.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have changed my mind; I shall not go. But, Nick, how did you know
+my mind? 'Twas the last of minds you expected to take me in.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am the devil. Have you not guessed it yourself?' replied Mr. Wogan,
+who was enjoying himself hugely. Perhaps it was the Florence, coming
+a-top of the Burgundy. He was quite easy about the discovery. 'But
+unpack,' he said. 'What befell you with the Bishop?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He received me oddly. The room was as dark as a wolf's mouth, being
+hung with black bombazine. There was a low fire in a brazier, that
+shone red on his Lordship's polished poll, for he wore no perruque.
+His eyes blazed, his teeth grinned white. I was put in mind of a
+fierce old black panther in the French King's gardens.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Remote from the apostolic,' said Mr. Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'So were his first words,' said Kelly:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'&quot;You Irish dog, come here!&quot; quoth the Bishop.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I offered a conjecture that, in the mournful light, his Lordship did
+not precisely see whom he was addressing. On that the little old man
+sprang out at me, seized me by the collar, and then fell back on his
+couch with a groan that was a curse. I put a cordial that stood by him
+to his lips, and was about to call Mr. Wesley, when he forbade me with
+his eyebrows, and cried:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'&quot;Answer me this question before we part for ever. Did you despatch my
+letters of April 20 to the King and the others?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'&quot;My Lord,&quot; I said, &quot;my duty to you ended with that episcopal laying
+on of hands, and with that expression which you were pleased to use
+when I entered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He groaned, and said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'&quot;I apologise. I am mad with pain&quot; (which was plainly true), &quot;and
+grief, and treachery. I beg your pardon, Mr. Kelly, as a Christian and
+a sick old man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'&quot;My Lord, you honour me. I enclosed the letters, as you directed, in
+a packet addressed to Mr. Gordon, the banker in Boulogne, and I sent
+them by the common post, your Lordship not having forbidden the
+ordinary course.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'&quot;Then, damn it, sir, you have ruined us!&quot; said the sick old
+Christian. &quot;Did I not bid you write to Dillon that nothing of
+importance should go by the post?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'&quot;But your Lordship did not seem to reckon these letters of
+importance, for you did not discharge me from sending them in the
+common course.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The Bishop groaned again more than once, and there was a whole
+Commination Service in the sounds. You know Harlequin, Wogan?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan nodded and wondered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">''Tis Harlequin has ruined us,' said Kelly; 'Harlequin and the Duke of
+Mar.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am devilish glad to hear it,' said Mr. Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Glad to hear it!' exclaimed Kelly, rising from his chair. 'You are
+told of the discovery of the Great Affair, and the probable ruin of
+the Cause, and the danger of your friends and yourself, and you are
+glad to hear it!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Faith, I am,' replied Wogan easily, 'for I knew of the discovery
+before you told me, but I put it down to a lady of your acquaintance.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson very slowly sat himself down again on his chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'In Heaven's name, why?' he asked, with a certain suspense.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Tell your tale first, then I'll tell mine. This is very excellent
+Florence.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The tale is too long, but the short of it is this: The Bishop had by
+him a letter of Mar's, dated May 11, in which Mar, addressing the
+Bishop as Illington, denounced him as plainly to anyone who read the
+piece as if he had used the Bishop's own style and title. He condoled
+on Mrs. Illington's recent death, he referred to Mr. Illington's high
+place in the Church, and to his gout. The three circumstances combined
+left no doubt as to who Illington is. There was no need such a letter
+of pure compliment should be written at all, except for the purpose of
+being opened in the post, and fixing the Bishop as Illington. Then,'
+Kelly went on, 'I remembered a letter of Mar to myself, of last week,
+in which he spoke of the dog Harlequin as Mrs. Illington's. If these
+letters were opened in the post,--and the Bishop knows for certain
+that they were opened,--a blind man could see that Rochester and
+Illington are the same man, and own the same dog. The beast saved my
+life, but he has lost the Cause,' said Kelly with a sigh. 'Mar has
+sold us. It is known he holds a pension from the Elector. The Bishop
+knows it in a roundabout way, through Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and
+so the Bishop and I have burned his papers in the brazier. Sam is
+interring their ashes in the garden.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan poured out another glass of Florence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Was there anything very pressing in these same letters of April 20,
+George? Was there anything to put fear on the Elector's Ministers? Did
+they say, for instance, that the Blow was to be dealt, you and I know
+when?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Not a word of that,' replied Kelly, and his face lightened. On the
+other hand, Wogan's fell, which Kelly no doubt remarked, for he
+continued eagerly, 'D'ye see, there is a chance still, for the Cause,
+for us, if the Blow be struck quickly. We must strike quickly. So may
+we retrieve Mar's treachery. The Bishop in his letter made excuses to
+the King for the delay of any blow. He is not in favour of anything
+immediate, and in the letters he made his disposition plain. The
+letters only compromised his Lordship in general, they did not
+reveal--the Blow.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan, however, only shook his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">''Faith, now, I'm sorry to hear that,' said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are glad and sorry on very strange occasions,' said Kelly,
+sourly. 'First you are pleased that Mar sold us, and then you are
+displeased that he did not sell the last secret.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan leaned his elbows on the table, and bent across towards his
+friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am sorry because the last secret has been sold, and it was not Mar
+that sold it. Therefore somebody else sold it; therefore I am at the
+pain of being obliged to suspect a lady who probably knows her late
+lover's cypher.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly blanched.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And how do you know that the last secret is sold?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'As any man would know who had not lain abed all the day. George, the
+Park is full of soldiers. The Tower regiment that we thought Layer had
+bought is there with the rest under canvas. Ministers would not make
+an encampment in the Park because they knew that the Bishop had
+advised the King that nothing was to be done. Therefore Mar is not the
+only traitor.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And why should my Lady Oxford be the Judas?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mainly to punish a certain nonjuring clergyman, for whose sake she is
+the burden of a ballad, and sung of in coffee-houses.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A ballad? Of what sort?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Of the sort that makes a good whipping-post for a fine lady. Ridicule
+is the whip, and, by the Lord, it is laid on unsparingly. Perhaps you
+would like to hear it,' and Mr. Wogan recited, in a whisper, so much
+of the poem as he judged proper. It closed thus:--</p>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0" style="text-indent:-8pt">
+'Oh, happy to my rhymes,</p>
+<p class="t1">Consoled for all his woes,</p>
+<p class="t0">The Parson flies to foreign climes,</p>
+<p class="t1">And dwells--beneath the Rose!'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly swore an oath and took a turn across the room. He came to a
+stop in front of Sam's bookcase. 'Rose,' said he, in a voice of
+tenderness, 'sure they might have left the little girl out of it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The barb was venomed, you see,' said Mr. Wogan. 'It was not enough to
+make a scoff of the lady. She must be stripped of that last
+consolation, the belief that the discarded Parson wastes in despair.
+Now she knows that the Parson is consoled. There was spark to powder.
+The Parson may be putting on flesh. There's an insult to her beauty.
+Faith, but she must feel it in her marrow, since she risks her Lord's
+neck for the pleasure of requiting it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' said Kelly, 'she could do what she would, for her Lord's neck is
+not in this noose. Oxford had withdrawn before.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was news to Mr. Wogan, who had been concerned only with the
+actual plan of attack, and sufficiently concerned to have no mind for
+other matters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oxford withdrawn,' he cried rising and coming across to the Parson.
+'Damn him, 'twas pure folly to trust him. Do you remember what Law
+said that night in Paris? He would trust him no further than he would
+trust a Norfolk attorney.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly was silent for a moment, thoughtfully drawing a finger to and
+fro across the backs of Sam's books.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have good reason to remember that night,' he said very sadly. 'Have
+you forgotten what I said? &quot;May nothing come between the Cause and
+me!&quot; Why, it seems the Cause goes down because of me, and with the
+Cause my friends, and with my friends, Rose.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan had no word to say. Whatever excuses rose to his tongue
+seemed too trivial for utterance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly's finger stopped on one particular book, travelled away and came
+back to it. Wogan saw that the book was a Bible. The Parson took it
+from the shelf and turning over the leaves read a line here and there.
+Wogan knew very well what was passing through his mind. His thoughts
+had gone back to the little country parsonage and the quiet life with
+no weightier matter to disturb it than the trifling squabbles of his
+parish.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You warned me, Nick,' he said, 'you warned me. But I was a fool and
+would not heed. Read that!' and with a bitter sort of laugh he handed
+the open Bible to Mr. Wogan, pointing to a verse. 'There's a text for
+the preacher.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Bible was open at the Book of Proverbs, and Mr. Wogan read. 'The
+lips of a strange woman drop as a honey-comb and her mouth is smoother
+than oil. But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged
+sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps take hold on hell.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan read the text aloud.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The strange woman, Nick,' said Kelly, 'the strange woman,' and then
+in a fierce outburst, 'If I live the man who wrote that ballad shall
+rue it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'They give it to Lady Mary.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She never wrote it. Nick, who wrote the ballad? How did you get hold
+of it?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I found the Crow, quite tipsy, singing it to Tyrell, at Burton's, in
+the little room upstairs.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And where did the Crow get the ballad?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That is another uncomfortable circumstance. You know Talbot?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'An honest man, and a good officer, at Preston or in Spain, but a
+sponge for drink. A pity he was ever let into the plot!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, he got the ballad from someone with whom he had been drinking
+at the Little Fox under the Hill, not a fashionable resort.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Did he name his friend?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He was drunk enough to begin by calling him Mr. Pope.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Pope, the poet?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He took that back; and said the poetry put Mr. Pope into his head.
+The man's real name, he remembered, was Scrotton. I can't guess who he
+was, friend or spy, but we may take it that he knows what the Crow
+knows.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Thank God for that!' cried Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You rejoice on very singular occasions, and are grateful for very
+small mercies,' said Mr. Wogan, who found it his turn to be surprised.
+'What are you so thankful for?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Thankful that a woman need not have done this thing, and that
+my folly may not be the cause of this disaster. Another knew
+everything--Pope--Scrotton--the ballad! Who wrote the ballad? Who of
+our enemies knew a word about Rose? Are you blind? Who was at Avignon,
+spying on me, when I first met Rose? Who hates Lady Oxford no less
+than he hates me? Whose name was the unhappy tippler trying to
+remember? Scrotton? Pope?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Scrope!' cried Wogan, cursing his own stupidity. 'Scrope it must have
+been, and the Crow swore that the man told him about the plot, and
+often talked it over.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That means, of course, that Scrope made him talk. The old curse of
+the Cause, that lost us Edinburgh Castle in the Fifteen, when the
+Scots stopped at the tavern to powder their hair. Our curse, Nicholas.
+Wine!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And Woman,' Mr. Wogan thought, but George ran on,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Scrope it was who wrote the ballad, for no enemy but Scrope knew what
+the writer knew. Lady Mary is a friend. Lady Oxford is innocent, thank
+God--I say it with a humble heart--and I am not the cause of the
+ruin.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George's eyes shone like those of a man reprieved. Wogan shook his
+friend's hand; his own eyes were opened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">''Tis you are the devil,' he said. 'Scrope has hit everyone he hates,
+and blown up the plot.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'His time will come,' said Kelly; 'but I hear Sam on the stair.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wesley, tapping lightly, entered his room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Gentlemen,' he said, 'the outer door is open.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wesley's anxiety was plainly to be read in his face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The two gentlemen bade him farewell, with many thanks for his
+hospitality. He accompanied them to the door, and they heard the bolt
+shot behind them as they stood in the cloister.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Whither should they go?' both men reflected, silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan has remarked on a certain gaiety and easiness of mind caused
+on this occasion, he considers, by Mr. Wesley's Florence coming after
+his own Burgundy at supper. He was also elated by George's elation,
+for to find innocence in one whom he had suspected elevated Mr.
+Kelly's disposition. They were betrayed, true, but the bitterness of a
+betrayal by the woman he had loved left him the lighter when the
+apprehension of it had passed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One little point rankled in Mr. Wogan's mind in spite of all. Why had
+Lady Oxford bidden both of them to her rout?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He came at an answer by a roundabout road.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I must hurry home and burn my papers,' said Kelly, as soon as they
+were out in the cloister, with the door of the Dean's house shut
+behind them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan, who had other notions, gripped his arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'By the way, did you burn my lady's invitation to her rout to-night?
+What did she say, George? Why did she invite you? And did you burn the
+note?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly smote his hand on his brow. 'My wits were wool-gathering.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'On Cupid's hedges,' said Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But I locked the note up.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'With the rest of the lady's letters in my dispatch box?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">''Faith, Nick, you are the devil. How did you know that?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, I have divined your amorous use of my box.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But you are wrong. I had the box with the dangerous papers of the
+plot open on the table when I was reading the letter. Mrs. Kilburne
+knocked at the door. I did not know who it might be. I slipped the
+letter in on the top of the papers of the Plot, and locked the box
+before I opened the door.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There it remains then? Well, her Ladyship's note is in the better
+company. But what did she say? Did she give a reason for your
+meeting?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The chief thing, after the usual compliments, was that she had most
+important news, that might not be written, to give me about Mr.
+Farmer's affairs. Probably she may have had an inkling of the
+discovery and wished to warn me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'We must see her,' said Wogan, whose curiosity was on edge from the
+first about this party of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But my papers--I must burn my papers.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George, you are set, or you are not set. If you had been set the
+messengers would have been at your lodgings before I went thither; in
+fact, before you were out of bed. Therefore, either you have the whole
+night safe or, going home now, you go into a mousetrap, as the French
+say, and your papers are the cheese to lure you there. Now, they
+cannot know of my lady's invitations, and if they by any accident did
+know, a Minister would hardly take a man at a lady's house. That were
+an ill use for the hostess.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That's true,' said Mr. Kelly, after reflecting. 'Nicholas, I knew not
+that you had so much of the syllogism in your composition.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Another thing, and an odd thing enough,' added Wogan. 'Perhaps
+nothing is laid against <i>you</i> at all. Did Scrope lay information when
+he found us at Brampton Bryan?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No!' cried Kelly. 'And at Avignon, when a proper spy would have
+stopped the Duke's gold, he was content with the sword in his own
+hand.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Precisely,' said Wogan; 'Scrope has blown the plot, that's business;
+but he deals with you himself, that's pleasure. He tried to meet you
+at Brampton Bryan--he did not have us laid by the heels. He nearly did
+for you at Avignon, while he let the Duke's business alone, quite
+content. Now you are alive and he wants a meeting, 'tis clear he did
+not inform on you, otherwise the messengers would have been with you
+when the soldiers began the camp in the morning. 'Faith, you may meet
+Mr. Scrope tonight in St. James's Park. He is a kind of gentleman, Mr.
+Scrope! But we must see her ladyship first; sure, nothing's safer.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nicholas, thou reasonest well,' said the Parson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan towed off his prize, and the pair moved out of the dark,
+musty cloister into the moonlight.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_16" href="#div1Ref_16">MR. WOGAN ACTS AS LIGHTNING-CONDUCTOR
+AT LADY OXFORD'S ROUT</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan steered his captive through Petty France. It was about ten
+of the clock, a night of moonlight and young spring, a night for poets
+to praise and lovers to enjoy. Mr. Wogan was not, at the moment, a
+lover, and poetry was out of his mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'One trifle I forgot to mention,' he said. 'I saw Montague come out of
+your new lodgings this evening. He bade his chairmen go to Queen's
+Square.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Montague? How could he know where to look for me? What can he want
+with me?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I misdoubt he was not very well pleased with the ballad, and would
+have you explain it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Montague,' sneered Mr. Kelly, with a touch of temper; 'I am grieved I
+missed him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You need not grieve, for you will see him to-night. So there's balm
+for your grief, and another reason why you should sup with Lady
+Oxford.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson stepped out more briskly after that, and Wogan could not
+refrain from remarking upon his new alacrity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is after all a very human sort of a world, as worlds go,' said he.
+'Here's a man with all his hopes crumbling to grave-dust about him,
+and the mere prospect of a quarrel with another man whom he has never
+spoken to, on account of a woman he has a great contempt for, will
+make all his blood flow quicker.' For it was evident that, though the
+Parson no longer cared a straw for Smilinda's favours, he had not
+forgiven the man who had supplanted him in them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the further end of the street along which they walked, one house
+threw out into the night a great blaze of light, and a noise of many
+voices. As Wogan perceived it, a certain improvement upon his plan
+came into his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George,' said he, as he directed his captive towards the house, 'will
+you resolve me a theological quandary? Do the doctors of your sect
+consider as binding a promise given to a person of a different faith?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Assuredly they do,' cried Kelly. 'Dr. Hooker plainly writes--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I shall take your word for it, without Hooker's bond. Next, does your
+Reverence reckon it immoral to shake an elbow on occasion?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Even the very Puritans, at the height of their power, doubted if they
+could proceed against dicers by way of the greater excommunication. We
+read that the Chosen People themselves cast lots--whence I argue for a
+permitted latitude.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, then, we are opposite the doors of Le Queux's Temple of Hazard;
+you may hear through the windows how the devout are calling the main.
+Now I must take your promise, as you say it is binding, to wait here
+in obedience to your commanding officer. A wise leader will ever send
+out scouts to inspect a dangerous pass. I shall reconnoitre at Lady
+Oxford's: proper precautions should never be neglected, even in a
+friendly country. If I do not return, or send, in forty minutes by
+your watch, you must follow. All will seem safe.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But, Nick, what if they take you? Sure we had best go together.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'They will not arrest me alone. You don't loose your gun at a rabbit
+when you are stalking a deer. I am not the keeper of secrets, but the
+King's mere servant, to give knocks and to take them. I write no
+letters, and none write them to me. It is Mr. Johnson they will be
+stalking, if anyone at all, never fear, and they will not shoot at the
+rabbit whilst Mr. Johnson is out of gunshot. In the meantime, have you
+any money?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Just enough to pay my chairmen.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan turned his pockets inside out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then here are ten guineas. In my belief our luck must be somewhere,
+if a man would look for it, and it may very well be lurking in the
+cavern of a dice-box. Lose or win, if you hear nothing of me, you
+march forwards and occupy Queen's Square in forty minutes. It is ten
+o'clock now. And if you do not join me in forty minutes I walk
+straight to your lodgings and take my chance.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'So be it,' said Kelly, pocketing Mr. Wogan's gold, and stepping
+reluctantly into the house of Le Queux. Mr. Wogan waited until the
+door closed upon him, and then went on his way alone to Queen's
+Square.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had not displayed the whole face of his purpose to the Parson. It
+was not merely to reconnoitre that he pushed forward. The Parson might
+desire an occasion with the Colonel, but Wogan, for Miss Townley's
+sake, meant to meet the Colonel first. Betrothed men should not be
+brawlers, and George was hardly a match for the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel was not, in the nature of things, likely to feel
+well-disposed towards the Parson. The ballad would have turned that
+ill-disposition into a genuine hostility. So here was one of the
+reasons, besides the wish to reconnoitre, why Wogan left his
+friend behind him in Le Queux's gaming-rooms. He would be the
+lightning-conductor; he would pick a quarrel with the Colonel before
+Mr. Kelly arrived, if by any means that could be brought about.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan stopped in the shadow a few yards from Lady Oxford's house,
+and watched. It was a night of triumph for Lady Oxford. A score or so
+of link-boys yelled and flashed their torches about the portico;
+carriages and chairs pressed towards the door. Gentlemen with stars
+upon their velvet coats, and ladies altogether swaddled in lace and
+hoops thronged up the steps. But of the possible messengers for whom
+Mr. Wogan looked, not one was to be seen in any corner. Timidity
+itself might have slept secure. Only a few ragged loiterers stood
+about in the roadway on the look-out for a lace handkerchief or a
+convenient pocket. Wogan crossed the road and joined the throng upon
+the stairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had carried it off boldly enough at the Deanery, and in the street
+with Kelly, but, as he walked on alone, the fumes of the Florence wine
+escaped from the seat of his reasoning faculties. His logic did not
+seem so conclusive, and he felt an ugly double-edge on some of his
+arguments. Thus, the plot had certainly been discovered, yet Kelly had
+not been pounced upon. This might be a generosity of Mr. Scrope's (who
+had behaved as handsomely before), but again, what if Mr. Kelly's
+first suspicions were true? What if Lady Oxford had learned something?
+What if this rout were intended to enable her to savour her revenge
+for the ballad? The thing was not beyond Wogan's power of belief, and
+the more he gazed on this perspective, the less he enjoyed it. Under
+her roof, however, for the sake of her own credit, Kelly and he must
+be safe from arrest. Besides it might be that her Ladyship was
+ignorant of the ballad. Reflecting on these doubts, and thankful for
+this tender mercy, Wogan's heart was ill at ease, though he put on a
+face of brass. The chatter which buzzed at his inattentive ears seemed
+the most impertinent thing in the world. At each step a flowered
+petticoat swung against his legs, or a fan, held by a hand in a
+perfumed glove, knocked against his elbow, and somehow the fine
+gentlemen and ladies in their fine clothes seemed to him at that
+moment as incongruous as a nightmare. Scraps of gossip of which he
+took no note at the time, for no reason whatever stuck in his mind,
+and he remembered them quite clearly afterwards; how that Lady
+Holderness was sunk in all the joys of love, notwithstanding she
+wanted the use of her two hands by a rheumatism; and Mrs. Hervey,
+<i>revenue</i> from such bagatelles as honour and reputation, had taken to
+herself two most fascinating lovers, and all the envy of her sex. A
+shrill lady behind Mr. Wogan's shoulder was proposing a general act
+for divorcing all the people of England, so that those who pleased
+might marry again, whereby many reputations which stood in dire peril
+would be saved from exposure. Mr. Wogan had much ado not to shout
+'Hold your tongues, will you? Here, maybe, is life and death in the
+balance.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had got about half-way up the stairs when the shrill voice changed
+its tune, and now Mr. Wogan pricked up his ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have heard the new ballad? Oh, the sweetest, most malicious
+thing. You must certainly hear it. Smilinda, the Parson, and the
+Colonel. You know who Smilinda is? The Parson and the Colonel make a
+guess easy.' She quoted a line or two. 'It appears that the Parson has
+consoled himself with Rose, and snaps his fingers at Smilinda. Who
+wrote it? No one but Smilinda's dear friend, Lady Mary Wortley
+Montagu, that I will wager. 'Tis the most ingenious thing; and most
+ingeniously given to the town just at the time when it will sting
+most. Poor Smilinda.' The voice went off into a giggle, in the midst
+of which Mr. Wogan distinguished a name--Lord Sidney Beauclerk's. Mr.
+Wogan would hardly have heeded the name had he not heard it again
+twice before he reached the stairhead, and each time in that same
+conjunction with the Parson and the Colonel, and the malicious aptness
+of the ballad. Even then he gave but scanty heed to Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk, for the knowledge that the ballad was indeed become the
+common talk occupied his thoughts, and so thoroughly, that it was the
+nearest thing imaginable but he gave his name as Mr. Wogan to the
+lackey who announced him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Hilton, however, was announced, and Mr. Hilton stepped through the
+great doorway into the room, and made his bow. At the first he was
+sensible only of a great blaze of light spotted here and there with
+the flames of candles; of a floor polished like a mirror, of a throng
+of misty faces, a hubbub of voices, and a gorgeous motley of colours
+like the Turkish bazaars Lady Mary was used to describe. Then the
+faces grew distinct. Mr. Wogan noticed one or two of the <i>honest</i>
+party, who, knowing his incognito, threw a startled glance at him, and
+like the rats from the sinking ship, scuttled away as soon as his eyes
+met theirs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked around him for Lady Oxford. He could not see her in the
+crowd which ebbed and flowed about the floor. There were card tables
+set against the walls; doubtless she would be seated at one of them.
+He glanced down the line of tables to his left. He did not see Lady
+Oxford, but his attention was seized by one particular table. It stood
+empty; a few packs of cards waited upon it for the players to handle,
+but by some strange chance it stood empty. It was the one vacant table
+in the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan was an Irishman, and now and again had his visionary
+moments, though he said little about them. As he looked at that one
+empty table a queer sort of fancy crept into his head, and, to be
+frank, struck something of a chill into his veins. It came upon him
+slowly that the table was not in truth empty at all; that in the midst
+of this velvet company, all jewels and compliments, there sat at this
+table a grey shrouded figure which silently awaited its player.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan was roused by a touch on his elbow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Hilton?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Hilton saw a dapper, young gentleman at his side who looked like
+nothing so much as a tangle of ribbons swept up from a milliner's
+shop.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To be sure,' said Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Her ladyship sits yonder.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan looked. Her ladyship sat with her back towards him at the
+table nearest to that which stood empty. She had been screened from
+his sight by the young gentleman now at his elbow. As Wogan looked,
+Lady Oxford turned with an anxious smile and a glance beyond his
+shoulder. The smile, the glance braced Mr. Wogan. For doubtless her
+ladyship looked to discover whether the Parson followed in his steps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He approached Lady Oxford. By her side sat Colonel Montague, black as
+thunder, and with a certain uneasy air of humiliation, like a man that
+finds himself ridiculously placed, and yet has not the courage to
+move. Mr. Wogan was encouraged; he could have wished the Colonel in no
+other mood. Mr. Wogan suddenly understood that it was himself who was
+cast to play with the shrouded figure, and the stake was the privilege
+of crossing swords with Montague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From the Colonel his eye strayed to a youth who stood by Lady Oxford's
+chair, and the sight of him clean took Wogan's breath away. It was not
+merely his face, though even in that bright company he shone a planet
+among stars. Nature, indeed, thought Wogan, must have robbed a good
+many women of their due share of looks before she compounded so much
+beauty in the making of one man. But even more remarkable than his
+beauty was his extraordinary likeness to Wogan's King. At the first
+glance Wogan would have sworn that this youth was the King, grown
+younger, but that he knew his Majesty was at Antwerp waiting for the
+Blow to fall. At the second, however, he remarked a difference. The
+youth had the haunting eyes of the Stuarts, only they were lit with
+gaiety and sparkled with success; he had the clear delicate features
+of the Stuarts, only they were rounded out of their rueful length, and
+in place of a sad gravity, were bright with a sunny contentment.
+Misfortune had cast no shadows upon the face, had dug no hollows about
+the eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford spoke to this paragon, smiled at him, drooped towards him.
+The Colonel shifted a foot, set his lips tight and frowned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan placed a hand upon his guide's sleeve.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Will you tell me, if you please, the name of her ladyship's new
+friend?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young gentleman stared at Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Let me perish, Mr. Hilton, but you are strangely out of the fashion.
+Or is it wit thus to affect an ignorance of our new conqueror, for
+whom women pine with love and men grow sour with envy? But indeed it
+is wit--the most engaging pleasantry. 'Twill make your reputation, Mr.
+Hilton.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is pure ignorance,' interrupted Wogan curtly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Indeed? But I cannot bring myself to believe it.' He stared at Wogan
+as though he was gazing at one of Dr. Swift's Yahoos. 'Slit my weazand
+if I can. Sir, he is the gold leaf upon the pill of the world. For his
+sake dowagers mince in white and silver, and at times he has to take
+to his bed to protect himself from their assiduities.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He has a dangerous face for these times,' again Mr. Wogan broke in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Blame his grandmother for that, Mr. Hilton; he is of the royal blood.
+Nell Gwynn of pious memory gave his father birth. Our last Charles was
+his grandsire; he hath Queen Mary's eyes. It is Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I thought as much. He is a very intimate friend of her ladyship's?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Hilton, the world is very <i>grossier</i>,' remarked his guide, with a
+smirk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan could have laughed. He understood why the Colonel looked so
+black, why the ballad was so maliciously apt, why my Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk was coupled with the Parson and the Colonel in the common
+talk. Her ladyship was taking a new lover. Colonel Montague was the
+crumpled ribbon that has done good service but is tossed into the
+cupboard to make way for fresher colours. The ballad was apt indeed.
+Mr. Wogan's spirits rose with a bound. Sure here was an occasion for
+picking a quarrel with the Colonel ready to his hand. He bowed very
+low to her ladyship. Her ladyship went on punting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague looked at him, and then looked at him again with the
+same perplexity which Mr. Wogan had found so distasteful one evening
+in St. James's Street three years before; but he said nothing. Her
+ladyship laid down a card and gave Mr. Wogan a hand, which he kissed
+with proper ceremony.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have come late, Mr. Hilton,' she said; 'and you have come, it
+seems--alone?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam,' replied Wogan, with a glance of great sympathy towards the
+Colonel, and in his softest brogue, 'men are born to loneliness as the
+sparks fly upward.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel took his meaning, and his face flushed. Wogan's spirits
+rose higher. If only Montague was strung to the same pitch of
+exasperation and injury as the Parson had been in the like
+circumstances! The supposition seemed probable. Mr. Wogan could have
+rubbed his hands in sheer content. The Colonel, however, made no
+rejoinder, and Mr. Wogan had to amuse himself by watching the play.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was little amusement, however, that Mr. Wogan got; on the contrary,
+as he watched, his fears returned to him. Her ladyship was evidently
+in something of a flutter. She did not show her usual severe attention
+to the game. Now she called her black boy Sambo to bring her fan; now
+she would pat her spaniel; now she would gaze through the crowd of
+perruques and laces towards the door. Her smile was fixed even when
+she paid her losses, and that was not her way, she being a bad loser.
+She was watching for someone, and that someone without a doubt was Mr.
+Kelly. Wogan could not but ask himself with what intention she
+watched. Her ladyship was taking a new lover, and for that reason the
+ballad struck her hard--if she knew of it. Smilinda was not the
+woman to forgive the blow. She would assuredly blame Kelly for the
+ballad--if she knew of it. Had she lured him here to strike back? She
+turned once more to Mr. Wogan, as though she would put some question
+to him; but, before she could open her lips, a name was bawled up the
+stairs, and a sudden hush fell upon the room. The throng in the
+doorway dissolved as if by magic, and between the doorway and Lady
+Oxford's chair a clear path was drawn. The name was Lady Mary Wortley
+Montagu's. Everyone then knew of the ballad and laid it at Lady Mary's
+door. Everyone? Mr. Wogan asked himself. Did Lady Oxford know?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague frowned and drummed with his knuckles on the table; it was
+the only sound heard in the room. Then Lord Sidney noisily thrust back
+his chair, and, stepping past Lady Oxford, stood in the open space
+between her and the door with a frank boyish championship for which
+Mr. Wogan at once pitied and liked him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The name was passed up the stairs from lackey to lackey, growing
+louder with each repetition. The silence was followed by a quick
+movement which ran through the room like a ripple across a pool, as
+each head was turned towards Lady Oxford to note how she would bear
+herself. She rose, the radiant goddess of hospitality.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There is no striving, Colonel Montague, against this run of luck,'
+she said, with the most natural ease; 'but my dear Lady Mary is come
+to save me from ruin. Mrs. Hewett,' she turned to her opposite, 'will
+you be tallier to our table? The bank is open to a bidder. No? Ah!'
+and she took a step forwards to where her champion was standing apart,
+his hand on his hip, his face raised, ready to encounter even so
+dangerous an antagonist as Lady Mary, 'my Lord Sidney Beauclerk, you
+are not afraid?' He looked at her, from her to the door. 'I am your
+servant,' said she, with her eyelids half-closed over her eyes, 'your
+grateful servant,' and she motioned him to the table; 'for, being a
+woman, I positively die to hear what new scandal dear Lady Mary has
+set on foot.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She spoke with an affectionate compassion for Lady Mary's foible and
+an air of innocence which quite took aback the most part of her
+guests. Mr. Wogan, however, was better acquainted with her ladyship's
+resources, and, wishing to know for certain whether Lady Oxford knew
+of the ballad;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I can satisfy your ladyship's curiosity,' he said bluntly; and with
+that the noise of the room sank to silence again. He was still
+standing by the card-table. Lady Oxford turned about to him something
+quickly. It may be she was disconcerted, or that anger got the upper
+hand with her. At all events, for an instant she dropped the mask. She
+gave Wogan one look; he never remembers, in all the strange incidents
+of his life, to have seen eyes so hard, so cold, and so cruel, or a
+face so venomous. In a second the look was gone, and the prettiest
+smile of inquiry was softening about her mouth. 'There is a new poem,
+is there not, from Lady Mary's kind muse?' said Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A new poem!' cried she. 'Let us hear it, I pray. It would be the
+worst of ill-breeding had I not knowledge enough to congratulate my
+friend. The happy subject of the poem, Mr. Hilton?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford took a step towards him. She was all courtesy and
+politeness, but Mr. Wogan, while he recognised her bravery, had her
+look of a second ago very distinct before his eyes, and was in no mood
+for pity. He bowed with no less courtesy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is thought to be an allegory,' he said, 'wherein the arm of flesh
+is preferred before a spiritual--Blade.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The rejoinder, as it seemed, was approved, for the ladies whispered
+behind their fans, and here and there a man checked a laugh. Lady
+Oxford met the thrust with all the appearances of unconcern.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And tagged with Latin, Mr. Hilton?' she asked. That was enough for
+Mr. Wogan. Lady Oxford knew the ballad, and gave it to Lady Mary.
+Without a doubt she must believe Mr. Kelly supplied Lady Mary with the
+matter of it. 'Of a truth the ballad will' be tagged with Latin. Sure
+Lady Mary has scholars enough among her friends who would not let her
+wit go naked when a scrap of Latin could cover it decently--indeed,
+too decently at times, for, though we always see the Latin, one is
+hard put to it now and then to discover the wit. Do you not think so,
+Mr.--Hilton?' She paused ever so slightly before the name, and ever so
+slightly drawled it, with just a hint of menace in her accent. Mr.
+Hilton, none the less, got a clear enough knowledge of the dangerous
+game he was playing. Lady Oxford had but to say 'Mr. Wogan,' and it
+would not be Mr. Wogan who would have the chance of playing a hand
+with the figure at the empty table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary's name was now called out from the doorway, and Mr. Wogan
+was glad enough to leave the encounter to her worthier hands. Lady
+Mary sailed into the room; Lady Oxford swam forwards to meet her. The
+two ladies dissolved almost in smiles and courtesies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'We were in despair, dearest Lady Mary; we feared you would baulk us
+of your company. France, they said, was happy in your sunshine.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'France, madam?' asked Lady Mary.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It was your dear friend, Mr. Pope, who said you had withdrawn
+thither--la, in the strangest hurry!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Indeed, very like! I denied Mr. Pope my door two days ago, and his
+vanity could only conceive I was gone abroad.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship was wise. A poet's tongue wags most indiscreetly. Not
+that anyone believes those fanciful creatures. A romance of a--a M.
+Rémond for whom you should have placed money in the sinking South Sea;
+the Frenchman arriving in London in a hurry; Lady Mary in a hurry
+arriving in France; a kind of country dance figure of partners
+crossing. A story indubitably false, to the knowledge of all your
+ladyship's friends, as I took occasion to say at more than one house
+where the rumour was put about.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford had scored the first point in the game, as Wogan reckoned
+and marked 'Fifteen--love' with chagrin. However, he took some
+comfort from Lady Mary's face, which was grown dangerously sweet and
+good-natured. Nor was his confidence vain, for Lady Mary did more than
+hold her ground.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship's good will,' said she, 'is my sufficient defence. My
+Lord Oxford is here? It is long since I paid him my respects.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Alas, my dear Lord has lain these last six weeks at Brampton Bryan,'
+sighed Lady Oxford, 'with a monstrous big toe all swathed in flannel.
+Your ladyship, I fear, can only greet my husband by proxy.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was just a sparkle of triumph in Lady Mary's eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'By proxy!' she said; 'with all the willingness in the world;' and she
+swept a courtesy to Colonel Montague, who was coming forward to join
+them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford flirted her fan before her face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A murmur almost of applause ran from group to group of the company.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan, who loved the game of tennis, marked 'Fifteen--all.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At that moment a clock upon the mantelshelf chimed the half-hour. In
+fifteen minutes the Parson would arrive, and Mr. Wogan had not played
+his hand. He moved a few yards from the table at which Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk, with his eyes upon Lady Oxford, was dealing the cards, and
+stood apart by the empty table, wondering how he should do. He picked
+up a pack of cards idly, and Lady Mary spoke again to Lady Oxford:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I interrupted your ladyship's game.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nay, your coming was the most welcome diversion. Colonel Montague,'
+said Lady Oxford, as she was gliding back to her table, 'shared my
+bank, and played with the worst of luck. I declare the Colonel has
+ruined me;' and so retired out of range of Lady Mary's guns.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel followed Lady Oxford. Lady Mary turned to Mr. Wogan, and
+in a voice loud enough for others than Mr. Wogan to hear:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What!' said she, 'was Lady Oxford ruined by Colonel Montague? I did
+not think their acquaintance was of so old a standing.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Thirty--fifteen,' said Mr. Wogan in an abstraction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary stared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I was but marking the game and scoring points to your ladyship,'
+Wogan said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague had heard Lady Mary's sally, for he stopped. Lord
+Sidney Beauclerk had heard it, for he rose as though to mark his
+disbelief, and handed Lady Oxford to her chair with a sort of air of
+protection very pretty in the boy. It seemed, indeed, as though even
+Lady Oxford was touched, for her face was half turned towards Mr.
+Wogan, and he saw it soften with something like pity and her eyes swam
+for an instant in tears. It was new, no doubt, for the spider to feel
+compassion for the fly, but Mr. Wogan was not altogether surprised,
+for he began to find the fly very much to his own taste. It was a
+clean-limbed, generous lad, that looked mighty handsome in the bravery
+of his pink satin coat, and without one foppish affectation from his
+top-knot to his shoe-buckles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan was still holding the pack of cards in his hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have a mind to play? 'asked Lady Mary.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan looked at the clock. He had only fifteen minutes for his
+business as lightning conductor. In fifteen minutes the Parson would
+be here.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'If you will present me to the player I have a mind to play with,'
+said he, dropping the pack on the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'With all my heart,' said she; 'name him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Colonel Montague.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her ladyship looked at Wogan doubtfully, and beckoned the Colonel with
+her fan. The Colonel, who had his own feud with Lady Mary over the
+supposed authorship of the ballad, made as though he had not seen her
+summons. Lady Mary repeated it with no better result, and finally took
+a step or two towards him. Montague could no longer affect to
+misunderstand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I wish to present you to a friend,' she said, as Colonel Montague
+joined her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'If your ladyship will excuse me,' said the Colonel coldly, 'I have no
+taste for the acquaintance of Irish adventurers.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan was not out of earshot, and laughed gleefully as he caught
+the insult. Here was his opportunity, come in the nick of time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Did anyone mention me?' he said pleasantly, as he came round the
+card-table. But before the Colonel could answer, or Lady Mary
+interfere, the servant at the door announced:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Dr. and Miss Townley!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan's heart gave a leap. He swore beneath his breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Miss Townley?' asked her ladyship, who had caught his oath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Is Rose, <i>the</i> Rose,' replied Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary knew the ballad, knew who Rose was, and looked perplexed as
+to why Lady Oxford had asked the girl. Mr. Wogan, on the other hand,
+was no longer perplexed at all. His doubt was now a certainty. Lady
+Oxford had prepared a scenic revenge, a <i>coup de theater</i>. To this
+end, and to prove her ignorance of the ballad, she had invited Kelly,
+Montague, and Rose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of the <i>coup de theater</i> her ladyship had got more than she bargained
+for. On her bosom Miss Townley wore diamonds that caught the eye even
+in that Aladdin's treasure house of shining stones, and among the
+diamonds the portrait of Lady Oxford. Her ladyship saw it, and grew
+white as marble. Miss Townley saw Lady Oxford, knew the face of the
+miniature that she had thought was the Queen's, and blushed like the
+dawn. Her hand flew to her neck as she courtesied deep to Lady
+Oxford's courtesy; when she rose, by some miracle of female skill, the
+miniature and the diamonds had vanished. Rising at the same moment,
+Lady Oxford looked herself again. But the women understood each other
+now, and, as they purred forth their <i>politesses</i>, Wogan knew that the
+buttons were off the foils.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had his own game to play, that would brook no waiting, and he
+played it without pause. Lady Mary had moved towards the door. Colonel
+Montague was gliding back to his old position near Lord Sidney. Wogan
+followed Colonel Montague and stopped him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sir,' said he, in a low brogue, 'I fancied that I caught a little
+word of yours that reflected on me counthry and me honour.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'For your country, sir,' replied the Colonel politely, 'your speech
+bewrayeth you, but the habitation of your honour is less discernible.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">''Faith, Colonel,' said Wogan, who found his plan answering to his
+highest expectations, 'you are so ready with your tongue that you
+might be qualifying for an Irishman. Doubtless you are as ready to
+take a quiet little walk, in which case I shall be most happy to show
+you where my honour inhabits. But, to speak the plain truth, it is
+somewhat too near the point of my sword to make Lady Oxford's
+drawing-room a convenient place for the exhibition.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague smiled at the pleasantry in an agreeable way which
+quite went to Wogan's heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'With all the goodwill imaginable,' said he, 'I will take that walk
+with you to-morrow,' and he made a bow and turned away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But Colonel,' said Wogan in some disappointment, 'why not to-night?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There are certain formalities. For instance, I was not fortunate
+enough to catch your name.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">''Tis as ancient as any in Ireland,' cried Wogan, in a heat, quite
+forgetting his incognito. 'My forefathers--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah, sir, they were kings, no doubt,' interrupted Montague with the
+gravest politeness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No, sir, viceroys only,' answered Wogan with indifference, 'up to
+Edward I.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your Highness,' said the Colonel, and he bowed to the ground, 'I
+reckon to-morrow a more suitable time.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan was tickled out of his ill-humour, and began to warm to the
+man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure, Colonel, you and I will be the best of good friends after I
+have killed you, and for the love of mercy let that be to-night.
+Look!' and stepping to the window he drew aside the curtain. 'Look,'
+said he, peering out, 'it is the sweetest moonlight that ever kissed a
+sword-blade! Oh, to-night, Colonel!' Then he dropped the curtain
+something suddenly. He had seen a face in the street. 'You prefer
+sunlight? Very well, sir. But you will acknowledge that to-morrow I
+have the <i>earliest</i> claims on your leisure.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague bowed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The word, you will remember, was an Irish adventurer.' Wogan
+impressed it upon him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sir, I am wedded to the phrase. You will send your friend to my
+lodgings at Mrs. Kilburne's, in Ryder Street.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mrs. Kilburne's!' exclaimed Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan might have guessed as much had he used his brains. It was at the
+corner of Ryder Street that he had plumped upon Montague when he came
+down to London from Glenshiel. It was under a portico in Ryder Street
+that the Parson and he had seen Montague on the night they had driven
+out on the first journey to Brampton Bryan. It was at Mrs. Kilburne's
+door that Wogan had seen Montague that afternoon. The Colonel was her
+fine gentleman upon the first floor. Sure, the Parson had the worst
+luck in the world. At all events, the Colonel was a gentleman. Wogan
+consoled himself with that reflection as he thought of Mr. Kelly's
+despatch box in the scrutoire of his parlour below the Colonel's
+rooms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That thought led Wogan's eyes again to the clock. It was half an hour
+past ten. The Parson was due in ten minutes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Good-bye t'ye, Colonel,' he said hastily to Montague, as he turned
+towards the door. He almost knocked against Rose, who was standing
+close by his elbow. She made an effort to detain him; he breathed a
+word of apology. It did not occur to him then that she might have
+overheard his conversation with the Colonel. He hurried past Lady
+Oxford and Dr. Townley, who was talking of his schooldays, when he
+knew Lord Oxford.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Hilton,' cried her ladyship. Mr. Hilton was deaf as a bed-post.
+For when he had looked out of the window at the moonlight he had seen
+a face in the roadway of which the Parson should have knowledge before
+he reached the house. It was that face which had made him drop the
+curtain so quickly and fall in so quickly with the Colonel's
+objections. A link-boy's torch had flashed for a second upon a man on
+the other side of the road, and his face was Scrope's. Scrope was
+watching the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan pressed through the throng towards the door, but before he could
+reach it a firm hand closed upon his arm. He looked round. Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk was standing by his side with a flushed, angry face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A word with you, Mr. Hilton!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A hundred, my lord, in half an hour,' said Wogan, and shook himself
+free. He must warn the Parson and turn him back from the house. But he
+was too late. In the doorway of the house he met Mr. Kelly, whose face
+wore a singular air of content. And on the other side of the road
+stood Scrope with his head turned towards the doorway. Scrope knew
+that the Parson had come.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan took Kelly's arm, and led him to the shady side of the
+street, out of the noisy crowd of lackeys and link-boys.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Those divines err,' said Kelly, 'who condemn the occasional casting
+of lots. It is not an ill game.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then you found our lurking luck?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Six rouleaux of gold,' said Mr. Kelly, tenderly caressing his pocket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The sinews of war, and we are like to need them.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then the coast is not clear?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Clear!' said Wogan, 'there is every sign of thunder, wind, and
+earthquake. First, Montague is here!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And here is his Capulet!' said Kelly smiling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan smiled too, having secured his duel with the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then Miss Townley is here, and, George, she was wearing my lady's
+miniature. The women know each other.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George's mouth opened, and his utterance was stayed. Then,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is a trap. I go home,' he said. Despair spoke in his voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No!' Mr. Wogan's plans had changed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why not? I have no more to lose, and my duty to do.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You do not go home, for Scrope is watching the house. He has seen you
+come. He is behind us now.' Mr. Kelly's hand went to his sword, but
+Wogan checked him. 'Don't let him think you know. We must leave the
+house together, and your duty is to be just now where Miss Townley is.
+Be quick!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The argument had weight with Mr. Kelly. Wogan had his reasons for
+advancing it. If they went away together, later, Wogan could engage
+Mr. Scrope's attentions while the Parson went safely on to Ryder
+Street. The two passed out of the shade, but not before George had
+placed his hand in Wogan's. His hand was cold as ice.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_17" href="#div1Ref_17">LADY OXFORD'S 'COUP DE THÉÂTRE.'</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson, when the two friends had climbed the crowded stairs, began
+making his way towards his fate and Lady Oxford's table, with a smile
+on his face. He did not see Rose, who was a little apart, hidden from
+him by a group of strangers. Wogan was about joining her, when a
+woman's voice whispered in his ear:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are mad!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The voice was Lady Mary's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are mad, both of you! He should be halfway to the coast by now.
+What brings him here? I wrote, or rather I sent to him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'True,' said Wogan, remembering the letter which he had picked up in
+the Parson's lodging, and slipped into his pocket. It had been thrust
+clean out of his mind at the Deanery by those more pressing questions
+as to how the Blow had been discovered, and how they were to escape
+from the consequences of the discovery. He drew it out, still sealed
+up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He has not opened it?' she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He has not seen it,' replied Wogan, who began to fear from her
+ladyship's discomposure that the letter held news of an urgent
+importance. She took the letter from his hands, and broke the seal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'This was my message,' she said. There was no scrap of writing in the
+letter, but a feather from a bird's wing: it meant &quot;Fly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The feather is white,' said Wogan. He could not have mounted it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He loses his life.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Perhaps, but he keeps his honour. There is something that he must do
+in London if by any means he can. He must burn the papers at his
+lodgings and the best hope lies in audacity.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan tore up the sheet on which her ladyship had written Mr.
+Johnson's name into fragments too minute for anyone to piece them
+together again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'This proof of your good will,' said he, 'shall not rise in judgment
+against you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But you?' said Lady Mary. 'Why do you stay?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan laughed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'For one thing, I have a little business of my own to settle,
+and--well--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And,' said she, 'your friend's in danger.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She spoke with so much kindliness that Mr. Wogan felt a trifle
+awkward, and turned his eyes from her face. He saw that Rose still
+stood alone, though many of the gallants eyed her through their
+quizzing-glasses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Lady Mary,' he said, 'you have the kindest heart!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Hush! Whisper it,' she replied, 'or you will destroy my reputation.
+What service would you have me do now?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You see Miss Rose? You have read a certain ballad which the ignorant
+give to your ladyship? And you know Lady Oxford. It is Miss Rose
+Townley's first visit to this house, and one cannot believe that Lady
+Oxford asked her with any amiable intention.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And I am to be Lady Oxford's spoil-sport?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It has gone beyond sport. At this moment her ladyship has murder in
+her mind. The girl entered the room wearing our hostess's portrait in
+diamonds,' and he told her shortly how she came to wear it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary looked her horror.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She has hidden it, but you will not leave the girl?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary nodded, her lips tight closed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan presented the girl. Lady Mary made room for her at her side, and
+Wogan only heard her say, 'My dear, be brave, you tremble.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What else passed, Wogan did not desire to hear. Lady Mary had faults,
+they say, as a woman, but she was of a manlike courage, and her's was
+the friendship of a man. Never did woman need it more than Miss
+Townley, and never, sure, was counsel and comfort wiser and kinder
+than that which, Wogan knew later, Lady Mary gave to the angry,
+frightened, and bewildered girl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary's credentials were Wogan's name; the girl could not suspect
+them. How had she come hither? Lady Oxford had invited her father,
+Rose said, as a schoolfellow of my lord's, and had asked, too, for the
+daughter's company. Then the young lady was lured, her new friend
+said, by a wicked woman for a cruel purpose. That purpose, whatever it
+was, and neither Wogan nor Kelly nor Lady Mary could do more than
+guess, must be defeated at any cost--at all costs. Lady Mary glanced
+at the guilt and guilelessness of our sex. Kelly, too, had been
+entrapped, before he knew Rose, but that was ended. Lady Mary
+certainly knew it was ended, however things appeared. According to
+men's notions, he was compelled to lie to Rose about the miniature.
+Now Miss Townley might, if she chose, give Kelly his <i>congé</i>
+to-morrow. To-night she must know nothing, see nothing, bear no
+grudge, be staunch; she owed it to her honour, to the honour of her
+sex, to Kelly's very life, and to her revenge, if she craved for one,
+on the false enchantress. That was Lady Mary's sermon. And the lesson
+was needed. She reported it later to Wogan who, at this moment, was
+following the Parson with all his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford at the card-table was greeting Kelly with a conspicuous
+kindness. Her smile was one wide welcome.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My dear Mr. Johnson,' she said, 'you are grateful as flowers worked
+on the very finest Alençon. Sure you bring me those laces for which I
+gave you a commission in Paris, and the lutestring from my Lady Mar.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly murmured a word that the laces were below, and he hoped her
+ladyship would be satisfied. But his eyes searched the room all the
+time for Rose, whom he could not see.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You shall show me them!' cried Lady Oxford; 'but first you must bring
+me luck. Mr. Johnson and I were always lucky before he went abroad.'
+She spoke with a provoking smile at Colonel Montague, and then shot a
+quick glance at Lord Sidney Beauclerk, who was now risen from the
+table, and stood in a window watching her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The glance said plain as writing, 'You understand. I have to face out
+the ballad. I can trust you.' Wogan's blood boiled as he noticed and
+read the look, for it was just that tender appeal to her lover's faith
+which always brought about the lover's undoing. Lord Sidney's young
+face flushed with pride at the trust she reposed in him, and she
+continued to Kelly:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Look over my hand, Mr. Johnson; you must not leave me. What card
+shall I choose? You, Colonel Montague, I discard you. I appoint you to
+the Commissariat, run and see that Lady Rich does not starve. She is
+leaving her party with the air of a loser, and needs the comforts of
+chicken and champagne. But first let me make you better acquainted
+with the gentleman who supersedes you. Mr. Johnson, the right-hand man
+of my dear Bishop of Rochester.' There she stopped short in a pretty
+confusion, as though the words had slipped from her lips against her
+will.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Who should be thrown to the lions,' growled the Colonel to himself,
+and added gruffly, 'Mr. Johnson and I have met before.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel turned his broad scarlet back with the ghost of a bow, and
+went reluctantly to Lady Rich, a mature matron, dressed to kill, in
+virginal white. Wogan watched them out of the door, and was again
+turning back to the card-table, when again Lord Sidney Beauclerk's
+hand was laid on his sleeve.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A word with you, Mr. Hilton,' said he in a hard voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'When the half-hour is past, my lord,' said Wogan, looking at his
+watch. 'There are still eight minutes and a few seconds.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I will set my watch by yours,' said the lad with great dignity; which
+he did, and went back to his corner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Johnson's welcome, meanwhile, was as that of the prodigal swain.
+He made more than one effort to slip from her side and go in search of
+Rose, but Lady Oxford would not let him go. She had eyes only for him,
+eyes to caress. Many curious people watched the scene as at a play.
+All the town knew the ballad, and here was Lady Oxford's reply. Mr.
+Johnson and Lady Oxford were to all seeming the best of friends, and
+no more than friends, for was not Miss Townley in the room to testify
+the limits of their friendship?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A shifting of the groups gave Wogan suddenly a view of Rose Townley.
+She was still talking with Lady Mary, or rather she was still
+listening to her, and threw in now and again a short reply. But she
+spoke with an occupied air, and her eyes were drawn ever towards the
+card-table at which Lady Oxford was practising her blandishments on
+the Parson. Then to Wogan's relief a few ladies and gentlemen stepped
+between, and the living screen hid him from her view.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this moment Lady Oxford lost heavily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'An ace? Sonica! I am bankrupt!' she cried, and rising from the table
+she addressed the Parson. 'Mr. Johnson, you bring me no better luck
+than did the Colonel. I must console myself with private talk, and
+news of lace and lutestring. What have you brought me? Come, I
+positively die to see,' and so, with her sweetest smile, she carried
+off the Parson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was thus she had wrought on that first night when Kelly met the
+Colonel, but there was a mighty difference in Kelly's demeanour. Then
+he had given her his arm with the proudest gallantry. Now her ladyship
+went out of her way to lead him past Rose, where she sat with Lady
+Mary. He threw an imploring glance at the girl, and followed in Lady
+Oxford's wake, the very figure of discomfort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fine smiles rippled silently round the company as the pair made their
+way to the door. Rose watched them, her face grown very hard and
+white, but she said no word until they had gone. She stood motionless,
+except that her bosom rose and fell quickly. Then she turned to Lady
+Mary.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I must bid your ladyship good-night,' she said; 'I have stayed too
+long.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Pride kept her voice clear, her words steady, but it could not mask
+the pain of her face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What ails you, child? You must smile. Smile!' whispered Lady Mary.
+But Rose was struck too hard. She lowered her eyes and fixed them on
+the floor to hide the humiliation they expressed, but she could not
+smile. She tried, but no more came of it than a quiver at the corners
+of her lips, and then she set her mouth firmly, as though she could
+not trust herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I thought I had persuaded you,' whispered Lady Mary. 'It is for
+honour, it is for life, his life. Appearances are nothing. You <i>must</i>
+stay.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I thank your ladyship, who is most kind. I will stay,' said the girl.
+Her face flushed purely with a delicate, proud anger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary presented her to some of her friends, with whom Rose bore
+herself bravely. Wogan saw that she had taken her part, and blessed
+Lady Mary.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had followed Lady Oxford and the Parson out of the room, and leaned
+over the balusters while they descended the stairs. It was an ominous
+business, this summons of Lady Oxford. Why must she carry him off
+alone with her? What blow had she to strike? Mr. Wogan was not
+surprised that Kelly had turned pale, and though he held his head
+erect, had none the less the air of one led to the sacrifice. To make
+the matter yet more ominous, Lady Oxford herself seemed in a flutter
+of excitement; her colour was heightened; she sparkled with even more
+than her usual beauty; her tongue rattled with even more than its
+usual liveliness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Half-way down the stairs she met Lady Rich and Colonel Montague
+mounting. Lady Oxford stopped and spoke to the Colonel. Mr. Wogan
+caught a word or two, such as 'Miss Townley--the poor girl knows no
+one.' Kelly started a little; the Colonel sullenly bowed. Lady Oxford,
+leaning upon Mr. Kelly's arm in order to provoke the Colonel, must
+needs in pity bid the Colonel wait upon Rose in order to provoke Mr.
+Kelly. There Wogan recognised her ladyship's refinements.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The pair passed down to the foot of the stairs. To the right of the
+staircase a door gave on to that little room into which Kelly had led
+Lady Oxford on the night of the Masquerade. Lady Oxford left his arm
+and went towards it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly remained standing by the stairs, very still. It was in this room
+that Lady Oxford had discovered the Chevalier's likeness in the lid of
+the snuff-box, and had deceived George into the belief that she was,
+heart and soul, as deep in the Cause as he. It was that room which had
+witnessed the beginnings of the history. Now it seemed it was like to
+see the end.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly looked up the stairs and saw Wogan's face. He smiled, in a
+quiet, hopeless way, and then Lady Oxford threw open the door. She
+turned back to Kelly, a languorous smile upon her lips, a tender light
+in her eyes. Neither the smile nor the look had power to beguile the
+two men any longer. Kelly stepped forwards to her like a man that is
+tired. Wogan had again the queer sense of incongruity. Behind him
+voices laughed and chattered, in some room to his left music sounded;
+and here at the foot of the stairs was a woman all smiles and graces
+playing with Life and Death as a child with toys.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The pair passed into the room. The door shut behind them. The click of
+the latch is one of the things Wogan never will forget.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_18" href="#div1Ref_18">WHEREIN A NEW FLY DISCOURSES ON THE
+INNOCENCE OF THE SPIDER'S WEB</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan was still leaning on the rail of the balustrade when a watch was
+held beneath his nose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The half-hour is gone, Mr. Hilton,' said Lord Sidney Beauclerk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'True,' said Wogan, 'it is now a quarter past eleven.' His eyes moved
+from the watch to the closed door. 'Half an hour, my lord,' he mused,
+'a small trifle of minutes. You may measure it by grains of sand, but,
+if you will, for each grain of sand you may count a life.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You hit my sentiments to a nicety.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lord Sidney spoke with a grave significance which roused Wogan from
+his reflections. The lad's face was hard; his eyes gloomy and fierce.
+Wogan remembered that, when Lord Sidney had spoken before, he had not
+seemed in the best of good humour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My lord,' he said, 'we can hardly talk with comfort here in the
+doorway.' He led the way back into the inner withdrawing-room and
+across the room to the recess of a window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Here we shall be private,' he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Hilton, you spoke a little while ago of a ballad, wherein, to use
+your words, the arm of flesh was preferred to a spiritual Blade. That
+may have been wit, of which I do not profess to be the judge. But you
+aimed an insult at a woman, and any man may claim to be the judge of
+that.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My lord,' answered Wogan gently, 'you do not know the woman. I could
+wish you never will.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lord Sidney laughed with a sharp scorn which brought the blood into
+Wogan's face. It was plain the remark was counted an evasion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'At all events I know an insult when I hear it. Let us keep to the
+insult, Mr. Hilton. It reaped its reward, for here and there a coward
+smirked his applause.' Lord Sidney's voice began to tremble with
+passion. 'But it has yet to be paid for. You must pay for it to me,'
+and, since Wogan kept silence, his passion of a sudden got the upper
+hand, and in a low quick voice--there was as much pain as anger in
+it--'It hurts me,' he said, clenching his hands, 'it positively hurts
+me. Here is a woman'--he stopped in full flight, and blushed with a
+youthful sort of shame at his eloquence--'a woman, sir, in a word, and
+you must torture her with your brave sneers and she must wear a
+smiling face while her heart bleeds! Mr. Hilton, are you a man? Why,
+then, so am I, and it humiliates me that we should both be men. The
+humiliation will not pass even after,' and he drew a breath in through
+his shut teeth, 'after I have killed you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan had listened to the outburst with all the respect he thought
+due to a boy's frank faith. A boy--Wogan's years were not many more
+than his, but he had seen mankind, and marvelled how they will trust a
+woman who, they know, has fooled one man, if but a husband. But, at
+Lord Sidney's talk of killing him, Wogan sank the philosopher and
+could not repress a grin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Kill me, my young friend; <i>ne fait ce tour qui veut</i>,' he said; 'but
+sure you may try if you will. You will not be the first who has
+tried.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have no doubt of that,' said Lord Sidney gravely, 'and you will
+oblige me by using another word. I may be young, Mr. Hilton, but I
+thank God I am not your friend.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a dignity, a sincerity in his manner which to Mr. Wogan's
+ears robbed the speech of all impertinence. Wogan simply bowed and
+said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'If you will send your friend to Burton's Coffee House in the
+morning----'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To Burton's Coffee House.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lord Sidney turned away. Mr. Wogan drew aside the curtain of the
+window and stared out into the night with an unusual discontent.
+Across the road Mr. Scrope was still lurking in the shadow--a hired
+spy. Very like, he had once been just such another honest lad, with
+just the same chivalry, before my lady cast her covetous eyes on him.
+Downstairs in the little room the Parson was fighting, for the Cause,
+for his sweetheart, for his liberty, and maybe for his life, with
+little prospect of a safe issue. It seemed a pity that Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk should be wasted too.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My lord,' said Wogan, calling after Lord Sidney. And Lord Sidney came
+back. Wogan was still holding the curtain aside; he had some vague
+thought of relating Scrope's history, but his first glance at Lord
+Sidney's face showed to him it would not avail. Lord Sidney would
+disbelieve it utterly. Wogan dropped the curtain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'How old is your lordship?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lord Sidney looked surprised, as well he might, and then blushed for
+his youth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am twenty,' he said, 'and some months,' with considerable emphasis
+on the months as though they made a world of difference.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah,' replied Wogan, 'I am of the century's age, twenty-two and some
+more months. You are astonished, my lord. But when I was fifteen I
+fought in battles.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Was it to tell me this you called me back?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' said Wogan solemnly, 'but you meet me tomorrow. I am not sure
+that I could do you better service than by taking care that you meet
+no one afterwards. It was that I had to tell you,' and he added with a
+smile, 'but I do not think I shall bring myself to do you that
+service.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lord Sidney's face changed a little from its formal politeness. He
+eyed Mr. Wogan as though for a moment he doubted whether he had not
+mistaken his man. Then he said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'In a duel, Mr. Hilton, there are two who fight.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Not always, my lord. Sometimes there is one who only defends,' and
+with that they parted. Clamorous dames took Lord Sidney captive. Wogan
+looked at his watch. Five minutes had passed since that latch had
+clicked. He strolled out of the room to the stairs. The door was still
+shut. He came back into the room and stood by Lady Mary, who was
+describing to Rose the characters of those who passed by. She looked
+anxiously at Wogan, who had no comforting news and shook his head, but
+she did not cease from her rattle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And here comes Colonel Montague with a yellow bundle of bones tied up
+in parchment, 'she cried. Lady Rich was the bundle of bones in
+parchment. 'Colonel Montague--well, my dear, he is a gallant officer
+in the King's guards who fought at Preston, and he owes his life to a
+noisy Irish boy who has since grown out of all recognition.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here Rose suddenly looked up at Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It was this Colonel Montague you saved!' said she.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Hush,' whispered Wogan, who had his own reasons for wishing the
+Colonel should discover nothing upon that head. 'Remember, if you
+please, that my name is Hilton.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague led Lady Rich to the sofa.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Colonel, has fortune deserted you that you look so glum?' asked Lady
+Mary.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am on the losing hand indeed, your ladyship, to-night,' said
+Montague bitterly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, <i>malheureux en jeu</i>,' said her ladyship maliciously, 'you may
+take comfort from the rest of the proverb.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Rich shook her rose-coloured ribbons, a girlish simpleton of
+forty summers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am vastly ashamed of being so prodigiously ignorant,' said she. 'I
+daresay I ask a mighty silly question, but what is the rest?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'French, my dear, and it means that fifteen years is the properest age
+for a woman to continue at, but why need one be five?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague smiled grimly. Mr. Wogan stifled a laugh. Lady Rich
+looked somewhat disconcerted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, is that a proverb?' said she with a <i>minauderie</i>. 'I shall dote
+on proverbs,' and so she simpered out of range.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary lifted up her hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'<i>Regardez cet animal!</i>' she cried; '<i>considérez ce néant</i>. There's a
+pretty soul to be immortal.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship is cruel,' said Rose in remonstrance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nay, my dear, it is the only way to keep her quiet. My Lady Rich is
+like a top that hums senselessly. You must whip it hard enough and
+then it goes to sleep and makes no noise. Mr. Hilton, are you struck
+dumb?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Hilton's ears were on the stretch to catch the sound of a door,
+and making an excuse he moved away. Suspense kept him restless; it
+seemed every muscle in his body clamoured to be doing. He walked again
+to the window. Scrope was still fixed at his post. Wogan sauntered out
+of the room to the stairs, and down the stairs to the hall. The hall
+was empty. The door of the little room where Kelly and Lady Oxford
+were closeted was shut, and no sound came through it, either of word
+or movement. Wogan wished he had been born a housemaid, that he might
+lean his ear against the keyhole without any shame at the
+eavesdropping. He stood at the stair-foot gazing at the door as though
+his eyes would melt the oak by the ardour of their look. Above the
+voices laughed, the smooth music murmured of all soft pleasures. Here,
+in the quiet of the hall, Wogan began to think the door would never
+open; he had a foolish fancy that he was staring at the lid of a
+coffin sealed down until the Judgment Day, and indeed the room might
+prove a coffin. He looked at his watch; only a poor quarter of an hour
+had passed since the door had closed. Wogan could not believe it; he
+shook his watch in the belief that it had stopped, and then a hubbub
+arose in the street. The noise drew nearer and nearer, and Wogan could
+distinguish the shouts of newsboys crying their papers. What they
+cried as yet he could not hear. In the great room at the head of the
+stairs the voices of a sudden ceased; here and there a window was
+thrown open. The ominous din rang through the open windows and floated
+down the stairs, first the vague cries, then the sound of running
+feet, and last of all the words, clear as a knell:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Bloody Popish Plot! A Plot discovered!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So Lady Oxford had played her cards. The plot was out; Scrope was in
+the street; the Parson was trapped. Wogan determined to open that
+door. He took his hand from the balustrade, but before he had advanced
+a step, the door was opened from within. Her ladyship sailed forth
+upon Mr. Kelly's arm, radiant with smiles; and, to Wogan's
+astonishment, Kelly in the matter of good humour seemed in no wise
+behind her.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_19" href="#div1Ref_19">STROKE AND COUNTER-STROKE</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Those fifteen minutes had none the less proved a <i>mauvais quart
+d'heure</i> for Mr. Kelly. As he entered the room, the memories of the
+grey morning when first he stood there were heavy upon his thoughts. A
+cheerful fire burnt upon the hearth now as then. There was the settee
+on which her ladyship had lain in her pretended swoon. The text which
+he had read in the Deanery recurred to him: 'Her ways are the ways of
+Death; her feet take hold on Hell.' Through the open door came the
+sound of music and the words jangled through Kelly's mind to the tune.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford closed the door; as the latch caught, Kelly lifted his
+head and faced her. On that first occasion her ladyship had worn a
+mask, and in truth she wore no mask now. A cruel smile played about
+her lips; a cruel light glittered in her eyes. She looked him over
+with triumph, as though he were her captive bound hand and foot. The
+look braced Mr. Kelly. He started from his memories as a man starts up
+from sleep; he lived alert and complete in the moments as they passed.
+Rose, the King's papers, his own liberty--this was his new text. Her
+ladyship could be trusted to give a sufficient exposition of the
+other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She seated herself, and with her fan beckoned him to a chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'We have much to speak of, sir. I hear that I have to make you my
+congratulations, and to pay you my thanks. You may conceive with what
+sincerity.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly remained standing by the fireside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'For what services does your ladyship thank me?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have made me a tavern-jest. I have to thank you for a ballad.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly did not deny or argue the point. His pressing business was
+to know what Lady Oxford intended.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And on what fortunate event does your ladyship congratulate me?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Are there so many fortunate events in the life of an Irish runagate
+and traitor? On your happy marriage, sir, with the starving
+apothecary's daughter.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly laughed pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship is pleased to be facetious. Upon my honour, I know no
+such woman,' he said, thinking thus to provoke her to disclose her
+purposes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford, to his surprise, rose up with a joyful air. 'I knew it,'
+she cried. 'I knew the story of the girl was the idle talk of the
+Cocoa Tree. And Lady Mary thought to stab me with the cruel news. Ah,
+if the honour of my Strephon be pledged, his Smilinda's anger
+vanishes.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here she threw her arms about Kelly's neck, in a very particular
+embrace, as if she would kiss him. But she refrained from such a
+caress. Her arms were clasped tighter and yet more tight till Kelly
+could scarcely breathe, and her cold whispering mouth touched his ear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There was, then, no starving apothecary?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'None, madam. You have been misinformed.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The embrace grew deadly tight. He could not have thought that a woman
+had such strength in her arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No man named Townley? No daughter Rose? No wound? No nursing? No
+love-vows? No dog Harlequin? No betrothal? Liar!' she whispered in a
+strange voice, 'I see your miss's ring upon your finger. I saw my
+portrait upon her breast. Did she steal it? 'Tis like enough. But 'tis
+likelier that you lie!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship misunderstands,' said Kelly. 'I denied that there was a
+starving apothecary's daughter. I did not deny that there was a man
+named Townley, who, by the way, is your ladyship's guest. I did not
+deny there was a daughter Rose----'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Go!' she cried suddenly, releasing Kelly, and pushing him off. 'I
+know everything, everything. Go, traitor to your King and to your
+word! And when you are hanged, but <i>not till you are dead</i>, remember
+that you have made a toy and jest of <i>me</i>, babbling to your Lady Marys
+and your Wogans.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She flung herself back on a settee panting and tearing her laced
+handkerchief into shreds. Kelly waited a little for her to recover her
+composure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam,' he said, 'in the fatal circumstances you mention with such
+relish, it is certainly not of you that I shall think, though in less
+painful moments I shall ever do so with honour and gratitude. As for
+what you say of my babbling, I protest my innocence before Heaven.
+Your ladyship forgets that you have an enemy from whom it was my good
+fortune once to defend you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford dropped her handkerchief and sat forward staring
+doubtfully at Kelly, who at once pressed his advantage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It was into this room that I then had the honour of escorting your
+ladyship. Upon that occasion, if I may be pardoned for reminding you,
+what appears now to be treachery in me, seemed more akin to loyalty.
+But though the sentiments of your ladyship have suffered a change
+since then, those of Mr. Scrope have not. It was he who had attacked
+you then; it is he who attacks you now, and, believe me, it is my
+regret that I was not again at hand to defend you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson should have stopped before those last few words were
+spoken. He spoke them in all sincerity, but they lost him the
+advantage he had gained, for it was not in Lady Oxford's nature to
+believe them. She made her profit out of her lovers' sincerity, yet
+could not comprehend it. It seemed almost as though some instinct led
+her to choose them for that very quality, with which her judgment
+could not credit them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A fine story,' she exclaimed with a sneer, 'and no doubt the
+apothecary's daughter would be entirely content with it, but I know
+you lie.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly bowed in silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Wait,' she said, mistaking the bow, for Mr. Kelly had a certain
+question to ask before he returned to the company; 'we must appear
+together.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She took in her hand a box of lace which had been placed ready in the
+room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your hand, if you please, Mr. Johnson, for the last time. You are
+going, sir, to your death by rope and knife, or by point of sword.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly gave Lady Oxford his hand, and put his question:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your Ladyship has no fear that I shall escape?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her ladyship had none whatever, as her smile clearly showed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then perhaps your ladyship will inform me how much liberty I have
+still left to me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have to-night free,' she answered, and as he heard the words
+Kelly's heart gave a great leap within him. 'So much reprieve you
+have. But you must not go till I dismiss you. Enjoy yourself.' She
+took Kelly's hand with a low courtesy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had to-night free! At all events, the King's papers would be saved.
+If all else went down, the papers would be saved. So it came about
+that he met Wogan at the stair-foot with a smiling face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the withdrawing-room the clatter of tongues had begun again, so
+that neither Lady Oxford nor the Parson distinguished the shouts of
+the newsboys, as they mounted the stairs. To Mr. Wogan, indeed, who
+followed upon their heels, the words no longer rose clear and audible.
+But as they entered the room, it was plain something was stirring. The
+windows stood open, gentlemen leaned out, ladies asked questions;
+about each window there was a restless, noisy group. The candles
+guttered in the wind; the card-tables were deserted; and straight in
+front of him Mr. Wogan saw Rose, her hands clasped in an extremity of
+apprehension. Colonel Montague stood beside her chatting easily and
+making as though he remarked nothing of her uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the hoarse cries again rang through the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Bloody Popish Plot.' 'A Plot discovered.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What, yet another Plot?' said Mr. Wogan smiling to Lady Oxford.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Walpole discovers plots by the dozen; he is the most active of
+our guardians, 'said Kelly easily. He dared not look at Rose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'We must hear more of it,' said Lady Oxford pleasantly, and calling
+her black boy: 'Run, Sambo, bring this late-flying night-bird of ill
+omen.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The boy grinned, and ran away upon his errand. Lady Oxford came up to
+my Lady Mary Montagu.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'See, madam,' she cried, opening the box of lace with the air of a
+child that has a new toy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'See what this kind obliger has brought me from the looms of the Fairy
+Queen. All point d'Alençon of the finest. Yes, you may well look
+envious. Here is meat for a Queen.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The other ladies, deserting the windows when they heard that magical
+word 'lace,' crowded round, and Kelly was, where many a pretty fellow
+would have loved to be, in the centre of a perfumed world of fans and
+hoops, of sparkling eyes and patched faces. Kelly, however, had other
+business on hand, and, slipping through the group while Lady Oxford
+was praising her lace, he drew Wogan aside to a window now deserted.
+There he told him of his conversation with Lady Oxford.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'So you see, Nick, I have to-night free. I mean to run to my lodging,
+burn the papers, and then--why one has a night free. I may yet outwit
+my lady. Besides, the papers once burned, there's little proof to
+condemn me. Speak to Rose, Nick! She will believe <i>you</i>; you never
+lied to her. Tell her there's no need to despair. Then make speed to
+the coast. I must go to Ryder Street.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he turned, Nick caught him by the arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You must not go yet.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For answer Wogan turned to the window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Stand here in the shadow of the curtain. Across the street; there, in
+the corner.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly put his hands to his face to shut out the light of the room, and
+peered into the darkness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There is a man. Who is it?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I told you! Scrope. I saw him an hour ago. A link-boy's torch showed
+me his face. You have to-night free. An hour or so more will make
+little difference to you, and may tire out our friend there--or he may
+mean another bout with the sharps.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I hope so,' said Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this moment Sambo returned with a little damp sheet of the <i>Flying
+Post</i>, and the laces were forgotten. Sambo carried the sheet to Lady
+Oxford.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Faugh,' said she, 'I dare not touch the inky thing!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan came out from his window, where he left his friend, and took the
+sheet from the boy's black paw.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Does your ladyship wish to alarm us all by reading out the news?
+These Papists are terrible fellows.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Read! Read!' said Lady Oxford, with a contented laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan ran his eyes over the print.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is scarce fit for ladies' ears,' he said meaningly. 'Some nonsense
+out of Grub Street. The wretch should be whipped from Temple Bar to
+Westminster,' and Wogan made as if he would tear the sheet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her ladyship hesitated. But she could not guess what the sheet
+contained, and she knew Mr. Wogan would try to screen his friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nay, read sir,' she said boldly, 'or must I imperil my own fingers
+with the foul thing?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan folded the paper, and with a bow held it out to her ladyship;
+again she hesitated; she did not take the sheet; she looked into
+Wogan's face as though she would read the news-sheet there. Curious
+smiles began to show upon the faces about her, heads to nod, lips to
+whisper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Shall I oblige your ladyship?' asked Mr. Methuen, who stood by.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'If you please,' replied Lady Oxford, but in a less certain tone than
+she had used before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Methuen took the sheet from Wogan's hand, unfolded it, and glanced
+at it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is indeed scarce fit for your ladyship's ears,' he said; and in
+his turn he folded it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The smiles broadened, the whispers increased. Lady Oxford was
+altogether disconcerted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I will read it,' a young voice rang out. Lord Sidney Beauclerk
+stepped forward, took the sheet from Mr. Methuen, and at once read it
+aloud. He began defiantly, but towards the end his voice faltered. Mr.
+Kelly did not turn round, and seemed to pay no heed whatever.</p>
+<div style="font-size:90%">
+<p class="normal">'They write from Paris that a foul Plot against the Throne, and even
+the sacred Person of His Most Gracious Majesty hath been discovered.
+In Town, it is thought that a Lady of great Beauty who has a Tory Lord
+of advanced years and gouty Habit to her Husband, and a young Whig
+Officer of great Promise for her Friend, hath given the Intelligence
+to the Minister. Nobody has yet been taken, but the Gentry of the
+Silver Greyhound are thought to have their eyes on a certain Reverend
+Nonjuror. We say no more for the present.'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Lord Sidney crumpled up the sheet, and retiring from the circle,
+slowly tore it in pieces.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To be sure, they say quite enough,' murmured Lady Mary, and no one
+else spoke, but all looked to Lady Oxford.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford was brave.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the silence of the company who were gathered round she spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Too scurrilous to need a contradiction! Doubtless it is I and my kind
+lace-dealer who are aimed at. Now Mr. Johnson is here, and is my
+guest. The inference is plain.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Johnson turned from the window and came up to the group.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My confidence in her ladyship is as great as my certainty that there
+is no Plot in which I am concerned,' said Kelly, bowing to the lady,
+and letting his jolly laugh out of him to the comfort of the company
+who did not smoke his jest. Mr. Wogan admired his friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was now become impossible for Kelly to leave the house. Should he
+go now, his going would wear all the appearances of a hasty flight,
+and who knew but what some of Mr. Walpole's spies might be within the
+room as well as in the street? Kelly must remain and brave it out, as
+he clearly recognised. For,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There are ears to be cut for this,' he went on, 'but we had better be
+cutting the cards.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Johnson holds the bank with me!' cried Lady Oxford. 'After this
+terrible false alarm I am ready to risk all, and brave everything. I
+must win enough to pay for my laces; I am much in Mr. Johnson's debt.
+Sambo, my money box.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The black boy ran out of the room. Mr. Kelly walked towards the
+card-table, and as he went, a light hand was laid upon his arm, and
+Rose's trembling voice whispered in his ear:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George, you will go. Yes, now, to-night. There may yet be time for
+you to cross to France.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly was comforted beyond words, beyond belief. Rose knew, and
+she forgave; he had not thought it was in woman's nature. But he was
+also tempted to fly; his papers unburned, the Cause deserted. The hand
+upon his sleeve had its fingers on his heart-strings, and was twanging
+them to a very pretty tune. A few strides would bring him to the
+doorway, a couple of leaps to the foot of the stairs, and outside was
+the night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You will go,' she repeated, seeing how her voice weakened him.
+'Now--now.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes 'trembled on his lips. It seemed to Rose in her great longing
+that she heard the word breathed upon the air. But he did not speak
+it; he spoke no word at all. He started, his mouth dropped, his blue
+eyes stared, the blood was drained from his cheeks. He stood amazed,
+like one that sees a ghost. Rose followed the direction of his eyes;
+she saw the guests, the tables, the candles, but nothing that should
+so startle her lover.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What is it?' she asked, fearing any delay that checked the assent she
+had seen tremble on his lips. 'You will go! You will go!' But even as
+she spoke she knew that he would not go. His face kept its pallor, but
+grew resolute, ennobled. He had ceased to think of his own safety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I cannot go,' he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Johnson,' Lady Oxford's voice broke in. Sambo had returned with a
+casket curiously enamelled. 'Mr. Johnson,' said she, looking into the
+casket: 'Some five hundred pounds.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And six rouleaux,' added Kelly, bringing out the spoils of Hazard
+with an air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Rose turned away, her face of a sudden grown very white and hard. She
+had done her best to make Kelly seek safety, and he would not: could
+she do more?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson crossed suddenly to Wogan, his face very pale, but with a
+wonderful bright light in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick, I have seen the King, here, in this room, young, happy. The
+shadow of the hundred years of sorrow of his race has lifted from his
+forehead.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The King is at Antwerp, George. You have not seen him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then it is his spirit, which has taken form to hearten us,' Kelly
+whispered in a voice of awe.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George, you have seen Lord Sidney Beauclerk.' It needed no more than
+a word to make him understand. He had not seen the King nor the King's
+appearance, only the King's cousin, Lord Sidney. But now he could not
+forget any longer that the King's papers were in his lodgings; that at
+all costs he must reach his lodgings unfollowed; that at all costs
+those papers must be a little pile of ashes before the morning came.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The bank is open,' said Lady Oxford. 'Colonel Montague, will you find
+a lady and be our opposite?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The glum Colonel bowed in silence, and allied himself with silly
+smiling Lady Rich. The play was high. The luck had not deserted Kelly,
+while Lady Oxford paid him a hundred flattering compliments and
+bantered her military lover, who was not ready at repartee or was not
+ready then.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'<i>Malheureux en jeu</i>,' said Lady Oxford, repeating the proverb Lady
+Mary had already quoted that evening. 'How fortunate, Colonel, must be
+your affections!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is only your ladyship who has all the luck and wins, or wins back
+if she loses,' answered the Colonel, looking at Mr. Kelly with an evil
+favour, and her ladyship laughed in pure delight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was another game besides Quadrille played at that table. Lady
+Oxford was setting Colonel Montague and the Parson by the ears. Did
+she wish to embroil them in a quarrel to make Kelly's ruin doubly
+sure? Wogan watched the Colonel; he had the first claim upon the
+Colonel's sword. Mr. Kelly kept smiling and raking in the rippling
+golden stakes. The company stood round; they had left their tables to
+see this great battle of Quadrille. At times Wogan caught a glimpse of
+Rose Townley through a gap in the circle. She could not know why her
+lover had not fled. She only knew that, in her despite, he stayed in
+the house of the woman of whom he had told her at Avignon, though his
+life was in peril; she only saw that woman fawning upon him, and him
+smiling back to the woman. Lady Mary had stolen her hand into the
+girl's, that no doubt was cold as marble, and in his heart Wogan
+blessed her kind ladyship. At last all the tide of gold had turned to
+Lady Oxford's side of the table. The Colonel rose and confessed
+defeat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">People began to say their good-byes. Dr. Townley crossed the room to
+his daughter, who rose at once with a word of thanks to Lady Mary. Mr.
+Kelly remarked her movement, and with an imploring look bade her wait
+until Lady Oxford released him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Johnson,' said her ladyship, dividing the winnings, 'short
+accounts make long friends. I think when you reckon up the night you
+will find that all my great debt to you is fully paid.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly bowed, and took the money, his eyes on her flushed face and
+glittering serpent's eyes. Lady Oxford turned to Colonel Montague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your revenge is waiting for you, Colonel, whenever you are pleased to
+claim it. To-morrow if you will.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam, I may claim my revenge to-night,' said the Colonel, and
+stepped back with his full weight upon Kelly's foot. There was no
+mistaking the deliberate movement. Lady Oxford made as though she had
+not seen it, but as she turned away her face had a look of pleasure,
+which Mr. Kelly remarked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nay, Colonel,' said Wogan, 'you and I have a game to play, you
+remember. Le Queux's is still open and I claim the first call on your
+leisure at Hazard.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague answered Mr. Wogan with a good-nature which the
+latter did not comprehend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have indeed some words to say to you, sir.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But, Colonel,' said the Parson, 'you trod upon my foot. I shall be
+happy to consult you on the bruise to-morrow.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To-morrow?' said Montague, his face hardening instantly. 'I may
+inquire after it before then,' and so making his bow he got him from
+the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford gave her hand to Wogan and dismissed him with a friendly
+word. She was so occupied with the pleasure of her revenge that she
+had altogether forgotten his jest about the ballad. Wogan on his side
+made his leave-taking as short as could be, for out of the corner of
+his eye he saw Kelly offering his arm to Miss Townley, and Kelly must
+not leave the house without Wogan at his side. For, in the first
+place, Colonel Montague was for a sure thing standing sentinel within
+ten paces of the door, and after he had run the gauntlet of the
+Colonel, there was Scrope for him to make his account with, should
+Scrope attempt to follow in his tracks. Mr. Wogan had a mind to insist
+upon his first claim to Colonel Montague's attentions, and, once they
+were rid of him, it would not be difficult to come to a suitable
+understanding with Scrope should he attempt to follow them to Ryder
+Street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan was indeed already relishing in anticipation the half-hour
+that was to come, and hurried after the Parson, who was by this time
+close to the door with Rose upon his arm and Dr. Townley at his heels.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Good night, Mr. Johnson,' said her ladyship in a lazy voice. 'Take
+care of yourself, for they tell me the streets are not too safe.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly dropped Rose Townley's arm and turned back towards Lady Oxford.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But surely,' said he with some anxiety, 'tonight the streets are
+safe. Your ladyship assured me of their safety to-night.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford made no reply for a few seconds, she stood watching Kelly
+with an indolent smile. A word of Lady Mary's came back to Wogan's
+mind--a word spoken two years since in Paris, 'She will play cat to
+any man's mouse.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To-night?' said Lady Oxford, lifting her eyebrows, and she glanced
+towards the clock. It was five minutes to one. Kelly stared at the
+clock, his mouth open and his eyes fixed. Then he drew his hand across
+his forehead, and, walking slowly to the mantelpiece, leaned his hands
+on it in a broken attitude and so stared at the clock again. Lady
+Oxford had struck her last blow, and the last was the heaviest. Kelly
+had the night free, but the night was gone--and the streets were not
+safe. Nothing could be saved now--not even the King's papers. Then
+Wogan saw a change come over his face. The despair died out of it and
+left it blank as a shuttered window. But very slowly the shutter
+opened. He was thinking; the thought became a hope, the hope a
+resolve. First his knees straightened, then the rounded shoulders rose
+stiff and strong. In his turn Kelly struck.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship,' he said, 'was kind enough some time ago to entrust me
+with your own <i>brocades</i>. Those brocades are in the strong box in my
+lodgings.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan understood. Brocades was the name for letters in the jargon of
+the Plot. Lady Oxford's love-letters were in that box which he had
+handled that very afternoon. If Kelly was seized in the street his
+rooms would be searched, the King's papers found, and, with the King's
+papers, Lady Oxford's love-letters. Lady Oxford understood too. Her
+ingenious stratagems of the evening to discredit the ballad and save
+her fair fame would be of little avail if the world once got wind of
+those pretty outpourings of Smilinda's heart. Her face grew very
+white. She dropped her fan and stooped to recover it. It was
+noticeable, though unnoticed, that no one of those who were still
+present stepped forward to pick up the fan. Curiosity held them in
+chains, not for the first time that evening. It was as though they
+stood in a room and knew that behind locked doors two people were
+engaged in a duel. Now and then a clink of steel would assure them
+that a thrust was made; but how the duel went they could not tell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Lady Oxford rose her colour had returned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My brocades?' she said. 'Indeed, I had purely forgotten them. You
+have had them repaired in Paris?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes, madam,' answered Kelly deliberately. 'I do not think the streets
+are so unsafe as your ladyship supposes; but I should be sorry for
+them to fall into any hands but your own if by any chance footpads end
+my days to-night.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He bowed and walked towards Rose Townley and her father, who stood in
+the doorway at a loss what to make of the scene. He had crossed half
+the distance before Lady Oxford moved. Then, it seemed with one swift
+step, she stood at Kelly's side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Johnson, you are my prisoner!' she exclaimed. 'My dear brocades!
+Mr. Johnson, you are surely the most attentive of men. You must tell
+me how they have been repaired; I shall not close my eyes unless you
+take pity on my impatience.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had Kelly been the man to care for triumphs wrested from a woman, he
+would have found his occasion now. A minute before, Lady Oxford's eyes
+glittered with menaces, her face was masterful; now, her eyes besought
+pity, her face was humbled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'If your ladyship will permit me,' said Kelly, 'I will return when I
+have seen Miss Townley to her chair.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a difficult moment for Miss Townley. For to those who looked on
+it seemed that by some means here was Mr. Johnson brought back into
+bondage before the very eyes of his betrothed. But Rose was patient of
+Lady Mary's lesson. 'Tomorrow give him his <i>congé</i> if you will;
+to-night be staunch! It is for life and honour!' She knew no more, but
+she was loyal. Wogan had seen men go, for the Cause, to a shameful
+death by torture. But he never saw courage so unfaltering, or loyalty
+so true, as this girl's. She was not herself in that hour; she had
+taken up a part as an actress does, and she played it clean, and
+played it through. To-morrow she might be a woman again, a woman
+wronged, deceived, insulted; to-night, with the astonishing valour and
+duplicity of her sex, she was all in her part, to see nothing, to know
+nothing, to be staunch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To the smiles, the simpered sarcasms, the quizzing glances, she paid
+no heed. She said, with a simple dignity, to Lady Oxford:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I will not keep Mr. Johnson long. It is but a few steps to your
+ladyship's door, where my chair waits for me,' and she held out her
+hand to Kelly. She had her reward. Kelly's face put on a look of pride
+which no one in the room could mistake. He took her hand with a laugh,
+and threw back his chest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I will return, your ladyship,' he said gaily, and with Rose passed
+out of the door. The whispers were stilled; the couple went down the
+stairs in a great silence. Rose bore herself bravely until she had
+stepped into her chair; showed a brave face then at the window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I shall hear of you from France,' she whispered. 'Good-night.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The chair was carried off; Dr. Townley followed. The Parson returned
+slowly up the stairs. His heart was full; in Rose's eyes he had seen
+the tears gathering; no doubt in the darkness of her chair they were
+flowing now. She would hear of him from France! Well, he had his one
+weapon--Lady Oxford's letters. If he used that weapon aright, why
+should she not hear of him from France? By the time he reached the top
+of the stairs, he was already putting together the words of the letter
+he should write.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he re-entered the withdrawing-room, the last few guests, of whom
+Wogan was one, were taking their departure. Wogan saw Kelly move
+towards the little card-table which had stood empty. Kelly sat down,
+and with the fingers of one hand he played with the cards, cutting
+them unwittingly as though for a deal. It was, after all, he and not
+Wogan who had to play the hand with the shrouded figure. Wogan had
+already made his adieux. As he passed out of the door Lady Oxford was
+standing in the middle of the room plucking at her fan. As he went
+down the stairs, the door was flung to with a bang. Lady Oxford and
+Kelly were left alone.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_20" href="#div1Ref_20">MR. SCROPE BATHES BY MOONLIGHT AND IN HIS
+PERUKE</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan had heard two doors shut that evening, and with very different
+feelings. One had been latched gently, and the sound had filled him
+with apprehensions; one had been flung to with an angry violence, and
+the sound soothed him like the crooning of music. For Kelly, it
+seemed, after all held the trumps in his hand; he had but to play them
+aright and the game was his.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The longer he takes to play them the better,' murmured Wogan, as he
+stood on the steps of Lady Oxford's house and looked briskly about
+him. For to his left, standing openly in the moonlight, he saw a tall
+martial figure wrapped in a cloak, and the end of a scabbard shining
+beneath the cloak, while across the road his eyes made out a hunched
+form blotted against the wall. The figure in the cloak was Colonel
+Montague; the skulker would no less certainly be Mr. Scrope. If the
+Parson would only take time enough to deploy his arguments like a
+careful general! Mr. Wogan would have liked to have run back and
+assured Kelly that there was no need whatever for hurry, since he
+himself had enough amusements on his hands to make the time pass
+pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He advanced to the Colonel first.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sir, it is now to-morrow, the date at which you kindly promised me a
+few moments of your leisure. You may hear the chimes of the Abbey
+strike the half hour after one.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Wogan,' replied the Colonel, 'I reckon this yesterday--till after
+breakfast. At present I have an engagement with another person.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Colonel Montague, your reckoning of time is contrary to the almanac,
+and to a sound metaphysic, of which I am the ardent advocate. You will
+understand, sir, that such a difference of opinion between gentlemen
+admits of only one conclusion.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague smiled, and to Wogan's chagrin and astonishment
+replied:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have grown a foot, or thereby, Mr. Wogan, since last we met, on
+an occasion which you will permit me to say that I can never forget.
+All our differences are sunk for ever in that one consideration. I
+implore you to leave me to the settlement of my pressing business.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the Colonel knew of that unfortunate rescue at Preston. Wogan,
+however, was not so easily put off.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Grown a foot, sir!' he cried. 'I am not the same man! You speak of a
+boy, who died long ago; if he made a mistake in saving your life,
+overlook a pure accident, and oblige me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The accident does not remove my obligation.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'If you knew the truth, you would be sensible that there was no
+obligation in the matter. Come, take a stroll in the Park, and I'll
+tell the truth of the whole matter to whichever of us is alive to hear
+it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I had the whole truth already, to-night, from the young lady.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The young lady?' Wogan had told Rose Townley of how he saved the life
+of a Colonel Montague, and to-night he had informed her that this
+Colonel was the man. She had been standing by his elbow when he had
+picked his quarrel with Montague. Sure she had overheard and had
+interfered to prevent it. 'The young lady!' he cried. 'All women are
+spoil-sports. But, Colonel, you must not believe her. I made a great
+deal of that story when I told it to Miss Townley. But you would find
+it a very simple affair if you had it from an eye-witness.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel shook his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yet the story was very circumstantial, how you leaped from the
+barricades--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That were but two feet high.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And, through a cross fire of bullets, crossed the square to where I
+lay--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The fire was a half charge of duckshot that an old fellow let off by
+mismanagement from a rusty pistol. Both sides stopped firing the
+moment I jumped over--the politest thing. I might have been tripping
+down the Mall with a lady on my arm, for all the danger I ran.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But your wounds?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I slipped and cut my shin on the sharp cobbles, that's true.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Wogan, it will not do! Had I known your name this evening when
+Lady Mary made us acquainted, certain expressions properly distasteful
+to you would not have escaped my lips. But now I can make amends for
+them to the gallant gentleman who brought a wounded enemy out of a
+cross-fire. I apologise to you, but I cannot oblige you to the extent
+you wish, however you may attempt to make light of your courage, and
+of the obligation on my side.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure, Colonel, to be done with adornment of the real truth, I only
+saved such a fine man to have the pleasure of killing him myself.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here the Colonel broke into a laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Wogan, if I drew my sword and stood up before you without making
+a parry or a lunge, would you kill me?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No, indeed, there would be little diversion in that game,' said
+Wogan, who was now grown quite melancholic.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, that is the utmost you will get from me, I am much pressed for
+time, and look to find another.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Another!' Wogan's failing hopes revived. 'Praise be to the Saints! I
+see your mistake, and you shall understand it in a twinkling. The
+other and myself are just one man for these purposes. George is my
+<i>alter ego</i>. We are the greatest friends, and have been taken for each
+other when we are talking. I'll talk all the time we fight, and you
+can fancy it is George whose ribs you are trying to tickle.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel, however, was obdurate, and before Wogan could hit upon a
+likelier argument both gentlemen heard a cough.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Someone was standing on Lady Oxford's doorstep looking towards them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel coughed in reply, and the figure--it was Mr.
+Kelly's--waved his hand, and marched, like the ghost of Hamlet's
+father, toward St. James's Park.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel followed, like Hamlet, and Mr. Wogan followed the Colonel.
+Would there be a fourth to follow Wogan? The three men marched in the
+moonlight, their footsteps rang boldly on the road. Was there a fourth
+behind them stealthily creeping in the shadow of the wall? As they
+turned a corner out of the square Wogan fell a little further to the
+rear. He kept his head screwed upon his shoulders, and he saw a shadow
+slink round the corner. He listened, and heard the stealthy steps. He
+stopped; the steps ceased. Wogan went on again. He knew that Scrope
+was dogging them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The figure in front moved silently on till he reached a sweet spot for
+an occasion, a little <i>clairière</i> among the trees, the smoothest
+sward, moonlight on the grass, dark shadow all around. There he
+stopped, turned, and dropped his cloak. The moon shone silvery on the
+silver shoulder-knots of Mr. Kelly. The other two gentlemen advanced.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick,' exclaimed Kelly, 'you should be on your road to the coast.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'At last!' cried Colonel Montague, dropping his cloak.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A moment, sir,' said Kelly; 'I must dismiss my friend.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And would you be so mad? Are you to have nobody to see fair and run
+for the surgeon while the other gentleman makes his escape? George, I
+never knew you were so selfish.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly drew his friend a little way aside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick, I have that to do which cannot be done before a witness.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan merely gaped at this extraordinary speech. He noticed that
+Kelly looked white and haggard even for a man in the full moonlight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'When I tell you that my honour hangs on it, that a witness is mere
+ruin, when I pray you by our old friendship? Nick, you <i>must</i> go out
+of eye-shot and ear-shot.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I think you are crazed,' said Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have obeyed you all night. Things have taken the turn that you must
+obey me. There is no time for an explanation, the hour presses, and,
+Nick, my honour hangs on it. You must retire to where you can neither
+see nor hear us, or I am shamed--lost with the Cause.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly had been whispering, his voice trembled as the Cause was
+named. Wogan had only once seen him thus moved. Had he played his
+trumps amiss after all? It seemed he had not won the game.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Very well,' said Wogan. 'Good-night. I will take care you are not
+troubled with witnesses.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' said Kelly suddenly, and then 'yes; goodnight.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stood looking at Wogan a moment and then hurried off to the
+Colonel, who seemed, to Wogan's judgment, a man apt to give the Parson
+his bellyful. Wogan twitched his cloak about him, and took his road
+down a path, bordered by bushes. It was the path by which they had
+come into the Park. Wogan was determined that the Parson should not be
+troubled by witnesses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From his boyhood Mr. Wogan has had a singular passion for
+bird's-nesting. He idly scanned the bushes as he marched, for he had
+heard a twig snap, and in a thick bush he saw what at a first glance
+certainly resembled a very large brown bird's-nest. Looking more
+narrowly at this curiosity there were shining eyes under the nest, a
+circumstance rarely found in animated nature.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan paused and contemplated this novelty. The bush was deep; the
+novelty was of difficult access because of the tangled boughs. Wogan
+reckoned it good to show a puzzled and bemused demeanour, as of one
+who has moored himself by the punch-bowl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It's a very fine bird,' he said aloud. 'I wonder what is the exact
+species this fine fowl may belong to?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he wagged his head in a tipsy manner, and so lurched down the
+path singing:</p>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">'I heard a bird</p>
+<p class="t1">Sing in a bush,</p>
+<p class="t0">And on his head</p>
+<p class="t1">Was a bowl of punch,</p>
+<p class="t8"><i>La-la-loodie!</i>'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">But Wogan's eye was cocked back over his shoulder, for he hoped that
+the fowl, thinking the hunter gone, would save him trouble by breaking
+cover. The bush did not stir, however; all was deadly still.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan lurched back to the bush, still singing, parted the branches,
+and peered in. His mind, in fact, was quite fixed as to the nature and
+name of this nocturnal fowl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He spied into the bush. 'I have heard, in France, of a bird called
+&quot;the cuckoo Kelly,&quot;' he said, 'I wonder if this can be <i>le cocu</i>
+Scrope?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something glittered in the heart of the bush. Mr. Wogan leaped aside,
+his hat spun round on his head, he was near blinded by the flame and
+smoke of a pistol discharged almost <i>à bout portant</i>. A figure had
+scrambled out of the bush on the further side, and was running at a
+great pace towards St. James's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan gave a view halloo, and set off at the top of his own pace
+in pursuit. He was swift of foot when young, sound of wind, and long
+of stride.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At every step he gained on the flying figure, which, he happily
+remembered, might be armed with another pistol. These commodities
+usually go in pairs. Reflecting on this, and reckoning his distance to
+a mathematical nicety, Mr. Wogan applied his toe to that part of the
+flying gentleman's figure which he judged most accessible and most
+appropriate to his purpose. The flying gentleman soared softly into a
+parabola, coming down with a crash, while a pistol fell from his hand.
+As the priming was spilled, Mr. Wogan let the weapon lie, and
+courteously assisted the prostrate person to rise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I fear I stumbled over you, sir,' he said. 'I hope I was not so
+unfortunate as to hurt you. Why, 'tis Mr. Scrope, the celebrated
+critic and amateur of Virgil. Mr. Scrope, the writer of ballads.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are a brutal Irish bully,' said Scrope, whose hands and face were
+bleeding, for he had the mischance to slip on a gravel path covered
+with sharp little flints at the top of the Canal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nay, when last we met it was my poetry that you criticised, and now
+'tis my manners that do not please you! How could I guess that it was
+Mr. Scrope who lay in a bush to watch an explanation between
+gentlemen? This time, sir, of your flight, you have not two horses to
+carry you off, and I am not barefoot. Suppose we take up our
+conversation where we left it when last you ran away? You have a sword
+I see.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scrope's sword was already out, and he made a desperate pass at Wogan,
+who broke ground and drew his own weapon. Scrope was no match for his
+reach and skill in fence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why, sir, our positions are altered,' said Wogan. 'Now it is you who
+make errors, and I who play critic and instructor.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan made a parade in <i>contre de carte</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Look, sir, your blade was beaten a good half foot out of line. Had I
+chosen to riposte, my sword-hilt would have rung on your breast-bone.
+Ah, that was rather better,' he said, stepping a pace back, and
+offering his breast full like a fencing master with his pupil. 'But
+you did not really extend yourself. Now, sir, <i>un</i>, <i>deux</i>, <i>doublez</i>,
+<i>dégagez</i>, <i>vite!</i>' and Mr. Wogan passed his sword through the lappet
+of Scrope's coat, coming back on guard. 'That is how you ought to
+lunge. There is another thing that I would have you notice. Coming on
+rashly as you do, I could stop you at any moment with a time thrust. I
+have only to extend my long arm, and where are you?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scrope broke ground, sweating, and drew breath:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You cowardly <i>maître d'armes!</i>' he exclaimed between two pants.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Cowardly, sir? Am I a spy? Or a nameless, obscene rhymer? Do I carry
+pistols and try to use them? Fie, Mr. Scrope, you must see that a
+coward who meant to kill you would have done so long ago, and left you
+here--with an insult, and without a surgeon. You remember the little
+square at Avignon. You want another lesson.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan parried, riposted, and just grazed his opponent on the fore-arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'<i>Touché!</i>' he said. 'Now you see I do not mean to kill you: at least,
+not with the sword. To do so would be to oblige a lady whom I have no
+desire to please. Would you prefer to lay down your weapon and come
+frankly to my embrace? You remember our fond hugs at Brampton Bryan?
+By the way, Mr. Scrope,' asked Wogan, as an idea occurred to him, 'the
+night is warm and you seem heated, do you swim? The place is
+convenient for a bathe, and sheltered from coarse observation.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With this remark Wogan switched Scrope's sword out of his hand by a
+turn of the wrist in <i>flanconade</i>. The blade flew up and fell flashing
+in the water of the Canal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Now, sir, your life is at my mercy. You have betrayed my Cause; you
+have nearly murdered my friend; you have insulted two ladies of my
+acquaintance; you have censured my poetry; and you have spoiled my hat
+with your pistol bullet. I repeat, do you swim? There are two places
+here mighty convenient for a ducking.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here Mr. Wogan caught his enemy by the collar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The Canal is shallow; Rosamond's Pool is deep. You have your choice;
+safety and prose, or poetry and peril?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scrope was squirming in Wogan's grip like a serpent. When Mr. Wogan
+had calmed him he carried Mr. Scrope like a babe to the edge of the
+Canal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'One, two, three!' he said, heaving Mr. Scrope backward and forward,
+like children setting a swing in motion. 'And away!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A heavy body flew through the air, flashed into the Canal, and did not
+at first arise to the surface.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I hope he has not hit his head or broken his neck,' said Wogan with
+anxiety. 'It would be very disagreeable to have to wade for him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His fears were soon set at rest. Scrope scrambled to his feet, the
+water reaching nearly to his middle. In his dripping perruque he cut a
+figure odd enough, and sufficiently pitiable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A water god! A Triton!' cried Wogan. 'Have you a Virgil in your
+pocket? You might study the marine deities whom you resemble. You are
+sure you have again forgotten to bring the Virgil you desired for Mr.
+Kelly's use at Avignon.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'D----n you, I shall see your bowels burned before your eyes for this,
+you Popish traitor,' cried Scrope, shaking his fist.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That is as may be. You have done what you can to that end already.
+You have told all you know; as regards myself it is not very much, and
+I am not in Newgate yet. Moreover, I know a way out. But stop, I
+cannot possibly permit you to land, for Scrope was wading to the bank.
+'Stay where you are and admire the moonshine! If you set foot on shore
+I will merely throw you in again! You might be hurt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scrope turned and was beginning to wade to the other side of the
+Canal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It really is not safe in the middle if you do not swim,' cried Wogan.
+'Moreover, I can easily be at the further bank before you.' Mr. Wogan
+suited the action to the word. He ran round the bank as Scrope waded
+across. He met his bedraggled victim at the water's edge. Mr. Wogan
+uttered a joyful whoop; there was a great splash and again Scrope sank
+beneath the surface. He regained his feet and rose spluttering. 'I do
+trust, Mr. Scrope, that you are not hectic, or subject to rheumatism,'
+said Wogan with sympathy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan walked to the centre of the path across the top of the Canal. He
+spread his cloak upon the grass and sat down, contemplating the
+moonlight on Buckingham House. There was a sweet odour of the budding
+may in the air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A more peaceful scene, Mr. Scrope,' he cried, 'I have rarely
+witnessed. All the poet whom you tried to crush wakes in my bosom. I
+shall recite Mr. Pope's celebrated Night piece for your benefit.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan then arose from his seat on the grass, and, raising his hand
+towards the Moon, delivered Mr. Pope's lines in his best manner.</p>
+<div class="poem1">
+<p class="t0" style="text-indent:-8pt">
+'As when the Moon, refulgent lamp of Night,<br>
+O'er Heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light.<br>
+When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,<br>
+And not a cloud o'erspreads the solemn scene.'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are not listening, Mr. Scrope!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scrope was listening, but not to Wogan. Wogan ceased from reciting and
+listened also. He heard steps and voices of men approaching.
+Presently, to his great amazement, he recognised the tones of Kelly
+and Montague, whose mere existence had been banished from his mind. He
+was yet more surprised when they both came in view, walking very
+friendly together.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan rose as they drew near him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What, both of you?' he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You do not seem to be glad to see us again, sir?' said Colonel
+Montague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And devil a scratch between the pair of you!' cried Mr. Wogan.
+'George, what does this mean? Am I to hear,' he asked with honest
+indignation, 'that one of you has debased himself to an apology?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked from one to the other much perplexed in mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is too long a tale for the opportunity, Mr. Wogan,' said the
+Colonel laughing. 'But <i>what</i> does that mean?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pointed to the Water God in the perruque, whose shadow was
+reflected in the calm bosom of the lake.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Colonel Montague,' cried Scrope, 'I appeal to you as a Protestant and
+an officer of his Majesty's for your protection against an Irish,
+Popish, Jacobite conspirator.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That gentleman,' said Wogan, 'whom I have been entertaining with Mr.
+Pope's poem, is an English Protestant, Whig, spy, and murderer, and
+even, I suspect, a writer in the newspapers. He persists in staying
+out in the water there, where I cannot get at him. He is one of the
+Maritime Powers. Egad! George, you know Mr. Scrope of Northumberland
+and Grub Street?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George bowed to Mr. Scrope.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The fourth time you see, sir, has been lucky, contrary to the
+proverb,' he said politely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The poor devil's teeth are chattering audibly,' said Colonel
+Montague. 'May I ask you to explain his situation, Mr. Wogan?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Faith, sir, the story, as you say, is too long for the occasion. And
+I want an explanation myself. After a gentleman has trod on another
+gentleman's foot, here you both are, well and smiling. I am betrayed,'
+cried Mr. Wogan, 'in the character of a friend. I could not have
+thought it of George.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What was the pistol shot we heard, Nick?' asked Mr. Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That was Mr. Scrope firing at me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And the view halloo that might have wakened the dead?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That was me remonstrating with Mr. Scrope. But I crave your pardon
+for my thoughtlessness. No doubt the noise brought up some
+ungentlemanly person who interrupted you in your explanation. You will
+begin it again? Mr. Scrope and I will be delighted to see fair play,
+but you will see it from the water, Mr. Scrope. You don't come out
+yet.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Our honours, about which you are so kindly concerned, Mr. Wogan, are
+as intact as our persons,' said the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then you have been finding out that George saved your life, or you
+saved George's, some time in the dark ages, all to prevent you killing
+each other in a friendly way?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are in an ingenious error, Mr. Wogan; but Mr. Johnson and I have
+important business together in the town, and we must bid you farewell.
+Pray allow that dripping gentleman to land and go to bed.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But I cannot take him with me, and it is purely inconvenient to let
+him follow me, for the precise reason that he would not follow me at
+all, but my friend Mr. Johnson. I am like my countryman who caught a
+Tartar in the Muscovite wars. To be sure, I might tie him to a tree
+with his garters. Come out, Mr. Scrope, and be tied to a tree!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No, no,' said the Colonel; 'your friend will die of a cold.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then what am I to be doing?' asked Wogan. 'He is a very curious
+gentleman.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I must leave that for you and your friend to determine,' said Colonel
+Montague. He turned to Kelly. 'In ten minutes,' said he, moving off.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'In ten minutes, Corydon,' said Kelly, and Wogan thought he heard the
+Colonel mutter, 'Oh, damnation!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was all Greek to Wogan, and Kelly seemed in no mind to translate
+the Greek for his baser comprehension.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Be off, Nick,' said he. 'I have ten minutes to wait here, and for ten
+minutes Mr. Scrope shall stand in the pond. You have that much law. It
+is time enough for your long legs.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And do you think I am leaving Mr. Scrope to follow you while I go
+quietly to bed?' asked Wogan, who was in truth hurt by the proposal.
+'No. I shall take him with me. It is the best plan after all.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It will not matter, I think, whether he follows me or no; and, Nick,
+as to going to bed, I hope it will not be on this side of the Channel.
+Truth, I should be blaming you as it is for your delay, but I have no
+heart to it.' He had dropped into the Irish accent, a thing very rare
+with him. 'For the world topples about me to-night, and the sight of a
+friend is very pleasant to me. There! It is all I had to say to you.
+Good-night. Good-bye.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He clapped his hand on Wogan's shoulder and then sat himself down on
+the grass. If Mr. Scrope had had his wits about him, he might have
+chosen this occasion to creep out of the water, for Wogan was paying
+little heed to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George,' said he, 'it seems the game has gone against you. But I have
+the simplest plan imaginable to put matters straight. What if you give
+me the key to that pretty despatch-box? You see if I go to your
+lodging and am taken--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No!' cried Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But yes,' said Wogan, seating himself on the grass beside Kelly. 'If
+I am taken, why, it's just Nick Wogan that's taken, and no one but
+Nick Wogan is a penny the worse. But if you go and are taken--well,
+there's the Doctor's daughter.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly would not listen to reason. It was not, he said, a mere matter
+of slipping into the house and burning the cyphers. But a man must pay
+for his own shortcomings, and the whole aspect of affairs had changed.
+And then he fell to thanking Wogan, which thanks Wogan cut short; and
+so they sat in the moonlight like a couple of owls, only they did not
+talk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are very thoughtful,' said Kelly, with a tired sort of laugh,
+'and you have thought most of your ten minutes away.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I was thinking,' said Wogan, 'of a word you used to say about a
+little parsonage in Ireland and your Latin books, and an acre or two
+of land, and how, like a fool, I laughed at you for speaking so.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly rose very quickly to his feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Come, Nick,' said he almost sharply. 'My ten minutes are almost up. I
+cannot watch Scrope after that, and you may just as well save your
+life as lose it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I mean to take him with me,' said Wogan. 'Come out, my friend. I'll
+give him the slip, never fear, when I want to.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And then you will start for France?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan did not mention a couple of obstacles which would at all
+events delay his departure. In the first place he had a little matter
+of business with Lord Sidney Beauclerk, and in the second it would be
+no more than politeness to inquire after Kelly's health before he went
+abroad. He kept silent upon this subject, and again summoned Scrope,
+who waded with his teeth chattering from the water. He drove Scrope
+before him along a bypath, leaving the Parson standing alone in the
+moonlight. Mr. Wogan had no expectation that he would ever see his
+friend's face again, and therefore he swore most heartily at Scrope.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Come, my man,' said he, 'I am to see that you do not catch cold,' and
+he marched Scrope at a round pace eastwards as far as Temple Bar, and
+thence northwards to Soho, and from Soho westwards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scrope had been enjoined strictly not to open his lips; but, on the
+other hand, he heard a great deal about his own character, his merits
+as a poet, and the morals of his family, which was no doubt new to
+him. Some three hours later, when the moon had long since set, the
+pair came to the fields behind Holland House, and there Wogan took his
+leave of Scrope. The man could do no more harm for that night, and he
+had for the moment lost his taste for spying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You will stay here for five minutes,' said Wogan, who in five seconds
+was lost in the darkness. He knew a shy place in Westminster where he
+could pass the night undisturbed. As he laid his head on the pillow it
+seemed to him to be a good year since he had driven off from Sir Harry
+Goring's house in the morning. And what of the Parson, whom he had
+last seen, a sombre figure in the moonlight by the water of St.
+James's Park? Well, the night had only then begun for Kelly, who, to
+be sure, had lain abed all the day before.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_21" href="#div1Ref_21">IN WHICH MR. KELLY SURPRISES SMILINDA</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The devil in all this affair, it was that Wogan could not be in two,
+or even three, places at once. While Kelly was shut in with Lady
+Oxford earlier, Mr. Wogan, as he has said, was on the wrong side of
+the door. There he was again, after the rout, while he conversed with
+Colonel Montague in the street. Again, while Wogan was busy with Mr.
+Scrope in St. James's Park, Kelly and the Colonel were exchanging
+their unknown explanations, of a kind not admired by Mr. Wogan, which
+ended in their walking, like a pair of brothers, towards George's
+rooms. In all these conjunctures Mr. Wogan's advice, could he have
+been present, might have been serviceable, or at least his curiosity
+must have been assuaged.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What did pass between Kelly and Lady Oxford when the rout was over,
+and what were the considerations which induced George and the Colonel
+to resist their natural and mutual desire for an honourable
+satisfaction?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">These questions (that perplexed Wogan when he awoke, about noon, from
+the fatigue of the previous day) were answered later by Kelly, and the
+answer must be given before the later adventures and sorrows of George
+can be clearly narrated. Sure, no trifle could have turned sword and
+gown into friends that night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Lady Oxford and Kelly were left alone in the empty rooms, among
+the waning candles and scattered cards, Lady Oxford marched, like
+indignant royalty, to the end of the inner withdrawing-room, where
+they could not be heard or interrupted without warning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly followed with a mind made up. It was, after all, Lady Oxford
+that had betrayed him, but he had, by an accident of forgetfulness,
+kept her letters, and they now gave him the advantage. If those
+letters could be saved, the Chevalier's papers could and should be
+saved too, and himself rescued from peril and Rose from much
+unhappiness. Rose was at the bottom of his thoughts that night; her
+face was mirrored there bright, it seemed, with divinity. The
+Chevalier was there too, no doubt, but Rose peeped over his shoulder.
+Mr. Kelly, then, hardened his heart, and, for love and loyalty, meant
+to push his advantage over Lady Oxford to its limits. He approached
+her as she stood retired.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Wretch,' cried Lady Oxford, 'you promised to burn my letters. Of all
+traitors you are the most abandoned and perfidious.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson thought that memory supplied him with a parallel, but he
+replied:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is a promise all men make and all men break.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford struck her hand upon a table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You swore you had burned them.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This time George was less ready with his answer, but her ladyship
+stood awaiting it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My passion must be my excuse, madam; I could not bear to part with
+these elegant testimonies of your esteem. It is as I have the honour
+to tell your ladyship; the brocades are in my strong box in my
+lodgings. To-morrow they shall be restored to your hands.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To-morrow!' she said, in a voice of despair. 'To-morrow! I am
+undone!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is not so long to wait for the finery, and I do not think the
+streets are so purely unsafe as you suppose.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am undone!' she repeated. 'The public will ring of my name. I shall
+become a byword, a thing of scorn for every scribbler to aim his wit
+at.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gnawed her fingers in an agony of fear and perplexity. Mr. Kelly
+had learned enough. There was plainly no chance within the lady's
+knowledge, as he had hoped, of saving her letters. Neither, then,
+could the King's papers be saved. He bowed, and took a step towards
+the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Stop!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly turned with alacrity at the eager cry, but Lady Oxford had
+no words of hope for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You must not leave this house to-night, or must leave it secretly by
+the garden.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly smiled grimly. Her ladyship was suddenly grown most tender of
+her reputation now that it was in peril.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship's care for me, and your hospitality overcome me, but I
+have, as you perhaps remarked, an assignation of honour with Colonel
+Montague which nothing must prevent me from keeping. He is longing for
+an instant revenge--at the Hazard Table. A while ago, you may pardon
+me for observing, your ladyship was remote from feeling this sudden
+and violent anxiety on my hand.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly's irony was poured out to deaf ears. Lady Oxford paced to
+and fro about the room, wringing her hands in her extremity. Then she
+stopped suddenly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I might drive to the Minister's.' She reached out a hand towards the
+bell. Kelly shook his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That visit would be remarked upon unfavourably by the friends of my
+Lord Oxford, who are not in the Minister's interest. Mr. Walpole has
+no party to-night, and must have gone to bed--'tis verging on two
+o'clock--or else he is in his cups. Moreover, the <i>Dolliad</i>, the
+ballad on his sister, was credited to your pen. You know that Mr.
+Walpole loves a broad jest, and loves revenge. He will not protect you
+nor miss so fair an opportunity. Nay, I think I read in to-morrow's
+<i>Flying Post</i>, &quot;In the papers of the prisoner Kelly, among other
+treasonable matter reserved for a later occasion, were found the
+following letters of a high curiosity, which we are graciously
+permitted to publish; one begins--<i>Oh, my Delicious Strephon</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford snapped her fan between her fingers and dashed the
+fragments in Kelly's face. He owns that he cannot well complain she
+served him ill, but he wanted to repay her in some sort for her
+innuendo about his fate at the hangman's hands, and similar favours.
+Beholding her passion, which was not unjust, he felt bitterly ashamed
+of his words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You coward!' she said. Her dark eyes glared at him from a face white
+as the ivory of her broken fan, and then, quite suddenly, she burst
+into a storm of tears. Kelly's shame was increased a thousandfold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I humbly crave your ladyship's pardon,' he said. 'I have spoken in
+terms unworthy of a chairman. But some remarks of your ladyship's on a
+future event, to me of painful interest, had left an unhappy
+impression.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Lady Oxford paid no heed to the stammered apology. As Mr. Kelly
+moved to her she waived him aside with her hands, and, dropping on to
+a sofa, pressed her weeping face into the cushions. Sobs shook her;
+she lay abandoned to distress.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly stood apart and listened to the dolorous sound of her
+weeping. That was true which she had said; he had promised to burn
+those letters; he had sworn that he had burned them. His fine plan of
+using them as a weapon against her began to take quite another
+complexion. There were, no doubt, all manner of pious and respectable
+arguments to be discovered in favour of the plan, if only he pried
+about for them. But a saying of Mr. Scrope's was suddenly scrawled out
+in his recollections: 'Æneas was an army chaplain who invoked his
+religion when he was tired of the lady, and so sailed away with a
+clear conscience.' Kelly murmured 'Rose' to himself, and, again,
+'Rose,' seeking to fortify himself with the mention of her name. But
+it had the contrary effect. Even as he heard his lips murmuring it,
+the struggle was over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George had a number of pretty finical scruples, of which his conduct
+at this crisis of his fortunes was a particular example. He relates
+how it seemed to him that at the mention of her name Rose threw out a
+hand to him and drew him up out of a slough; how he understood that
+his fine plan was unworthy of any man, and entirely despicable in the
+man whom she, out of her great condescension, had stooped to love; how
+he became aware that he owed it to her, since she was a woman, that no
+woman's fame, whether a Smilinda's or no, should be smirched by any
+omission of his; how he suddenly felt in his very marrow that it would
+dishonour Rose to save her even from great misery by a <i>lâcheté</i>
+towards another of her sex. His duty was revealed to him in that
+moment, as clear as it was unexpected. He sets his revulsion of
+feeling wholly to Rose's account, as a man in love should, but very
+likely her ladyship's fan had something to do with it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He spoke again to Lady Oxford, and very gently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam, it is true. I promised to burn your letters. I swore that I
+had burned them. My honour, I perceive, can only be saved by saving
+yours.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford raised her head from the cushions and stared at him with
+wondering eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Let us play this game <i>cartes sur table</i>,' continued Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her ladyship rose from her sofa and sat herself in a chair at a table,
+still wondering, still suspicious. George took the chair on the other
+side of the table, and spoke while Lady Oxford dried the tears upon
+her face. To help her at all he must know all that she knew. His first
+business was to remove her ladyship's suspicions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I understand that your ladyship, by some means of which I am as yet
+ignorant, has become aware of a certain Plot, and has carried the
+knowledge to Mr. Walpole.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford neither agreed nor denied. She admitted the truth of Mr.
+Kelly's statement in her own way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You bragged and blabbed to my worst enemy, to Lady Mary, with her
+poisonous pen,' and her fine features writhed with hatred as she spoke
+Lady Mary's name.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There your ladyship was misled,' returned Kelly. 'My lips have been
+sealed, as I already had the honour to inform you. My Lady Mary may
+not love you, but she is innocent of this offence. If she wrote those
+rhymes, she was, indeed, more my enemy than yours; and my enemy, as
+your ladyship is aware, she is not.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford understood the strength of the argument.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah, yes,' she said thoughtfully. 'The apothecary's daughter!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The contemptuous phrase slipped from Lady Oxford by mistake, and was
+not at all uttered in a contemptuous voice. But she had no doubt
+fallen into a habit of so terming the girl in her thoughts. None the
+less, however, it stung Mr. Kelly, who was at some trouble to keep his
+voice gentle. He knew how much Smilinda owed at this moment to the
+apothecary's daughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The young lady to whom I conceive you refer, Miss Townley, is of a
+family as ancient, loyal, and honourable as your ladyship's own, and
+you may have seen on what terms both ladies were this evening.
+Moreover, Lady Mary was purely ignorant of Miss Townley's very
+existence when that pasquinade was written.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then who wrote it?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Scrope, as I have the honour to repeat.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Scrope?' she answered in a quick question, as though for the first
+time she understood that George might well be right. He gave the
+reasons for his belief as he had given them at the Deanery to Nicholas
+Wogan. They were to the last degree convincing. Lady Oxford was
+persuaded long before Mr. Kelly had come to an end. A look came into
+her face which Kelly could not understand, a look of bitter
+humiliation. 'Scrope,' she muttered, as her fingers played with the
+cards upon the table. She overturned a card which lay face downwards
+on the table, and it chanced to be the knave of hearts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship now sees that you fell into a natural error,' continued
+Kelly, who was anxious to smooth Lady Oxford's path, 'in consequence
+of which you took a natural revenge. May I ask how you secured the
+means of revenge? How, in a word, you came to know of the hidden Plot
+within the Plot?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her ladyship's answer fairly startled Mr. Kelly. It was not given at
+once. She still played with the cards, and overturned another. It was
+the knave of clubs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The cards tell you,' she said with a bitter smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly leaned back in his chair open-mouthed. 'Scrope?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Scrope,' replied her ladyship. 'I received a humble letter from him
+praying that I would forgive his odious ingratitude, and, by way of
+peace-offering, bidding me tell my Lord Oxford--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Who had already withdrawn,' said George. 'I think I understand,' Lady
+Oxford's look of humiliation had enlightened him, 'and I think your
+ladyship understands with me. Mr. Scrope is a sort of a gentleman, and
+would prefer to do his dirty work without appearing as a spy. He has
+made use of your ladyship. He sends you the Plot and spurs you to
+disclose it with his ballad. He would have disclosed it himself, I
+doubt not, had not your ladyship served his turn. But Mr. Scrope has
+his refinements, and, besides that he spares himself, would take a
+particular pleasure in compassing my ruin at the same time that he
+outwitted you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Little wonder that Lady Oxford broke in upon Mr. Kelly's reasonings.
+It must have been sufficiently galling for her to reflect that in
+exacting her revenge she had been the mere instrument of a man she had
+tossed aside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is both of us that he has ruined, not you alone,' she cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Certainly, Mr. Scrope was a person to reckon with, and had killed
+quite a covey of birds with one stone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Are you sure?' asked Kelly. 'Are you sure of that?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She bent across the table eagerly, but she did not reply to the
+question.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Will you kill Scrope,' she flashed out, 'and you and I part friends?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly, even in the midst of this tangle of misfortunes, could not but
+smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I fear that I may have been anticipated. Mr. Scrope has been watching
+your ladyship's house to-night--and Mr. Wogan observed him, and, I
+conceive, has undertaken for him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford at that smiled too. 'Then he is a dead man,' she said,
+slowly savouring her words like wine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But his death, madam, will not save your letters,' said Kelly; and
+the fire died out of her face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He has betrayed us both,' she moaned. It seemed she had already
+forgotten how she herself had seized at the occasion of betraying Mr.
+Kelly. Kelly was in no mood to debate these subtleties.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Are you sure?' he contented himself with asking for a second time.
+'There is one thing Mr. Scrope has not done. He has taken no measures
+purposely to insure that your letters will be discovered, since he
+does not know of them; else, no doubt, he would have done his worst.
+We two are still engaged in a common cause--your ladyship's. Your
+intentions in my regard I were much less than a man if I did not
+forgive, granting (what I now know) your ladyship's erroneous
+interpretation of my ground of offence, the babbling to Lady Mary.
+Does your ladyship permit me, then, at the eleventh hour, to save you,
+if I can find a way, from the odious consequences of Mr. Scrope's
+unparalleled behaviour?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford's brows were drawn together in perplexity. The notion that
+Mr. Kelly was prepared to do this thing was still new and strange to
+her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You?' Her eyes searched his for the truth of his purpose, and found
+it. 'You?' she said again, but in a voice of gratitude and
+comprehension. And then, with a gesture of despair, she thrust her
+chair back and stood up. 'You cannot save yourself. I cannot save
+you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' replied George, 'myself I cannot save; but it may not be too
+late to save my honour, which is now wrapped up in that of your
+ladyship's. My case is desperate; what can be done for yours? Be plain
+with me. How much does your ladyship know?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford turned away from the table. In the face of Kelly's
+generosity no doubt she hesitated to disclose the whole truth of her
+treachery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I know no more than that you are in peril of arrest,' she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam, surely you know more than that. You spoke earlier this evening
+of my arrest, and you spoke with the assurance of a more particular
+knowledge.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford took a turn across the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, my God, what can I do?' she cried, lifting her hands to her head.
+'I hear Lady Mary's laughter and the horrid things they will say!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The whimsical inconsequence of Smilinda's appeal to her Maker did not
+fail to strike Kelly as ludicrous, but, as his own case was hopeless
+and abandoned, any thought of revenge or mockery had ceased to agitate
+him. His honour now stood in saving all that was left of hers from
+open and intolerable shame, and Rose beckoned him to the task.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Surely you know more,' he persisted quietly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford gave in and came back to the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The Messengers should be waiting for you in Ryder Street.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last Kelly knew the worst. He would be taken before he reached his
+doorstep. There would be no chance of saving the cyphers in his strong
+box. Could he save Smilinda's letters?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He bent his forehead upon his hands, thinking. Smilinda watched him;
+her lips moved as though she was praying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I might be carried to your lodgings and claim what is mine,' she
+suggested.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You would be carried to a trap--a <i>souricière</i>. Ten to one you would
+be arrested by the Messengers. At all events your visit would be
+remarked upon, and you would not obtain the letters.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford had no other proposal at hand, and there was silence in
+the room. Mr. Kelly remained with his face buried in his hands; he
+took the air in long deep breaths. No other sound was audible except
+the faint ticking of the clock in the outer withdrawing-room. For
+Smilinda was holding her breath lest she should disturb the man whom
+she had betrayed, and who was now wholly occupied with the attempt to
+save her. Then she remarked that the sound of his breathing ceased.
+She bent forwards; he raised his face to hers. He did not seem to see
+her; his eyes kindled with hope.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have found a way?' she whispered; and he whispered back:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A desperate chance, but it may serve.' He started to his feet. 'It
+must serve.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A smile brightened over his face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It will serve.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sure he showed as much pleasure as if he had discovered an issue for
+himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Quick!' said Smilinda, with a smile to answer his. 'Tell me!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Colonel Montague--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What of him? Why speak to me now of him?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford's face had clouded at the name.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He is your only salvation.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What can he do?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Everything we need. His loyalty to the present occupant of the Throne
+is entirely beyond a suspicion. He can act as he will without peril to
+his reputation. He can even rescue your papers, which are not in the
+same strong box as my own. The Colonel, if any man, can assist you if
+he will.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But he will not,' said her ladyship sullenly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He will,' answered Kelly confidently, 'if properly approached. He is
+a man of honour, I take it? You will pardon me for saying that your
+ladyship's flattering behaviour towards me, in his presence (for the
+nature of which you had, doubtless, your own particular reasons) can
+have left him in no doubt on certain heads; while it is equally plain
+that your ladyship hath no longer any very tender interest in keeping
+his esteem and regard. Nevertheless, being a gentleman, he will not
+abandon your ladyship's cause.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford was in no way comforted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It may well be as you say,' she returned with a look at Mr. Kelly.
+She had already one example of how much a gentleman could forgive a
+woman when she stood in need of his help. 'But, Mr. Kelly, you cannot
+come at Colonel Montague.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why not?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You know very well that he lodges in the same house as yourself. I
+sent a lackey with a note to you, yesterday. And your reply was dated
+from 13 Ryder Street.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly stepped back, he could hardly believe his ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Colonel Montague--lodges--in the same house as myself?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes,' Lady Oxford replied in a dispirited fashion. She had lost heart
+altogether. Mr. Kelly, on the other hand, was quite lifted up by the
+unexpected news.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'This is a mere miracle in nature,' he cried. 'I only went into my
+present lodgings two days ago. I have been abroad for the greater part
+of the time, and asleep the rest, and have had no knowledge of the
+other tenants, even of their names. 'Faith, madam, your letters are as
+safe as though the ashes were now cold in your grate.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But the Colonel will have gone home, and you are to be taken in Ryder
+Street. You will not get speech with him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nay, madam, he has not gone home. He is waiting for me now.' Lady
+Oxford started. 'Ah, your ladyship remembers. He is waiting for me.
+Ten yards from your doorstep--ten yards at the farthest,' and Kelly
+actually chuckled. Carried away by his plan, he began to pace the room
+as he unfolded it. 'I shall see the Colonel, and if I can by any means
+do so, I will acquaint him, as far as is necessary, with the
+embarrassing posture of your affairs. I shall give him the key of the
+box containing the--brocades, and, if the Messengers be not already in
+possession of them, the rest must be entrusted to his honour as a
+gentleman and a soldier. The unexpected accident of our being
+fellow-lodgers gives him, to this end, a great advantage, and can
+scarce have occurred without the providence of--some invisible power
+or another which watches over your ladyship.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly thought that Lady Oxford this night had enjoyed what is called
+the Devil's own luck.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Have I your ladyship's leave to try my powers of persuasion with
+Colonel Montague?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Very much to Kelly's surprise she moved towards him, like one walking
+in her sleep.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are bleeding,' she said, and stanched with her handkerchief some
+drops from his brow, where it had been cut by the broken edges of the
+ivory fan. Then she went again into a bitter fit of weeping, which
+Kelly could never bear to see in a woman. She may have remembered the
+snow upon the lawn, years ago, and a moment's vision of white honour.
+Then she stinted in her crying as suddenly as she had begun; in a time
+incredibly short you could not tell that she had wept.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You must carry a token. I must write. Oh my shame!' she said, and
+sitting down to a scrutoire, wrote rapidly and briefly, sanded the
+paper, and offered it open to Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I cannot see it; your ladyship must seal it,' he said, which she did
+with a head of Cicero.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George took the note, and said: 'Now time presses, madam. I must be
+gone. I trust that, if not now, at least later, you may forgive me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her lips moved, but no words came forth. Kelly made his bow, and so
+took leave of Smilinda, she gnawing her lips, as she watched him with
+her inscrutable eyes, moodily pushing to and fro with her foot the
+broken pieces of the fan on the polished floor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There came into Kelly's fancy his parting view of Rose at Avignon, her
+face framed among the vine leaves, in the open window; she leaning
+forth, with a forced smile on her dear lips and waving her kerchief in
+farewell. A light wind was stirring her soft hair at that time, and
+she crying '<i>Au revoir</i>! <i>Au revoir!</i> There was a scent of lilacs from
+the garden in the air of April, George remembered, and now the candles
+were dying in the sconces with a stench.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With these contrasted pictures of two women and two farewells in his
+fancy, Kelly was descending the wide empty staircase, not knowing too
+well where he went. Something seemed to stir, he lifted his eyes and
+before him he saw again the appearance of his King: the King, young
+and happy, and as beautiful as the dawn that was stealing into the
+room and dimming the lustres on the stairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the appearance moved aside, and Kelly found himself gazing into a
+great empty mirror that hung on the wall, facing the gallery above.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lord Sidney Beauclerk, in fact, had not left the house with the other
+guests, and Kelly, remembering, laughed aloud as he reached the fresh
+air without.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_22" href="#div1Ref_22">AN ECLOGUE WHICH DEMONSTRATES THE PASTORAL
+SIMPLICITY OF CORYDON AND STREPHON</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan has told already how Kelly came out of the house in Queen's
+Square, how he led the way to the glade, so convenient for the
+occasion, and how he dismissed his friend. George has since declared
+that he never was more tossed up and down in his mind than during that
+trifle of a promenade. Here was the Colonel that had insulted him, and
+wished nothing, more or less, than to cut his clerical throat. And
+here was Kelly, that must make friends with his enemy, if he was to
+save his honour, and the reputation, such as it was, of the woman whom
+he had once loved. It was a quandary. If Kelly began by showing a flag
+of truce, the Colonel, as like as not, would fire on it by way of a
+kick or cuff, and then a friendly turn to the conversation would be
+totally out of the possible. Had Kelly been six inches taller than he
+was and a perfect master of his weapon, he might have trusted to the
+chance of disarming the Colonel and then proposing a cartel, but
+unhappily it was the Elector's officer who possessed these advantages.
+Thus Kelly could think of nothing except to get rid of Mr. Wogan's
+presence as a witness of the explanation. He succeeded in that, and
+then marched back to the Colonel, who had stood aside while George
+conversed with his friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly waited, as the wiser part, till the Colonel should show his
+hand. But the Colonel also waited, and there the two gentlemen stood
+speechless, just out of thrust of each other, while every convenience
+in nature called on them to begin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last the Colonel cleared his throat and said, 'Reverend Mr.
+Lace-Merchant, I am somewhat at a loss as to how I should deal with
+you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Faith, it is my own case,' thought George to himself, but all he
+uttered was, 'Gallant Mr. Drill-Sergeant, the case seems clear enough.
+You trod on my foot, and,' said George, as he let his cloak slip from
+his shoulders to the ground, 'you invited me to take a walk; what
+circumstance now befogs your intellects?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly's instincts, naturally good, though dimmed a trifle by a learned
+education and a clerical training, showed him but that one way out of
+the wood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Several circumstances combine, sir. Thus, I do not want to save the
+hangman a job. Again, my respect for your cloth forbids me to draw
+sword on you, and rather prompts to a public battooning tomorrow in
+St. James's. I therefore do but wait to favour you with this warning,
+which is more than a trafficker of your kidney deserves.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Truth, sir, if you wait to cane me till to-morrow, I have every
+reason to believe that you may wait a lifetime. As to cloth, mine is
+as honourable as ever a German usurper's livery.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This did not promise a friendly conclusion, but George was ever
+honourably ready to support the honour of his gown, and he confesses
+that, at this moment, he somewhat lost sight of his main object.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel stepped forward with uplifted cane, a trifle of
+tortoise-shell and amber, in his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George drew back one pace and folded his arms on his breast. His eyes,
+which are of an uncommon bright blue, were fixed on the Colonel's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You will find, sir, if you advance one foot, that I do not stand kick
+or cuff. You are dealing with one who knows his weapon' (no experience
+could cure George of this delusion), 'and who does not value his life
+at a straw. Moreover, you began a parley for which I did not ask,
+though I desired it, and I have to tell you that your honour is
+involved in continuing this conversation in quite another key.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George stepped forward the pace he had withdrawn, and clasped his
+hands behind his back, watching the Colonel narrowly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was something in his voice, more in his eyes. The Colonel had
+seen fire, and knew a brave man when he met one. He threw down his
+cane and Kelly reckoned that the worst of his task was over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You may compel me to fight,' George went on, 'and I never went to a
+feast with a better stomach, but first I have certain words that must
+be spoken to you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You cannot intend to escape by promising a discovery?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sir, I do not take you for a Messenger or a Minister. One or both I
+can find without much seeking, and, for that sufficient reason, before
+they lay hands on me I absolutely demand to speak to you on a matter
+closely touching your own honour, which, as I have never heard it
+impeached, I therefore sincerely profess my desire to trust.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are pleased to be complimentary, but I know not how my honour can
+be concerned with a Jacobite trafficker and his treasons.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I make you this promise, that, if you do thus utterly refuse to
+listen for five minutes, I will give you every satisfaction at the
+sword's point, or, by God! will compel you to take it, as you have
+been pleased to introduce battoons into a conversation between
+gentlemen. And if, when you have heard me, you remain dissatisfied,
+again I will give you a lesson with sharps. You see that we are not
+likely to be interrupted, and that I am perfectly cool. This is a
+matter to each of us of more than life or death.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I do see that you desire to pique my curiosity for the sake of some
+advantage which I am unable to perceive. Perhaps you expect your
+friends on the scene?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You may observe that I began by dismissing the only friend I have in
+this town. Do you, perhaps, suspect that Mr. Nicholas Wogan needs, or
+has gone to procure, assistance?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I confess that I know that gentleman too well for any such
+suspicions.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then, sir, remember that the Roman says <i>noscitur a sociis</i>, and
+reflect that I am a friend of Mr. Wogan's, who must stand sponsor, as
+you do not know me, for my honesty. Moreover,' said George, working
+round by a risky way to his point, 'had I wished to escape I could,
+instead of socking you, have sneaked off t'other way. You observed
+that I remained some minutes with a lady to-night after you and the
+rest of her company had withdrawn?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is very like your impudence to remind me of that among other
+provocations! I am not concerned in your merchant's business of
+brocades.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But, indeed, with your pardon, you are concerned in the highest
+degree, and that is just the point I would bring you to consider.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I tire of your mysteries, sir,' he said, shrugging his shoulders.
+'Speak on, and be brief.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'On these brocades turns the question whether the honour of a lady,
+which you are bound to cherish, shall be the laughing-stock of the
+town. Sir, in a word, you, and you only, can save that person; need I
+say more?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Did she send you with this message to save your own skin?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That is past saving, except by a miracle, which I am in no situation
+to expect will be wrought for me. Understand me, sir, I am out of hope
+of earthly salvation. I have nothing to gain, nothing to look for from
+man. I make you freely acquainted with that position of my affairs,
+which are purely desperate. And the person of whom we speak looks to
+you as her sole hope in the world. She sends you this, take it, I know
+not the contents, the seal, as you perceive, being unbroken.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'This looks more serious,' said the Colonel, taking the sealed note
+which Kelly handed to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pored over the letter, holding it up to the moonlight. 'Do as the
+bearer bids you, if you would have me live,' he read; then, with a
+bitter laugh, he tore the note into the smallest shreds, and was about
+to dash them down on the grass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Hold, sir,' Kelly said; 'preserve them till you can burn them. Or--I
+have myself swallowed the like before now.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel stared, and put the fragments into his pocket-book.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well,' he said, 'I am hearing you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I thank you, sir; you will grant that I did not wrong you in trusting
+your generosity. If I am a free man to-morrow, or even to-night after
+this business is done, I shall have the honour of meeting you,
+wherever you are pleased to appoint. For my cloth have no scruple, I
+never was more than half a parson.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sir, I shall treat you as you may merit. And now for your commands,
+which, it seems, I am in a manner under the necessity to obey.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You see this key, sir,' said Kelly, offering that of one of his
+strong boxes, 'take it, go to my lodgings, which, by a miracle, are in
+the same house as your own. Enter my parlour, 'tis on the ground
+floor; open the small iron strong box which this key fits, and burn
+all the--brocades which you find there.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'This is a most ingenious stroke of the theatre! I am to burn, I
+perceive, all the papers, or brocades as you call them, which damn you
+for a Jacobite plotter! It is not badly contrived, sir, but you have
+come to the wrong agent I am acquainted with the ingenious works of
+the French playwrights.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sir, you compel me, against my will, to be more plain with you than I
+desire. It is your own fault if I give you concern. On opening the
+coffer you may satisfy yourself of the hand of the writer, which
+cannot but be familiar to you. Moreover, the letters of the person for
+whom we are concerned are addressed (that you may not make the error
+which you apprehend) to one Strephon--not a cant name of a political
+plot.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She called you--Strephon?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She was so kind.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And I was Corydon,' groaned the Colonel between his teeth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'<i>Arcades ambo!</i>' said George. 'But now 'tis the hour of a third
+shepherd! Lycidas, perhaps, <i>le plus heureux des trois</i>. Oh, Colonel,
+be easy, we are both yesterday's roses, or, rather, I am the rose of
+the day before yesterday.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And it is for this woman--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ay, it is just for this woman that you are to risk your commission,
+for a risk there may be, and I my life, for I could get away from this
+place. You perceive that we have no alternative?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What must be, must,' he said, after some moments of thought; 'but
+what if I find the Messengers already in possession of your effects?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'In that case I must depend solely on your own management and
+invention. But I may say that gold will do much, nay, everything with
+such fellows, and your position, moreover, as a trusted officer of
+your King's, will enable you to satisfy men not very eminent for
+scruples.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Gold! I have not a guinea, thanks to the cards, not a stiver in my
+rooms to-night. The cards took all.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Here, at least,' cried George, 'I can offer some kind of proof of my
+honesty, and even be of service. I am poor, Heaven knows, but there
+are my winnings, easily enough to corrupt four Messengers. Use the
+money; I have friends who will not let me starve in the Tower. Nay,
+delicacy is purely foolish. I insist that you take it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Johnson,' the Colonel said, 'you are a very extraordinary man.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sir, I am an Irishman,' said George.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I will not say that I never met one like you, but I hope, after all
+accounts are settled between us, to have the advantage of your
+acquaintance. Sir, <i>au revoir</i>.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I shall be with you, sir, in ten minutes after your arrival in your
+lodgings, whether the coast be clear or not. But let me attend you
+across the Park, as far as the corner of Pall Mall Street.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If Kelly was an Irishman, Montague was an Englishman, and Kelly was
+well enough acquainted with that nation to know that the last proof
+given of his disinterestedness was by much the most powerful he could
+have used. He reflected again on the Devil's own luck of Smilinda that
+night, for if the cards had gone contrary to her and George he could
+not have produced this demonstration of his loyalty, nor could he very
+well have invited the Colonel to pay the piper out of his own pocket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel also walked silently, turning about in his mind all the
+aspects of this affair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I understand,' he said, 'that you are upon honour not to involve me
+in tampering with anything disaffected? You will take no advantage
+whatever that may give <i>me</i> the air of being concerned, to shelter
+yourself or your party?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have my word for it, sir. Your honour, next to that in which we
+are equally concerned, is now my foremost consideration.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He nodded, then sighed, as one not very well satisfied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Things may come to wear a very suspicious complexion, but I must risk
+a little; the worse the luck. Mr. Johnson, neither of us has been very
+wise in the beginnings of this business.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I came to that conclusion rather earlier than you, sir, and on very
+good evidence.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No doubt,' growled Montague, and he muttered once or twice,
+'Strephon, Corydon--Corydon, Strephon.' Then he turned unexpectedly to
+Kelly. 'You mentioned these letters as I was leaving the room, and I
+noticed that her ladyship grew white. She kept you, she knew then of
+the danger you were in and has just informed you of it. Now, how came
+she to have so particular a knowledge of your danger?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly did not answer a question which boded no good for Lady
+Oxford. 'She had grounds of resentment against you in a certain
+ballad.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly seized at the chance of diverting Montague from his suspicions,
+and showed how the ballad was aimed at him no less than at her
+ladyship, and, without giving the Colonel time to interrupt,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Here I must bid you <i>au revoir</i>, sir,' he said, 'for some ten
+minutes, time enough for you to do what is needed, if, as I hope, you
+are not disturbed. The Messengers, I conceive, will be lurking for me
+in Ryder Street outside our common door; they will not think of
+preventing you from entering, and before I arrive, whatever befalls
+<i>me</i>, our common interest will be secured.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are determined to follow?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What else can I do? I must know the end of this affair of the
+brocades. It is not wholly impossible that the Messengers have wearied
+of waiting, and think to take me abed to-morrow. When you have done
+what you know, you will leave my room, and I, if I am not taken, have
+some arrangements of my own to make. That, I presume, is not a breach
+of my engagement with you?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Certainly not, sir. When I have left your room I am in no sense
+responsible for your actions. I wish you good fortune.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While they thus walked and were sad enough, they came within ear-shot
+of Wogan, who, at that moment, was declaiming Mr. Pope's Night piece
+to Mr. Scrope, who was in the Canal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What conversation passed between the four gentlemen Wogan has already
+told, and he has mentioned how the Colonel went away, and how, after
+using pains to prevent Mr. Scrope from catching a cold, he himself
+withdrew to court slumber, and left Mr. Kelly alone in the moonlight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly did not remain in the open, but lay <i>perdu</i> on the shadowy
+side of the grove. Concealing himself from any chance of a rencounter,
+he allotted a space of twelve minutes by his watch, and time never
+paced more tardy with him in all his life. There was in his favour but
+the one chance that the Messengers might choose to take him abed in
+the early morning, when the streets would be empty. At this moment St.
+James's Street was full of chairs and noises; night-rakers were
+abroad, and the Messengers, who are not very popular, might fear a
+rescue by the rabble. On this chance Kelly fixed his hopes, for if he
+could but be alone for ten minutes in his lodgings, he and his friends
+would have little to fear from any evidence in his possession.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If the Colonel succeeded, Lady Oxford, and, with her ladyship,
+George's honour, were safe. If, by an especial miracle of heaven,
+George could have a few minutes alone in his room, the Cause and the
+faithful of the Cause would be safe. The Colonel, Kelly hoped, could
+hardly fail to do his part of the work; he would enter his own rooms
+unchallenged, his uniform and well-known face must secure him as much
+as that, and the Epistles of Smilinda would lie in ashes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he hoped, but nothing occurred as he anticipated.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_23" href="#div1Ref_23">HOW THE MESSENGERS CAPTURED THE WRONG
+GENTLEMAN; AND OF WHAT LETTERS THE
+COLONEL BURNED.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">For Colonel Montague was taken in Mr. Kelly's place, as you may see
+with your own eyes in his Grace of Dorset's Report to the Lords'
+Committees, where the informations of John Hutchins and Daniel
+Chandler, described as 'two of his Majesty's Messengers in Ordinary,'
+are printed. These did not chance to be men of a very high degree of
+intelligence, as their own confessions bear testimony, in itself a
+fortunate circumstance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague, when he parted from the Parson at the grove in St.
+James's Park, walked into Pall Mall Street by the path at the corner
+of St. James's House and up to St. James's Street to the corner of
+Ryder Street, where he turned. Ryder Street, what with gentlemen
+walking home on the footpaths and chairs carried in the road, was a
+busy thoroughfare at this time of the night, and he remarked nothing
+extraordinary until he was close to his own doorstep. Then he
+distinguished, or rather seemed to distinguish--for in the doubtful
+light he could not be certain--at a little distance on the opposite
+side of the road a man in the blue and silver livery of Lady Oxford.
+The man was loitering at the edge of the path, taking a few steps now
+this way now that. He was tall, and not unlike Mr. Wogan in his girth.
+Now, Colonel Montague was aware that her ladyship possessed a lackey
+of just such a conspicuous figure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'For once in a while,' he thought, 'the news-sheet spoke truth
+to-night. It seems it was Lady Oxford that set the reverend non-juror,
+for here is her lackey to point him out to the Messengers.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With this thought urging him to get his business done quickly,
+Montague walked up to his door and knocked. On the instant, three men
+ran across the road and collared him. The capture was observed by one
+or two gentlemen, who stopped, and immediately a small crowd began to
+gather about them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague was prudent enough to waste no time in a useless struggle
+with the Messengers, and asked them quietly who they were and what
+they intended. At this moment the door was opened by Mrs. Kilburne's
+maid, and the Messengers, lifting the Colonel up, carried him into the
+house. Hutchins, a short, stoutish fellow, who was the chief of the
+three men, told the Colonel who they were.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And we hold a warrant for your apprehension under Lord Townshend's
+seal,' he said, and showed his scutcheon and the warrant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Not for my apprehension,' replied Montague. 'There is one without
+there who can speak for me.' For the door was still open to the
+street, and amongst the people who thronged the entrance, he now saw
+very clearly the blue and silver livery of her ladyship. The lackey,
+however, pushed backwards out of range, and since those who were
+foremost of the crowd turned about to see who it was that Montague
+pointed to, Hutchins took the occasion to close the door in their
+faces.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are George Kelly, <i>alias</i> James Johnson, <i>alias</i> Joseph Andrews,'
+said he, turning again to Colonel Montague, and reading out from the
+warrant a number of names by which the Parson was known to the honest
+party.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is the first I have heard of it,' replied Montague, and he invited
+the Messengers up to his rooms on the first floor, where he would be
+happy to satisfy them of their mistake. Mrs. Kilburne had now joined
+her maid in the passage, and she followed the Messengers up the
+stairs, wringing her hands over the disgrace which, through no fault
+of hers, had fallen upon her house. When they were come within the
+room, Montague threw open his cloak, which he wore wrapped about his
+shoulders, and discovered his scarlet coat beneath it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am Colonel Montague,' he said, 'and an officer under the King as
+well as you. If there is work to be done for the King, I shall be very
+happy to assist you. I fought for the King at Preston,' and he made a
+great flourish of his services and valorous acts, not being sure that
+the Messengers had reinforcements without, and hoping that Mr. Kelly
+might enter meanwhile and do what was needful. Mrs. Kilburne's tongue
+and care for the Parson seemed likely to forward this plan, for, with
+many unnecessary words, she declared how the Colonel had lodged with
+her for years.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And as for Mr. Johnson,' she said, 'there was such a man who came and
+went, but he lodged with Mrs. Barnes in Bury Street, and there you
+should go if you seek for news of him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the ten minutes were not yet gone. The maid remained downstairs in
+the passage. She was a perfectly honest poor wench, who would have
+risked herself for the Parson or for any gentleman in distress. But
+Montague, however closely he listened, could not hear that she opened
+the door, or any noise in the room below.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hutchins made his apologies with a great many 'your honours,' and the
+Colonel was no less polite in his compliments upon Hutchins's zeal,
+which he would be sure to make known in the proper quarters. But still
+the Parson did not come, and Montague could hold the Messengers in
+talk no longer, though that would have been of little use, as he now
+discovered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For Hutchins turned about to Chandler,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Go down into the street and tell Lyng and Randall,' he said, 'that
+our man is not come. Bid them watch for him at the corner of Ryder
+Street and St. James's.' And as he spoke he gave Chandler the warrant.
+Chandler slipped it into his pocket, and ran downstairs to join the
+others of his worshipful calling in the street. Hutchins followed him,
+but remained within, in the passage, to watch the maid of the house,
+and see that she did not go out to warn the Parson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel and Mrs. Kilburne were thus left alone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mrs. Kilburne,' said Montague. 'You must take my word for it, I am
+Mr. Kelly's friend, and without any argument, if you please.' For he
+saw that she was on the point of interrupting him. 'There is but one
+thing you can do for him. Send someone you can trust, or go yourself
+to lure the Messengers off to Mrs. Barnes's house. But you must be
+quick, and here's money to help you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He filled her hands with the Parson's gold, and she, in her turn, went
+downstairs and out of the house by a door at the back. Montague, for
+his part, had it in mind to try whether the like means might not
+over-persuade Hutchins's zeal. With that design he descended to
+Hutchins, whom he found lighting a candle in Mr. Kelly's room with the
+door open so that he might command a view of the maid who was still
+waiting in the passage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel stepped into the room, casting his eyes about for the
+strong-box with Smilinda's letters, which he could not see. He saw the
+scrutoire, however, which stood in the window with the lid closed.
+Hutchins held the candle above his head and remarked it at the same
+time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I will search the rooms,' he said with an air of consequence. Colonel
+Montague was in a quandary. Hutchins had only to throw back the lid
+and the Parson's strong-box would be in his hands. He had only then to
+break open the lock, and all Smilinda's dainty sentiments about the
+union of souls would be splotched over by the dirty thumbs of a
+constable. And the Colonel could not prevent the sacrilege unless the
+money did it for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Hutchins,' he said, and jingled the gold in his pockets. But he
+got no further in his persuasions. For the name was scarce off his
+lips when a hubbub arose without. It was a confusion of noise at the
+first as though it came from the end of the street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'They have taken him,' said Hutchins, setting down the candle and
+flinging aside the curtains of the window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The noise was louder, and Kelly's voice was heard, bawling, 'A rescue!
+An arrest! an arrest! A rescue!' that the rabble might think he was
+taken for debt. Those who were gathered in front of the house did
+indeed turn themselves about, but they were for the most part of the
+better class, and the night-rakers and such-like who might have
+attempted a rescue, only came up behind at Mr. Kelly's bawling, from
+St. James's Street, where they were likely to find more profit than in
+Ryder Street. This friendly mob was running together indeed, but came
+too late.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes, they have taken him,' said Montague. Mrs. Kilburne had not drawn
+the Messengers off. On the other hand, Hutchins had not opened Mr.
+Kelly's scrutoire. 'They have taken him,' and the Parson was already
+under the window. His sword was gleaming in his hand but the
+Messengers dragged upon his arms and he could not use it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hutchins threw up the window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Bring him in,' and he rushed to the street door and unlocked it.
+Kelly was hustled up the steps, shouting all the while. He was forced
+into the passage just as the rabble came up at his heels.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A rescue!' they cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lyng and Chandler turned about and drove them back. Randall sprang in
+after Kelly and slammed the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The posture of affairs then was this:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague and Hutchins were standing in Mr. Kelly's room close
+to the scrutoire and the open window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly, Lyng, who was a big lout, designed by Providence for this
+office and no other, and the maid, were in the passage. Randall and
+Chandler were outside in the street and at their wits' ends to keep
+back the mob, which was now grown very clamorous.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly was the first to make any movement. He sheathed his sword,
+carefully dusted the sleeves of his coat where the Messengers had held
+him and arranged his cravat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'These are ill times for a peaceful man to live in,' he said. 'It
+seems a gentleman cannot walk home of an evening but he must be set
+upon and cuffed.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With a shrug of the shoulders, as though the whole matter was a
+mystery, he sauntered into his parlour. His eyes carelessly took in
+the room. It seemed that nothing had been disturbed. The scrutoire was
+shut, but were Smilinda's letters still hidden there or were they safe
+in Montague's pockets? His eyes rested on the Colonel's face and put
+the question. But the Colonel gave no sign; Hutchins stood at his
+elbow. Kelly's eyes travelled from the Colonel's face to his red coat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'One of the King's officers,' he said with a smile. 'In the presence
+of one of the King's officers, gentlemen,' he said politely with a bow
+to Hutchins, 'I take it that you will forgo your ingenious attempt to
+rob me and we may all go quietly to bed.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He moved as he spoke towards the scrutoire, and again looked at the
+Colonel. The Colonel's face was still a blank.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'We hold a warrant for the arrest of George Kelly, alias James
+Johnson,' began Hutchins.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Indeed?' replied George with an effort of attention, as though
+fatigue put a strain upon his good manners. 'And why should George
+Kelly prefer to call himself James Johnson? I cannot think it is the
+better name. Mr. George Kelly lacks taste, I am afraid,' and he
+stifled a yawn with his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Colonel Montague,' said Hutchins, who was in some perplexity as to
+what to make of Kelly's present indifference, 'your honour promised to
+assist me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague being appealed to, nodded his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Though you will not need my assistance,' he said, 'for here is
+another of your fellows.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Chandler had come within the house, and pushing into the room said
+that the curtains were drawn apart so that the rabble could see
+clearly all that happened in the room and were on that account the
+less inclined to disperse. As he spoke he hitched the curtains to and
+a volley of curses went up from the disappointed crowd.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hutchins immediately turned to Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Give me your sword.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly, who knew not what to make of the Colonel's manner, but thought
+it likely he had taken his measures, took his sword by the hanger and
+handed it sheath and all to Hutchins, who in his turn passed it to
+Montague. Montague stood in the corner by the window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There is some stupid blunder,' said Kelly, 'which I cannot take it
+upon me to understand. You talk to me a great deal about a warrant,
+but I have not seen it. It is a new thing to come taking off gentlemen
+to the round-house in the middle of the night without a warrant, but
+we live in ill times.' All this he said with an admirable air of
+resignation, though his eyes kept glancing towards Montague, who still
+dared give no sign. The Colonel waited upon occasion; his present aim
+was to hinder the Messengers from any suspicion that the Parson and he
+were in one purpose or indeed were acquainted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In answer to Kelly, Chandler took the warrant from his pocket and
+handed it to Colonel Montague, who read it through.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is a very sufficient warrant,' he said, 'and this gentleman may be
+satisfied if he is rightly named, of which of course I have no
+assurance,' and folding the paper he handed it back to Chandler.
+Whereupon Chandler went out again into the street to guard the door
+from the rabble.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hutchins then took Kelly's hat, placed it on the table, and searching
+his pockets, pulled out some papers which he had about him, things of
+no moment; and these papers he laid in the hat. But to search Kelly's
+pockets Hutchins must needs stoop. Here was the Colonel's chance. Over
+Hutchins' shoulder, Kelly's eyes again put their question. The Colonel
+now answered with a shake of the head. Smilinda's letters had not been
+saved, a great surprise and disappointment to the Parson, who of
+course knew nothing of Montague's mistaken arrest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly, however, wasted no precious moments in regrets. As Hutchins
+turned to place the papers in the hat, Kelly thrust Lyng aside, and,
+springing to the window, tore aside the curtains and again bawled at
+the top of his voice. 'A rescue! An arrest!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Shouts of encouragement greeted him; the hubbub filled the street
+again. Hutchins and Lyng at once sprang upon Kelly, tore him back from
+the window, and sent him staggering across the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Tie his hands!' cried Hutchins, as he pulled down the sash. 'Knock
+him down! Gag him!' and he turned to help Lyng.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The maid in the passage began to cry; the Colonel stood irresolute;
+the Parson drew himself up against the wall as the two men approached
+him. His Irish blood bubbled in his veins at the prospect of so fine a
+tumble. He clenched his hands. He forgot Smilinda's letter, the Cause,
+even Rose. His face became one broad grin and in an accent as broad as
+the grin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And what'll I be doin' while you're tyin' my hands?' he asked. 'Why,
+just this,' and his fist shot out like a battering-ram and took the
+worthy Lyng on the tip of the chin. Mr. Lyng was clean lifted off both
+his feet and so sat down on the floor with some violence, where he
+felt his neck in a dazed sort of way to make sure that it was not
+broken.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, why isn't Nick here?' cried Kelly, and indeed Nicholas Wogan
+bewails his absence at that festivity to this day. 'Come, Mr.
+Hutchins, I have the other fist for you,' and he began to dance
+towards Hutchins, who called on the Colonel to mark the murderous look
+in the prisoner's eyes and save him from immediate destruction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Is it destruction you want?' asked Kelly with a chuckle. 'I'll
+gratify you with all the destruction imaginable.' And no doubt he
+would have been as good as his word. But Hutchins, while shutting the
+window had not drawn the curtains, and the rabble in the street had
+thus enjoyed a full view of the Parson's prowess. They had roared
+their applause when Lyng went down, and as Hutchins drew back before
+the Parson's fisticuffs, they hooted the Messenger for a coward and
+made a rush at the door. A stone or two shattered the window and a
+voice was yelling, 'Murder! murder!' in tones of unmistakable
+sincerity. Chandler then rushed in, his face bleeding, and said that
+Randall was being mobbed, and, if they did not come to help him, would
+be knocked on the head. At this, Lyng, who was now got to his feet,
+ran out into the street with Chandler. Hutchins remained in the room,
+but cried out to Chandler that he should go or send for a file of
+musquets.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now Chandler, when he rushed into the room, was holding the warrant in
+his hand, he still held it when he ran out again, as the Parson
+remarked, and instantly thought of a plan by which, after all,
+Smilinda's letters might be secured, and her name kept wholly out of
+the business. Accordingly he ceased from his warlike posture and sat
+down in a chair. Hutchins took the occasion to draw the curtains and
+shut out the mob from a view of the room. Mr. Kelly smiled, for he was
+just wondering what excuse he could discover to do that very thing
+himself. Mr. Hutchins was helping him very well.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is a pity,' said the Parson in a plaintive voice, sucking his
+knuckles, which were bleeding, 'that a peaceful, law-abiding citizen
+must put himself to so much discomfort because a couple of rascally
+Messengers will not show him their warrant.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is under Lord Townshend's seal,' began Hutchins.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It may be, or it may not be. I have not seen it. I cannot really
+surrender unless the proper formalities are observed.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hutchins, who was no doubt well pleased to see the peaceful turn
+things were taking and had not the wits to suspect it, replied with an
+oafish grin that the prisoner was wise to submit himself to his lawful
+captors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And as for the warrant, Chandler has it safe enough in the street.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'In the street!' cried Kelly, suddenly flying into a passion. 'And
+what's the warrant doing in the street? How dare the warrant be in the
+street when it is intended for a gentleman in the house? Upon my word
+it would take very little to persuade me that there's no warrant at
+all,' and he began to stamp and fume about the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Colonel Montague has read it,' said Hutchins.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I certainly read a warrant,' agreed the Colonel with an impartial
+air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A warrant, yes,' said Kelly in a testy voice. 'But how can the
+Colonel know whether it is intended for me? How can he know whether it
+is a real warrant at all? You come here with a scutcheon, Mr.
+Hutchins. But you might have stolen the scutcheon, as you have
+certainly forged the warrant.' He stopped in front of Hutchins and
+wagged his head at him. 'Mr. Hutchins, I begin to suspect you are one
+of a gang of cheats come here to rob me. But I will not be your gull,'
+he cried out as though his fury overmastered him. 'No, nor his worship
+the Colonel either,' and he called to the maid to lock the street
+door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Lock it,' said he. 'Lock the door' and Mr. Hutchins and I will get to
+the bottom of the matter quietly.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That very thing now happened which Mr. Kelly most desired. The maid
+ran down the passage to the street door: Hutchins ran out of the room
+after her to prevent her locking it. Kelly flung to the door of the
+parlour: Mr. Hutchins was outside, the Colonel and Kelly were alone
+within the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My sword,' said the Parson in a quick whisper. Montague held it out
+to him without a word: he had no right to refuse it to a free man.
+Kelly snatched the hilt; the blade rattled out of the scabbard; he
+stood on guard with his naked blade.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile Hutchins and the maid were quarrelling in the passage over
+the door key, as Kelly could distinguish from their voices.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He made a quick step towards the window, threw open the scrutoire, and
+returned to his station at the door. But he had not so much as glanced
+at the scrutoire; he had kept his eyes fixed upon the door. Still
+keeping his eyes so fixed, he pointed towards the strong boxes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Be quick,' he whispered. 'In the strong box! Take the candle and have
+done. You know the hand, and you have the key.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague pulled the key from his pocket, and fumbled at the lock.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It will not fit,' he said under his breath and swore.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Be quick,' repeated Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The key rattled in the lock as the Colonel turned it this way and
+that. Mr. Kelly was about to throw a glance over his shoulder when he
+saw the handle of the door turn. It was turned cautiously without any
+noise. The next moment the door flew open. Fortunately it opened
+upwards towards the window and the scrutoire. Kelly stopped it with
+his foot when it was but half open, so that Montague was entirely
+hidden behind the panels from the eyes of any one on the threshold or
+in the passage. Hutchins was on the threshold peering into the room.
+But he did not peer long, for at the same moment that Kelly stopped
+the door with his foot he made at Hutchins, with his sword, a pass so
+vigorous that the hulking fellow leaped back a good yard, crying out
+to Montague:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Will your honour let a poor man be killed in his duty?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel made no answer to the pathetic question. He was occupied
+with business of another complexion. Mr. Kelly heard a crack.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What is the matter?' he asked, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The key is filled with dust, or the lock is jammed,' Montague
+whispered back. 'I have broken open the box with the guard of my
+sword.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Be quick,' said Kelly. 'Make sure you have Smilinda's letters.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All this while he had not looked towards the scrutoire. The most that
+he saw was the shadow of the Colonel thrown on the wall of the room by
+the single candle, a shadow monstrous big that held the shadow of a
+paper to its eyes. It is to be said in Mr. Kelly's defence that he
+dared not look about him. The door of the room was half open; the
+Messenger who had retreated into the passage was plainly hardening his
+heart for a rush. Mr. Kelly's attention was entirely distracted from
+Colonel Montague's proceedings at this important moment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes,' whispered Montague. 'This is her hand, this is the blue-edged
+paper she affects of late. &quot;My own Strephon,&quot; and dated two days back.
+It bids you to her rout.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words passed in and out of Mr. Kelly's ears. His eyes were
+occupied with Hutchins, and with his eyes his mind. He did not
+remember that he had thrust this letter of her ladyship's, as he had
+told to Wogan, into the wrong box, the box holding the papers of the
+Bishop and the King. Then a little flame shot up and illumined the
+room, which was at once filled with a smell of burning paper. Montague
+had burned Smilinda's letter, inviting Kelly to her rout.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed that Hutchins had after all no stomach for Mr. Kelly's
+sword, which to be sure must have glittered ominously in the dismal
+light of the solitary candle. He ran back again down the passage and
+pulled open the street door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Chandler,' he shouted, calling his fellow to assist him. A yell of
+laughter answered him, and a voice from the street cried out that
+Chandler was gone for a file of soldiers. Kelly could hear Hutchins
+swearing and cursing, though it was himself that had sent Chandler on
+the errand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A second flame spirted up and died away. Montague had burned a second
+letter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Lyng! Randall!' cried Hutchins at the street-door, but again he was
+answered with jeers, and again the voice called to him mockingly that
+they were gone to Bury Street, where they were told they would be sure
+to snare the right man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague, who heard everything clearly, blessed Mrs. Kilburne aloud,
+and burned a third paper. Kelly kicked the door to.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'We are safe, then, it seems,' he said. 'Smilinda's safe.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his face,
+leaning his back against the panels of the door. He could hear
+Hutchins bawling up the street for his partners, and his voice sounded
+as though he had moved from the door in search of them. So for the
+first time Kelly looked at Montague and the scrutoire.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague had turned the strong-box upside down and emptied the
+papers on the scrutoire, so that they lay face downwards. By a scruple
+of delicacy, having read the topmost letter to make sure it was Lady
+Oxford's hand, he looked at them no more. He took them up one by one,
+face downwards, and so burned them separately, knowing no doubt that,
+lighted in a single heap, only those on the outside and the edges of
+the letters in the middle, would catch fire. One by one he burnt them
+face downwards at the candle, the secret letters of the Cause. He had
+burned three, and he now held the fourth in his hand. He approached it
+to the candle; he did not so much as look at it. But had he merely
+glanced once at Mr. Kelly leaning there against the panels of the
+door, that glance would have surely told him what papers he was
+burning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly did not speak a word, or stir a muscle. He had wiped the sweat
+from his face a second ago, but his forehead was wet now: his eyes
+stared greedily at the papers: a slow smile, of a knavish kind, that
+went very ill with his face, curved his lips. An extreme temptation
+chained him; the Devil whispered in his ear, 'Be silent,' and the
+Parson held his peace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The blue-edged letter bidding him to the rout he had slipped on the
+top of the Chevalier's papers, as he had told Mr. Wogan. Colonel
+Montague was merrily burning the papers of the Plot. Kelly had but to
+hold his tongue, and in a few minutes he was safe. The Cause was saved
+so far as the papers went, and Lady Oxford, her letters unburned, was
+lost. No wonder the key did not fit; it was the wrong key! Kelly could
+see the corner of Wogan's strong-box peeping out from beneath a thatch
+of papers in the corner of the scrutoire.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All this the Parson saw and understood in the one short moment during
+which Montague approached the paper to the candle. His mind was tossed
+up and down in a tempest; the winds of temptation blew hard against
+the tides of his nature. On one side was safety and the King's
+interest, and Rose, who to be sure need never know of the treachery by
+which the Parson had won her; on the other, a broken pledge that he
+had given to the Colonel, and the ruin of Smilinda, who had betrayed
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague lit the sheet of paper and held it up. Kelly saw the blue
+flame creep down from the edge, the writing turn brown, the paper curl
+over black and tattered, with a multitude of red sparks; and still he
+kept his peace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague dropped the ashes on the scrutoire, and took a fifth paper
+from the pile. The Parson turned away, and laid his ear to the panel,
+making a pretence that he heard Hutchins stirring in the passage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Be quick!' he said first, and then, moistening his dry lips with his
+tongue: 'Make quite sure you have Smilinda's letters.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Smilinda?' asked Montague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly forced a laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No doubt she called herself something equally pretty to you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Phylissa,' growled Montague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She has a pretty conceit in names. Make sure those are her letters,'
+and again he spoke with an effort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Not I. I have had my fill of the lady's handwriting.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague was already holding the paper to the flame, when Kelly's good
+angel got the upper hand with him. He is happy now to think that no
+chance accident, such as the return of Hutchins or the coming of the
+soldiers, hurried him into the better choice with a mind half made up.
+Here was the very occasion of which he had dreamed when he stayed
+behind in Lady Oxford's withdrawing room. He could use the weapon
+which her letters put into his hand to save the Chevalier's papers and
+himself and Rose. But he put the weapon aside. He turned about from
+the door: Montague was holding the paper to the flame, and a corner of
+it had taken fire. Kelly sprang to the scrutoire, snatched the paper
+out of Montague's hand, and crushed the fire out in the palm of his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I gave you the right key, 'he whispered. 'You chose the wrong box.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague snatched up the pile of papers and turned them over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Good God! Cyphers!' he exclaimed, and dropped them as though they
+were, in truth, burning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The other box; the other box,' said Kelly, pointing to it. He fancied
+that he heard Hutchins moving cautiously just outside the door, and
+was now in a fever lest the delay brought about by his incertitude
+might balk his intentions. At any moment the Messenger might come back
+from Bury Street, or the file of the musquets march tramping up the
+stairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All this indeed takes a long time to tell, and seemed no less long to
+Mr. Kelly in the happening; but the whole of the occurrences, the
+movements of the Messengers, the tidings cried to him from the street,
+the burning of the papers, with Kelly's own thoughts and doubts and
+unlooked-for temptations, passed with momentary speed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague found Wogan's strong box, the box of the love-letters,
+unlocked it, tore out all the contents, and glanced at a few at the
+top, middle and bottom.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Smilinda--Smilinda--Smilinda,' he said, reading the signatures. 'And
+it's for this woman,' he cried, striking the letters with his fist,
+'Smilinda, Phylissa, and the Lord knows what else to the Lord knows
+what other men, that----'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the Parson was in no mood to listen to Montague's reflections.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Put the other papers back into that box, the box with the unbroken
+lock, lock it and give me the key,' he said. Montague crammed her
+ladyship's letters into the inner pocket of his coat. But before he
+could move the door opened with a crash, and Hutchins flew in, Kelly
+made a furious pass, and Hutchins, leaping back, 'parried the thrust
+with the door,' as he truly said in his evidence before the Lords'
+Committee. Had he not used that novel parade Kelly would infallibly
+have run him through, and, as it was, George could scarcely drag his
+point out of the wood of the door, which Hutchins in leaping back had
+shut. Being now sufficiently terrified, for indeed no man ever had a
+narrower escape of his life, Hutchins contented himself with a
+plaintive expostulation from the safety of the passage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure, I would serve Lord Townshend himself in the same way,' Kelly
+shouted back, 'if he tried to enter my room against my will without a
+warrant,' and lowering his voice so that only Montague might hear,
+'Lock the box, and throw me the key.' If only for Montague's sake the
+papers of the Plot must not be found lying open upon Kelly's
+scrutoire, and the box which held them broken among a litter of ashes.
+Mr. Kelly could not but remember with what care, earlier in the
+evening, he had burned and buried the ashes of his Grace of
+Rochester's letters, and reflect with some sadness what little good
+had come of it. Montague locked up the papers of the Plot in the box
+which had held Smilinda's letters, and tossed the key to Kelly, who
+caught it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There is no more to do?' said Montague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nothing,' and Kelly handed him back his sword and sat him down on a
+sofa. He seized the occasion to make Montague acquainted with the
+accident through which Smilinda's last letter had been laid on the top
+of those in the box that contained very different wares, adding
+apologies for his brief delay to inform him. The Colonel then sat down
+over against Kelly and laid the flat of Kelly's sword across his
+knees. He looked at the sword for a little. Then,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You had a chance to let me destroy your own papers,' he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes, and to be a liar to a loyal gentleman, and a traitor to a more
+sacred cause than even my King's.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Smilinda's?' Montague looked up in perplexity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No,' said Kelly, and he stared for a little at the floor, then he
+said very slowly, 'A long while ago I made a prayer that nothing might
+ever come between the Cause and me except it be death. Even while I
+made the prayer I was summoned to visit Lady Oxford, who was then
+unknown to me. Well, something has come between the Cause and
+me--honour. A more sacred Cause than even my King's. Himself would say
+it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague fancied that he heard a distant regular tramp of feet
+like soldiers. But Mr. Kelly was clean lost in his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I could meet the King with a clear face and this story on my lips,'
+he continued, 'even though it were over there in Rome, and in his old
+lodging. The very approach to him was secret, his antechamber a cellar
+underground. You went by night, you crossed the cellar in the dark,
+you climbed a little winding stair, and above, in a mean crazy chamber
+which overhangs the Tiber, there was my King looking towards England.
+A man like me, with a man's longings and a man's despair, but, unlike
+me, robbed of a nation. Day by day delay shadowed his eyes and wrote
+upon his face until the face became an open book of sorrows. Yet
+himself would say, &quot;Perish the Cause, perish all but honour,&quot;' and,
+suddenly throwing up his arms, Mr. Kelly cried out in a voice of great
+passion and longing, 'The King! The King!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague very likely had his own opinions as to how the King
+would take it, but he was careful to keep them to himself, and in the
+silence which followed upon Kelly's outburst the tread of soldiers was
+heard very distinct, and Hutchins's voice at the door bidding them
+hurry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly raised his head. He too had heard the sound, and, drawing a
+ring from his finger,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Take my seal ring, when you are alone seal up the brocades in a
+packet. You know the person whom they concern.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague took the ring and slipped it on his finger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Johnson, or Kelly, or whoever you are,' he said cordially, 'we
+must needs be public enemies, but I wish my King had many as loving
+servants as your King has in you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The rattle of the butts of musquets could now be heard in the passage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And, damme,' said Montague, bending forward suddenly; he had all this
+while maintained in word and carriage the reserve of the Englishman,
+but now he showed a decent warmth of blood, 'had you been in my place
+and I in yours, Smilinda or no Smilinda, I should have let you burn
+the cyphers.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On those words he was pleased to say, which Mr. Kelly merely counted a
+politeness, the door was driven open by the butts of several fusils, a
+sergeant with a file of musqueteers entered; behind them came Chandler
+with the warrant, Lyng with a broken head, Hutchins with a white,
+scared face, and Randall whose coat was in tatters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were surprised enough, you may be sure, to see the Colonel on one
+side of the fireplace and their redoubtable prisoner as quiet upon the
+other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh,' said Mr. Kelly, with an admirable air of astonishment, 'it seems
+you have a warrant after all.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hutchins then read the warrant through, and Mr. Kelly surrendered. But
+the Messenger had not done; he picked up presently the impudence to
+question the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your worship let the prisoner take his sword?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dignified Montague stared at Hutchins with a strong amazement
+until the fellow was quite abashed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What's the world coming to?' he said. 'Here is your prisoner's sword,
+if he is your prisoner.' and, lifting Mr. Kelly's sword from his
+knees, he handed it to Hutchins. Hutchins then made haste to secure
+Mr. Kelly's effects. He went over to the scrutoire, and the first
+things he clapped his eyes upon were a pile of black ashes and a great
+many splotches of hot grease from the candle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hutchins looked at the Colonel with a question upon his lips; the
+Colonel looked stonily at Hutchins. Hutchins raised his nose and
+sniffed the air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Will your worship tell me whether the prisoner meddled with any
+papers?' he asked, but with less impertinence than before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes, sir, the gentleman did.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What was done with them?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sir, they were burned, as you may perceive.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And how came you, sir, to let them be burned?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am not to answer to you, sir, for my conduct, of which I can give a
+sufficient account to persons who have the right to question me. I
+have, for your satisfaction, no knowledge of this gentleman's name,
+nor as to whether he is correctly described in a warrant which was not
+in the house while we were together. It appears to me that you are all
+very likely to lose your scutcheons for your doltish stupidity,
+whether you have hold of the right or the wrong gentleman. I wish you
+a good night, sir,' he said, bowing to Kelly, 'and speedy deliverance,
+if you deserve it, from your present company.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He put his hat on his head and walked out of the room without another
+word. Hutchins thereupon searched Mr. Kelly's scrutoire; he found one
+box broken open and empty, another box, its own fellow, locked. Mr.
+Kelly delivered the key to it, with a great show of reluctance. It
+held the papers of the Bishop's Plot and a key to the Bishop's cypher,
+which was used to convict him at his trial. As for the burned papers,
+it came out at George's trial that he had destroyed letters in the
+presence of a King's officer. But the Duke of Wharton, in his famous
+speech, argued that a man of Mr. Kelly's figure might very well have
+letters to burn which were not political.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That night the Parson was taken to the house of John Gardiner, living
+in Westminster Market, there to be kept in safe custody. He walked
+between the soldiers, and whistled a lively tune as he walked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was related in more than one inn-parlour the next day by the
+sergeant, who was mightily surprised that a man should bear so heavy a
+charge so easily, and so the story got about.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Mr. Kelly was sensibly lightened by having saved Smilinda in the
+end after so many mischances, and when he thought of her letters safe
+in the Colonel's inner pocket, felt a private glow of pleasure which
+put all conjectures of his fate and doom clean out of his head.
+Moreover, he says that Rose was never nearer to him than on that night
+and during that walk. He speaks as though she walked by his side
+amongst his captors, and walked with a face that smiled.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_24" href="#div1Ref_24">MR. WOGAN WEARS LADY OXFORD'S LIVERY, BUT
+DOES NOT REMAIN IN HER SERVICE.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The question with which Mr. Wogan lay down to sleep after Lady
+Oxford's rout, woke him at noon; he sent a boy whom he could trust to
+Ryder Street to desire Colonel Montague's attendance. Montague came
+back presently with the boy, and gave Wogan the news that the Parson
+was taken.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There was no escape possible,' he said. 'I cannot tell you the
+innermost truth of the affair, because the secret is not mine to tell;
+but, Mr. Wogan, you will take my word for it, your friend was in the
+net.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The room was searched?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And his papers seized. One or two, I believe, were burned, but the
+greater part were seized,' and then he broke out with an oath. 'Damn
+these plots! What in the world made you meddle with such Tory
+nonsense?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Faith,' said Wogan, 'I have been wondering how ever you demeaned
+yourself to become a Whig.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan wondered very much more what strange mishap had brought Mr.
+Kelly to this pass at the moment when he seemed to have success
+beneath his hand. Something wholly unexpected must have happened
+during those few minutes when he and Smilinda were left alone.
+Something had happened, indeed, but it was something very much simpler
+than Mr. Wogan looked for, who had not the key to the Parson's
+thoughts. However, he forebore to inquire, and instead:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Colonel,' said he, 'you professed last night that you were under some
+trifling obligation to me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I trust to-day to make the profession good.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Faith, then you can, Colonel. There's a little matter of a quarrel.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this the Colonel broke in with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'With whom?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'With a lad I have taken a great liking for,' and the Colonel laughed
+again. 'Therefore I would not put a slight on him by missing a certain
+appointment. It is Lord Sidney Beauclerk.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague's face clouded as he heard the name.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And the reason of the quarrel?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He took objection to a few words I spoke last night.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'About a ballad? I heard the words.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I told him that he would find a friend of mine waiting at Burton's
+Coffee-house this morning, and I doubt if many friends of mine will be
+seen abroad to-day.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague rose from the bed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I will not deny,' he said, 'that there are services I should have
+preferred to render you. But I will go to Burton's, on one condition,
+Mr. Wogan--that you do not stir from this house until I come back to
+you. There's an ill wind blowing which might occasion you discomfort
+if you went abroad.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This he said with some significance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It catches at one's throat, I dare say,' replied Wogan, taking his
+meaning. 'I have a tender sort of delicate throat in some weathers.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague walked to Burton's, at the corner of King Street in
+St. James's. The coffeehouse buzzed with the news of Mr. Kelly's
+arrest, and Colonel Montague saw many curious faces look up from their
+news-sheets and whisper together as he entered. In a corner of the
+room sat Lord Sidney Beauclerk, with a man whom Montague had remarked
+at Lady Oxford's rout the night before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lord Sidney arose as Montague approached and bowed stiffly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I come on behalf of a gentleman, whom, perhaps, we need not name,'
+said Montague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Indeed?' said Lord Sidney, with a start of surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I can understand that your lordship did not expect me, but I am his
+friend.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To be frank, I expected no one.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your lordship, then, hardly knows the gentleman?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'On the contrary,' said Lord Sidney, and he took up from the table the
+<i>Flying Post</i> of that morning. He handed the paper to Montague, and
+pointed to a sentence which came at the end of a description of Mr.
+Kelly's arrest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is said that Mr. Nicholas Wogan is also in London, hiding under
+the <i>incognito</i> of Hilton, and that he will be taken to-day.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You see, my lord,' said Montague, 'that there are certain
+difficulties which threaten to interfere with our arrangements.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My friend is aware of them,' said Lord Sidney, and presented his
+friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Before making any arrangements I should be glad if your lordship
+would favour me with a hearing in some private place. It is I who ask,
+not my friend, Mr. Hilton.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lord Sidney reluctantly consented, and the two men walked out of the
+coffee-house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There are to be no apologies, I trust,' said Lord Sidney.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague laughed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your lordship need have no fears. What I propose is entirely unknown
+to Mr. Wogan. But it seems to me that the conditions of the duel have
+changed. If Mr. Wogan shows his face in London he will be taken. If he
+fights you, it matters not whether you pink him or no, for if he
+escapes your sword he will be taken by the Messengers. On the other
+hand, he will not go from London until he has met you; unless--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Unless--?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Unless your lordship insists upon deferring the meeting until it can
+take place in France.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes, I will consent to that,' said Lord Sidney, after a moment's
+pause. 'It is common fairness.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Again I take the liberty to observe that your lordship does not know
+the gentleman. You must insist.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lord Sidney was brought without great difficulty to understand the
+justice of Colonel Montague's argument.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Very well; I will insist,' he said; and, coming back to Burton's
+coffee-house, he wrote a polite letter, which the Colonel put in his
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague, however, did not immediately carry it to Mr. Wogan. He stood
+on the pavement of King Street for a little, biting his thumb in a
+profundity of thought; then he hurried to the stable where he kept his
+horses, and gave a strict order to his groom. From the stable he set
+out for Queen's Square, but on the way he bought a <i>Flying Post</i>, and
+stopped in St. James's Park to see what sort of account it gave of Mr.
+Kelly's arrest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The Plot concerning which they write from Paris,' it began, 'hath
+brought the Guards into the Park, and a reverend and gallant non-juror
+within danger of the Law. The Messengers that were essaying to take
+Mr. Kelly needed reinforcement by a file of musquets before his
+reverence's lodgings could be stormed. It is said that a loyal Colonel
+of the Guards who lodges in the same house in Ryder Street was
+discovered with Mr. Kelly when the soldiers forced their way in, and
+that by his interference many valuable papers have been saved, which
+would otherwise have been destroyed. It appears that Kelly was intent
+upon burning certain cyphers and letters, and had, indeed, burnt two
+or three of them before the loyal Colonel interrupted him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The loyal Colonel took off his hat to Grub Street for this charitable
+interpretation of his conduct. Lady Oxford, he reflected, must be in a
+fine flutter, for assuredly she would have sent for the news-sheet the
+first thing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague tapped the pocket in which were her ladyship's letters, and
+smiled. Her anxieties would be very suitable to a certain plan of his
+own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He walked straight to Queen's Square and knocked at the door. It
+seemed to him purely providential that the man who opened the door was
+the big lackey whom he had seen in Ryder Street the night before.
+Montague looked him over again and said, 'I think that I saw you last
+night in Ryder Street.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had some further conversation with the lackey, and money passed
+between them. But the conversation was of the shortest, for her
+ladyship, in a fever of impatience, and bearing every mark of a
+sleepless night, ran down the stairs almost before Colonel Montague
+had finished. She gave her hand to him with a pretty negligence, and
+the Colonel bent a wooden face over it, but did not touch the fingers
+with his lips. Then she led the way into the little parlour, and her
+negligence vanished in a second. She was all on fire to know whether
+her letters had been seized or no; yet even at that moment it was not
+in her nature to put a frank question when a devious piece of cajolery
+might serve.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Corydon!' she said in a whisper of longing, as though Montague was
+the one man her heart was set upon, as though she had never brought
+Mr. Kelly into this very room on a morning of summer two years ago.
+'My Corydon!' she said, and sighed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam,' said Montague, in a most sudden enthusiasm, 'I think there is
+no poetry in the world like a nursery rhyme.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her ladyship could make nothing of the remark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A nursery rhyme?' she repeated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A nursery rhyme,' repeated the Colonel. '&quot;Will you walk into my
+parlour, said the spider to the fly.&quot;'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford looked at him quite gravely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I do not in the least understand,' she said. She had a wonderful
+knack of burying her head in the sand and believing that no one spied
+her, as travellers tell of the ostrich. 'But you have a message for
+me, have you not?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She put the question frankly now, since coquetry had failed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have a packet to deliver to your ladyship,' replied Montague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford drew a breath and dropped into a chair. 'Thank you! How
+shall I thank you?' she cried; and seeing that Montague made no answer
+whatever, but stood stiff as a ramrod, she became at once all weak
+woman. 'You are very good to me,' she murmured in a very pathetical
+voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship owes me no thanks,' replied Montague. 'Your ladyship
+has need of all your gratitude for a gentleman who gave up all that he
+held dear to save your good name.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had it on the tip of his tongue to add, 'which was not worth
+saving,' and barely refrained from the words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford was not abashed by the rebuke. She turned upon the Colonel
+eyes that swam with pity for Mr. Kelly's misfortunes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I read that he was taken,' she said sadly. 'Poor gentleman! But he
+should have burnt my letters long ago. They were letters written, as
+we women write, with a careless pen and ill-considered words which
+malice might misconstrue. He should have burnt them, as he swore to
+do; but he broke his word, and so, alas! pays most dearly for his
+fault. Indeed, it grieves me to the heart, and all the more because he
+brought his own sufferings about. So unreasonable we poor women are,'
+and she shook her head, and smiled with a sort of pity for women's
+frail readiness to forgive.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam,' said Montague, growing yet colder, 'it is not for me either
+to construe or to misconstrue the packet which I am to give you, nor
+am I at all concerned to defend a gentleman whom I am proud to name my
+friend.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The indifference of the speech no doubt stung her ladyship.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Friend!' she said with a sneer. 'This friendship is surely something
+of the suddenest. I did not even so late as last night notice any
+great cordiality between you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Very likely not,' said Montague. 'Last night there was a trivial
+cause for disagreement upon which to-day we are of one mind.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford flushed and took another tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are cruel,' she said. She was not so much insulted as hurt. 'You
+are ungenerous. You are cruel.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Colonel Montague was not in a melting mood, and so, 'Give me the
+packet,' she said sullenly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague pressed his hand over his pocket and smiled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford rose from her chair with a startled face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You mean to keep it? To use it?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Not to your ladyship's hurt.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford looked at him with eyes mournful in their reproach.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Kelly bade you give these letters back to me at once,' she said;
+and then, with a great fervour of admiration, 'Mr. Kelly would have
+given them back to me at once.' It seemed as though the thought of the
+noble Mr. Kelly was the one thing which now enabled her to keep her
+faith in men.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Very likely,' replied Montague coolly, who was not at all moved by
+the disparaging comparison of himself with the Parson. 'Mr. Kelly
+would have given them back to you at once had not your ladyship taken
+good care that a few locks and bars should hinder him. But I am not
+Mr. Kelly, and indeed it is well for your ladyship I am not. Had your
+ladyship betrayed <i>me</i>, why, when that pretty news-sheet was read out
+last night, I would have stood up before the whole company, and told
+boldly out how your ladyship came by the knowledge which gave you the
+power to betray me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words and the stern voice in which they were spoken stung Lady
+Oxford into a passion. She forgot to deny that she had betrayed Mr.
+Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It would have been an infamy!' she cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A harsh critic might say that it would have matched an infamy.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her ladyship saw her mistake.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There was nothing which Mr. Kelly could have said. Mr. Kelly was my
+friend, as I have told you frankly; but I did not betray him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship's livery is blue and silver, I think--a pretty notable
+livery even at night, as I had occasion to remark in Ryder Street.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford was put out of countenance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What am I to do to earn the packet which is mine?' she asked
+bitterly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The simplest thing imaginable. Your ladyship, I fear me, has not
+slept well. What say you to a little country air, with your humble
+servant for a companion? If your ladyship would order your carriage to
+be at your door in an hour's time we might take the air for a while
+together. On our return your ladyship will be refreshed for this
+evening's diversions, and I shall be the lighter by a packet of
+letters.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford did not know what to make of the Colonel's proposal, but
+she perforce consented to it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I obey your orders,' said she bitterly; and Montague went back to
+Wogan, whom he found sitting on the edge of the bed and disconsolately
+swinging his legs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have a letter for you from Lord Sidney Beauclerk,' said Montague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a very polite letter, and assured Mr. Wogan that he would on no
+account fight with him in England; but would cut his throat somewhere
+in France with the greatest friendliness possible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Very well,' said Wogan, 'but I have to reach France first.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You will start in an hour's time,' said Montague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'In broad daylight?' asked Wogan. 'And what of the ill wind and the
+sore throat that's like to come of it?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have got a fine coat to protect the throat.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague went outside and cried down the stairs to know whether a
+parcel had been brought into the house. The parcel was carried
+upstairs into Mr. Wogan's room. The Colonel unwrapped it, and spread
+out on the bed a blue and silver livery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A most distasteful garb,' said Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is indeed not what we would choose for the descendant of kings,'
+murmured Montague gently as he smoothed out the coat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Viceroys, Colonel, viceroys.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Viceroys, then, Mr. Wogan; but no doubt they murdered, and robbed,
+and burned, and ravished, just like kings. Besides, you have an
+example. For I seem to have heard of another Wogan, who went to
+Innspruck as a shopkeeper.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To be sure,' cried Nick. 'That is the finest story in the world. It
+was my brother Charles--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You shall tell me that story another time,' said Montague, and Wogan
+stripped off his clothes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Will you tell me what I am to do when I am dressed?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You will go to a certain house.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes,' said Wogan, and pulled on the lackey's breeches.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'At the house you will find a carriage.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I shall find a carriage.' Wogan drew on a stocking.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You will mount behind as though you were a footman from the house.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A footman from the house,' repeated Wogan, and he pulled on the other
+stocking.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I shall get into the carriage with a companion. You won't know me.
+The carriage will drive off. You won't speak a word for fear your
+brogue should betray you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I will whisper my opinions to you in English, Colonel,' said Wogan as
+he fastened his garters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I don't think you could,' said Montague, 'and certainly you will not
+try. We shall drive to the almshouses at Dulwich. When we get there, I
+will make an excuse to stop the carriage.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You won't be alone, then?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No. Let me see. It is a fine sunny day. I will say that my watch is
+stopped, and I will send you to see the time by the sundial in the
+court.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan buttoned his waistcoat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I will bring you the exact minute.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No you won't. You will cross the court to the chapel, by the chapel
+you will find a path, and the path will lead you out through an arch
+into another road, bordered with chestnut trees.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And when I am in the road?' Wogan tied his cravat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You will find my groom with a horse. The horse will be saddled. There
+will be pistols in the holsters, and then your patron saint or the
+devil must help you to get out of the country.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have a friend or two on the coast of Sussex who will do as well,'
+said Wogan, and he drew the coat over his shoulders, 'and I am very
+grateful to you. But sure, Colonel, what if a constable pulls me off
+the carriage by the leg before we are out of London? You will be
+dipped yourself.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There's no fear of that if you hold your tongue.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan took up his hat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And who is to be your companion?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague hesitated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My companion will be a lady.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh! And where's the house with the carriage waiting at the door?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'In Queen's Square, Westminster.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan looked at his clothes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am wearing her damned livery,' he cried. 'No, I will stay and be
+hanged like a gentleman, but I take no favours at Lady Oxford's hand,'
+and in a passion he began to tear off the clothes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She offers none,' said Montague. 'She knows nothing of what I intend.
+I would not trust her. If you have to stand behind, I have to drive by
+her side; and upon my word I would sooner be in your place. Her
+ladyship's footman for an hour! Man, are you so proud that your life
+cannot make up for the humiliation? Why, I have been her lapdog for a
+year.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan stopped, with one arm out of the sleeve of his coat. The notion
+that her ladyship was not helping him, but that, on the contrary, he
+was tricking her, gave the business a quite different complexion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'D'ye see? The one place in London where the King's Messengers will
+not look to find you is the footboard of Lady Oxford's carriage,'
+urged Montague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was reason in the argument: it was the same argument which Mr.
+Wogan had used to persuade Mr. Kelly to go to Queen's Square the
+evening before, and now he suffered it to persuade himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan drew on the coat again, pulled his peruke about his face, and
+drew his hat forward on his forehead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Now follow me. It is a fortunate thing we are close to her ladyship's
+house.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague walked quickly to Queen's Square. Wogan followed ten yards
+behind. As they turned into the square they saw Lady Oxford's carriage
+waiting at the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Does the coachman know?' asked Wogan, lounging up to the Colonel and
+touching his hat with his forefinger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The lackey whose place you took has primed him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the door Mr. Wogan climbed up to the footboard while Montague
+entered the house. In a minute Lady Oxford came out, and was handed
+into the carriage by the Colonel. She did not look at her new lackey,
+but gave an order to the coachman and the carriage drove off. Mr.
+Wogan began to discover a certain humour in the manner of his escape
+which tickled him mightily. He noticed more than one of his
+acquaintances who would have been ready to lay him by the heels, and
+once Lady Oxford made a little jump in her seat and would have stopped
+the coachman had not Colonel Montague prevented her. For Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk stood on the path gazing at her ladyship and the Colonel
+with a perplexed and glowing countenance. Mr. Wogan winked and shook a
+friendly foot at him from the back of the carriage, and his lordship
+was fairly staggered at the impertinence of her ladyship's footman. So
+they drove out past the houses and between the fields.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague was plainly in a great concern lest Lady Oxford
+should turn round and discover who rode behind her. He talked with
+volubility about the beauty of spring and the blue skies and the green
+fields, and uttered a number of irreproachable sentiments about them.
+Lady Oxford, however, it seemed, had lost her devotion to a country
+life, and was wholly occupied with the Colonel's indifference to
+herself. Her vanity put her to a great many shifts, which kept her
+restless and Mr. Wogan in a pucker lest she should turn round. Now it
+was her cloak that, with an ingenious jerk, she slipped off her
+shoulders, and the Colonel must hoist it on again; now it was her
+glove that was too small, and the Colonel must deny the imputation and
+admire her Liliputian hand, which he failed to do; now his advice was
+asked upon the proper shape of a patch at the corner of the mouth, and
+a winsome, smiling face was bent to him that he might judge without
+any prejudice. The Colonel, however, remained cold, and Wogan was
+sorely persuaded to lean over and whisper in his ear:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Flatter her, soften your face and adore her, and she will be quiet as
+a cat purring in front of a fire.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For it was solely his indifference that pricked her. Had he pretended
+a little affection, she would have whistled him off without any
+regret, but she could not endure that he should discard her of his own
+free will. This, however, Colonel Montague did not know; he had not
+Mr. Wogan's experience of the sex, and so Lady Oxford restlessly
+practised her charms upon him until they came to the gates of the
+almshouses at Dulwich.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Colonel Montague cried to the coachman to halt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Or would your ladyship go further?' he asked, and pulled his watch
+out of his fob to see the time. But his watch had unaccountably
+stopped. 'Nay, there's a sundial in the court there,' he said, and
+over his shoulder bade the lackey go and look at it. The lackey
+climbed down from the footboard. At the same moment Colonel Montague
+bade the coachman turn, and since the lackey kept at the back of the
+carriage as it turned, Lady Oxford did not catch a glimpse of him. The
+lackey walked through the gates, crossed the grass to the chapel
+without troubling his head about the sundial, ran down the passage and
+under the archway into a quiet road shaded with chestnut trees and
+laburnums. Colonel Montague's groom was walking a horse up and down
+the road. Wogan mounted the horse, thrust his feet into the stirrups,
+and took the air into his chest with incomparable contentment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The afternoon sunlight shone through the avenue and glistened on the
+laburnum flowers. But there is another sort of yellow flower that
+blooms from the mouth of a pistol barrel with which Mr. Wogan was at
+that moment more concerned, and he unstrapped the holsters and looked
+to the priming to see whether the buds were ready to burst. Then he
+drove his heels into his horse's flanks and so rode down between the
+chestnut trees. 'Your ladyship, we need wait no longer,' said Montague
+to Lady Oxford. 'Your footman will not come back, and I have the
+honour to return you your packet of letters.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With that he drew the letters from his pocket, sealed up in a parcel
+with Mr. Kelly's ring. Lady Oxford clutched them tight to her bosom,
+and lay back in the carriage, her eyes closed. The coachman drove back
+to London.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had gone almost half the way before Lady Oxford recovered
+sufficiently from her joy to have a thought for anything but the
+letters. Then she looked at Montague, and her eyes widened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The footman!' she said. 'Ah! I have saved Mr. Kelly after all. I have
+saved him!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel might have pointed out that whatever saving had been done,
+Lady Oxford had taken but an involuntary hand in it. But he merely
+shrugged his shoulders; he imagined her anxiety on Mr. Kelly's account
+to be all counterfeit, although, may be, she was sincere.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Kelly,' he said, 'is most likely in the Tower. Your footman was
+Mr. Nicholas Wogan.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford was silent for some little time. Then in a low, broken
+voice she said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There was no need you should have so distrusted me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague glanced at her curiously. Her face had a new look to him. It
+was thoughtful, but with a certain simplicity in the thoughtfulness;
+compunction saddened it, and it seemed there was no artifice in the
+compunction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam,' he answered gently, 'if I had told you, and the manner of Mr.
+Wogan's escape became known, you might fall under the imputation of
+favouring Mr. Wogan's cause.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Oxford thanked him with a shy look, and they drove back among the
+streets. Neither of them spoke until they reached Queen's Square, but
+Colonel Montague was again very gentle as he handed her from the
+carriage and bade her good-bye. Lady Oxford's discretion was to seek.
+The Colonel seemed to be in a relenting mood; she could not resist the
+temptation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My Corydon!' she whispered under her breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Montague's face hardened in an instant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My Phylinda!' he replied. 'No, I should say my Smilissa. Madam, there
+is, in truth, some family likeness between the names, and perhaps it
+would be better if I said simply &quot;Lady Oxford.&quot;'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the Colonel got his foot out of the net. Her ladyship made no
+answer to his sneer, but bowed her head and passed slowly into her
+house. Montague had struck harder than he had intended, and would
+gladly have recalled the words. But the door was closed, and the
+strange woman out of sight and hearing. He walked away to his lodging
+in Ryder Street, very well content with his day's work, and opening
+the door of his parlour on the first floor was at once incommoded by a
+thick fog of tobacco-smoke. But through the fog he saw, comfortably
+stretched in his best armchair, with his peruke pushed back and his
+waistcoat unbuttoned, a lackey in Lady Oxford's livery. Montague
+lifted up his voice and swore.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_25" href="#div1Ref_25">HOW THE MINIATURE OF LADY OXFORD CAME BY
+A MISCHANCE.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">'I lent you the swiftest horse I have,' said Montague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is just for that reason I am back before you,' replied Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague at once became punctilious to the last degree. He
+stood correct in the stiffest attitude of military deportment. A
+formal politeness froze the humanity out of his face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'This makes me very ridiculous, Mr. Wogan,' he said in a tone of
+distaste. 'If you will pardon the remark, I was at some pains and
+perhaps a little risk to get you safe out of London. You accepted my
+services, as it seemed, and yet here you are back in London! Indeed
+this makes me very ridiculous.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan had quite forgotten that Colonel Montague was an Englishman,
+and so hated ridicule worse than the devil. He was briskly reminded of
+the fact, and having ruffled the gentleman's feelings, must now set to
+work to soothe them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is very true, Colonel. My behaviour looks uncommonly like a breach
+of good taste. But it was not for the purpose of playing a trick on
+you that I came back into danger, when I was safe upon the back of
+your beautiful horse. Sure, never have I ridden a nobler beast. A
+mouth of velvet, a leg tapered like a fine lady's finger, a coat--sir,
+I have seen the wonderful manufactures of Lyons. There never was silk
+so smooth or of so bright a gloss, as the noble creature's coat. He
+spurned the earth, at each moment he threatened to float among the
+clouds. Sure, that horse was the original of Pegasus in a direct
+descent. A true horse, and more than a horse, a copy of all that is
+best in England, an example of what is most English and therefore most
+admired, the true English military gentleman.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Mr. Wogan,' interrupted Montague, with a grim sort of smile, 'you are
+likely to learn a little more particularly about the velvet mouth of
+the English military gentleman if you continue to praise his horse at
+the expense of his sense. Will you tell me why you have come back?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have a right to ask that, Colonel, but I have no right to answer
+you. It is a private affair wherein others are concerned. I should
+have remembered it before, but I did not. It only came into my mind
+when I was riding between the chestnut trees, and leaving my friend
+behind me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Colonel Montague was silent for a little.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'In another man, Mr. Wogan, I should suspect an intention to meddle
+with these plots. But I have no need to remind you that such a
+proceeding would not be fair to me. And if Mr. Kelly's concerns have
+brought you back I cannot complain. Meanwhile how are you to lie
+hidden? I cannot keep you here.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There are one or two earths, Colonel, which are not yet stopped, I
+have no doubt. I did but take the liberty to use your lodging until it
+grew dark.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The evening was falling while Wogan and Montague thus talked together.
+Wogan wrote a letter which he put into his pocket, and holding the
+ends of his wig in his mouth, without any fear ran the hazard of the
+streets.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was that evening adorning herself for a
+masquerade in her house, when word was carried to her that Lady
+Oxford's big lackey was below and had brought a letter. Lady Mary had
+no sooner glanced at the superscription than she sent her maid
+downstairs to bring the lackey immediately to her boudoir. Thither he
+came without awaking suspicion in the servants, and found Lady Mary
+sitting in front of her toilette, which was all lighted up with
+candles, and the rest of the room dark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan remained in a dark corner by the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have a message from Lady Oxford,' said she, carelessly holding
+out a hand as though to take a letter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'By word of mouth, your ladyship,' replied Wogan in a disguised voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary dismissed her maid and spoke in considerable heat:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Colonel Montague told me you had escaped.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have come back,' replied Wogan coolly, who had no reason to think
+he had justly incurred Lady Mary's anger, and so made no account of
+it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is sheer madness,' she exclaimed, 'and yet no more mad than it is
+for your friends to take precautions for your safety,' and she dabbed
+a patch on her cheek viciously. 'Why have you come back?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship has not forgotten how some while ago Lady Oxford paid
+her losses at cards.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary raised her head from her mirror and looked at Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'With Mr. Kelly's winnings from the South Sea,' said she.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Your ladyship was kind enough then to say that you would not count
+the money yours.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I remember.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But would keep it, since you could not return it to George, until
+such time as it could be used on his behalf.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary took a key from a drawer in her toilette and, unlocking a
+cabinet in a corner of the room, showed Wogan a parcel of bills of
+exchange lying amongst a heap of guineas.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The moment for using it has come,' said Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Take it, then,' said Lady Mary, who now asked for no explanations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No. It is only of use if your ladyship uses it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'How?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lady Mary went back to her toilette and busied herself with a number
+of little silver pots and boxes, while Wogan disclosed his plan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George was taken last night in his lodging, as your ladyship is no
+doubt aware. It is a large sum that Lady Oxford lost at cards, and a
+large sum might perhaps bail George, if a trusted Whig were the
+surety. He would have some few weeks of liberty, at all events.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Some few weeks that are like to cost you your life,' said Lady Mary,
+who was now grown friendly. 'It was to tell me this you came back. I
+should have guessed.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Madam, I shall never believe my life's in danger until I am dead,'
+replied Wogan, with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I will see what the money can do to-morrow,' said Lady Mary. 'Where
+shall I have news of you? Or very likely I am to meet you at
+Ranelagh?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan disclaimed any such bravado, and told her ladyship of a house
+where she might hear of him if she sent by night and if her messenger
+knocked in a particular way. To that house he now bent his steps, and
+stayed there that night and the next day. It was already dark when the
+particular knock sounded on the door, and Mr. Wogan lifted a corner of
+the blind and peered down into the street. What he saw brought him
+down the stairs in a single bound; he opened the door cautiously, and
+who should slip in but the Parson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick!' said he, in a warm voice. His hand clasped Wogan's in the
+dark. 'Thanks, thanks!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It appeared that Lady Mary, after seeing that George was bailed out,
+had told him that the notion of bailing him was none of hers.
+Moreover, in order to make sure Smilinda's letters were safe, Kelly
+had gone as soon as he was released to Colonel Montague, who told him
+of Wogan's return to London and other matters of no importance, so
+that he now wasted a great deal of time in superfluous compliments.
+'But you shall not lose your life on my account, Nick. Montague's
+horse, which it seems you have taken a liking to,' he said, with a
+smile, 'will be waiting for you at twelve o'clock to-night at Dulwich,
+and in the same road; but, Nick, this time you will have to walk to
+Dulwich. There is a warrant out for you. You can slip away with a
+better chance on foot; and, Nick, this time you will not come back.
+Promise me that.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan promised readily enough.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I brought the Colonel into some danger of suspicion by returning
+before,' he said. 'It is a strange thing, George, that, while our
+friends have left us in the lurch, we should owe, I my escape, you
+your few weeks of liberty, to perfectly inveterate Whigs, though how
+you came to an understanding with the Colonel is quite beyond me to
+imagine.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I will tell you that now, Nick, since you have an hour to spare;'
+and, going up to Wogan's room, Mr. Kelly related to him the story of
+his meeting with the Colonel in the Park, of the disturbance with the
+Messengers in his rooms, and of the saving of Smilinda, and how his
+love for Rose urged him to it. It was eight o'clock when he had come
+to an end. Mr. Wogan heard the clocks striking the hour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It will take me an hour to get to Dulwich,' he said, 'so I have three
+hours to spare. George, have you seen Rose?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No; but she knows that I am free, for Lady Mary sent the news to
+her.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That's a pity,' said Wogan, pursing his lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'On the contrary, it was not the least kind of Lady Mary's many
+kindnesses,' said George, who was astonished at Mr. Wogan's cruelty,
+that would have left the girl in her anxieties a moment longer than
+was necessary. 'Had she not heard the news till it was stale, she
+would never have forgiven me--she that has forgiven me so much,' said
+he, with more sentiment than logic.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh,' said Wogan, 'she has forgiven you so much? My young friend, you
+are very certain upon a very uncertain point. There's that little
+matter of her ladyship's miniature.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly looked anxiously at Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'True,' said he; 'I told her a lie about it at Avignon, and made out
+it was the likeness of Queen Clementina.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The lie is the smallest part of the difficulty. She wore the
+miniature, and wore it in Lady Oxford's withdrawing-room. There's the
+trouble, for there's the humiliation.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But, Nick,' said Kelly, 'she forgave it. Didn't I escort her to her
+chair? Didn't I feel her hand upon the sleeve of my coat?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh! she carried herself very bravely, never a doubt of that. For one
+thing, you were in peril; and, to be sure, she will have kept a liking
+for you at the worst of it. For another, Lady Oxford was there, and
+Lady Oxford was not to win the day. My little friend Rose is a girl of
+an uncommon spirit, and would hold her own against any woman, for all
+her modest ways. But, just because she has spirit, she will not meekly
+forgive you. If you expect her to droop humbly on to your bosom, you
+are entirely in the wrong of it. 'Oons! but it must have been a hard
+blow to her pride when she found she was in Lady Oxford's house, and
+knew who Lady Oxford was, and had that miniature about her throat.
+Will she forgive you at all? The best you have to hope is that she
+will be content with making your head sing. That she will do for a
+sure thing; and I think--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What?' asked the Parson. The danger of life, the Messengers, the
+angry Colonel, had only raised his blood; the fear of Rose drove it to
+his heart. He was now plainly scared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I think it was the greatest pity imaginable that Lady Mary sent word
+to her you were free. For, d'ye see, if you had dropped upon Rose
+suddenly, and she thinking you locked up in a dark prison and your
+head already loose upon your shoulders, why, you might have surprised
+her into a forgetfulness of her pride; but now she will be prepared
+for your coming. I think, George, I will walk along with you as far as
+Soho, since I have three hours to kick my heels in.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Will you, Nick?' cried George eagerly; and then, with his nose in the
+air, 'But I have no fears whatever. She is a woman in a thousand.' He
+was, none the less, evidently relieved when Wogan clapped his hat on
+his head. The night was dark, and Wogan in his livery had no fears of
+detection.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The two men walked through by-streets until they came to Piccadilly.
+The Parson was nerving himself for the meeting, but would not allow
+that he was in the least degree afraid. 'A trivial woman would think
+of nothing but her humiliation and her slight, but Rose is, as you
+say, of an uncommon spirit, Nick,' he argued.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nick, however, preserved a majestic silence, which daunted the Parson,
+who desired arguments to confute. They were by this time come into
+Bond Street, and Mr. Kelly, who must be talking, declared with a great
+fervour, 'There are no limits to a woman's leniencies. Black errors
+she will pardon; charity is her father and her mother; she has an
+infinity of forgiveness, wherefore with truth we place her among the
+angels.' Upon that text he preached most eloquently all the way up
+Bond Street, past the New Building, until he came to the corner of
+Frith Street in Soho. In Frith Street, all at once the Parson's
+assurance was shown to be counterfeit. He caught at his friend's arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick,' said he, in a quavering, humble voice, 'it is in Frith Street
+she lives. What am I to do at all? I am the most ignorant man, and a
+coward into the bargain. Nick, I have done the unpardonable thing.
+What am I to do now?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus the Parson twittered in a most deplorable agitation. Mr. Wogan,
+on the contrary, was very calm. It was just in these little
+difficulties, which require an intimate knowledge of the sex, that he
+felt himself most at home. He stroked his chin thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick,' and George shook the arm he held, 'sure you can advise me. You
+have told me so often of your great comprehension of women. Sure, you
+know all there is to be known about them, at all.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No, not quite all,' said Wogan, with a proper modesty. 'But here I
+think I can help you. Which is the house?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Kelly pointed it out. A couple of windows shone very bright upon the
+dark street, a few feet above their heads. Looking upwards they could
+see the ceiling of the room and the globe of a lamp reflected on the
+ceiling, but no more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is in that room she will be sitting,' whispered the Parson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And waiting for you,' added Mr. Wogan grimly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And waiting for me,' repeated the Parson with a shiver.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They both stared for a little at the ceiling and the shadow of the
+lamp.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Now, if the ceiling would only tell us something of her face,' said
+Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It would be as well to have a look at her,' said Wogan. The street
+was quite deserted. 'Will you give me a back'?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The house was separated from the path by an iron railing a couple of
+feet from the wall. The Parson set his legs apart and steadied himself
+by the railing, while Wogan climbed up and knelt on to his shoulders.
+In that position he was able to lean forward and catch hold of the
+sill. His forehead was on a level with the sill. By craning his neck
+he could just look into the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Is she there?' asked the Parson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes, and alone.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'How does she look? Not in tears? Nick, don't tell me she's in tears.'
+The Parson's legs became unsteady at the mere supposition of such a
+calamity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Make yourself easy upon that point,' said Wogan, clinging for dear
+life to the sill, 'there's never a trace of a tear about her at all.
+For your sake, George, I could wish that there was. Her eyes are as
+dry as a campaigner's biscuits. Oh, George, I am in despair for you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick, you are the most consoling friend,' groaned the Parson, who now
+wished for tears more than anything else in the world. 'What is she
+doing?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nothing at all. She is sitting at the table. George, have you ever
+noticed her chin? It is a sort of decisive chin, and upon my word,
+George, it has the ugliest jilting look that ever I saw. She has just
+the same look in her big grey eyes, which are staring at nothing at
+all. Keep still, George, or you will throw me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the Parson was become as uneasy as a restive horse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But, Nick, is she doing nothing at all? Is she reading?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No, she is doing nothing but expect you. But she is expecting you.
+Steady, for if I tumble off your shoulders the noise will bring her to
+the windows.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The menace had its effect. Mr. Kelly's limbs became pillars of marble,
+and Wogan again looked into the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Wait a moment,' he said, 'I see what she is doing. She is staring at
+something she holds in her hands.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My likeness?' cried the Parson hopefully. 'To be sure it will be
+that.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I will tell you in a moment. Hold on to the railings, George.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George did as he was bid, and Wogan, still holding to the window-sill
+very cautiously, stood up on his friend's shoulders. George, however,
+seemed quite insensible to Mr. Wogan's weight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It will be my likeness,' he repeated to himself. 'I had it done for
+her by Mr. Zincke. I was right, Nick; she has forgiven me altogether.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan's head was now well above the window-sill, and he looked
+downwards upon Rose, who sat at the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes, it's a likeness,' said Nick.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I told you. I told you,' said the Parson. The man began to wriggle
+with satisfaction. 'You are wrong, Nick. You know nothing at all about
+women, after all. Come down, you vainglorious boaster.' It seemed he
+was about to cut capers with Mr. Wogan on his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Wait,' said Nick suddenly, and hitched himself higher.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick, she will see you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No, she's occupied. George!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What is it?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It's Lady Oxford's miniature she is staring at, and not yours at
+all.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson grew quite stiff and rigid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Are you sure?' he whispered, in an awe-stricken voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I can see the diamonds flashing. 'Faith my friend, but I had done
+better to have let you throw them into the sea at Genoa.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A groan broke from the Parson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why didn't you, Nick? What am I to do now?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I can see the face. 'Tis the miniature of her ladyship that you gave
+out to be Queen Clementina's. Did you ever meet Gaydon, George?' he
+asked curiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Gaydon?' asked Kelly. 'What in the world has Gaydon to do with Rose?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Listen, and I'll inform you. He told my brother Charles a very pretty
+story of the Princess Clementina. It seems that when she escaped out
+of her perils and came to Bologna to marry the Chevalier, who had,
+just at the moment when he expected his bride, unaccountably retired
+into Spain, she stayed at Bologna, and so, picking up the gossip of
+the town, expressed a great desire to visit the Caprara Palace. 'Twas
+there the lady lived who had consoled the Chevalier in his anxieties.
+No doubt he never expected the Princess to get out of the Emperor's
+prison. But Charles got her out, and here was she at Bologna. To be
+sure, the Princess was a most natural woman, eh? And when she came to
+the Caprara Palace she asked to be shown the portrait of the Princess
+de la Caprara. That was more natural still. Gaydon describes how she
+looked at the portrait, and describes very well. For sure Rose is
+looking at Lady Oxford's in just the same way.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That's good news, Nick,' said Kelly, grasping at a straw of comfort.
+'For the Princess Clementina forgave.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah, but there's a difference I did not remark at the first. I
+remember Gaydon said the Princess turned very red, while your little
+friend Rose, on the contrary, is white to the edge of her lips. Sure,
+red forgives, when white will not. George,' and Mr. Wogan ducked his
+head beneath the window-ledge, 'she is coming to the window! For the
+love of mercy don't move, or she will hear!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George pressed himself close to the railings. Wogan hunched himself
+against the wall in the most precarious attitude. Would she open the
+window? Would she see them? Both men quaked as they asked themselves
+the question, though they had come thither for no other purpose but to
+see her and be seen of her. Wogan threw a glance over his shoulder to
+where the light of the window fell upon the road. But no shadow
+obscured it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sure, she's not coming to the window at all,' said Nick.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh, Nick,' whispered the Parson, 'you made my heart jump into my
+throat.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan drew his head up level with the window again, and again ducked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She is standing looking towards the window with the likeness in her
+hand,' and he scrambled to the ground, where the pair of them stood
+looking at one another, and then to the house, and from the house down
+the street. Wogan was the first to find his tongue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is a monstrous thing,' said he, and he thumped his chest, 'that a
+mere slip of a girl should frighten two grown men to death.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly thumped his chest too, but without any assurance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick, I must look for myself,' he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Footsteps sounded a little distance down the street, and sounded
+louder the next moment. A man was approaching; they waited until he
+had passed, and then Mr. Kelly climbed on to Wogan's shoulders, and in
+his turn looked into the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick!' he whispered in a voice of awe.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What is she doing?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She has thrown Smilinda's likeness on the ground. She is stamping on
+it with her heel. She is grinding it all in pieces.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'And the beautiful diamonds? Look if she picks them up, George!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No; she pays no heed to the stones. It is the likeness she thinks of.
+It was in pieces a moment ago; it is all powder now,' and he groaned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George, it is an ill business. When a woman spurns diamonds you may
+be sure she is in a mortal fluster. It's a Gorgon you have to meet--a
+veritable Gorgon.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly slid from Wogan's shoulders to the ground.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What will I do, Nick?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nick bit his thumb, then threw his shoulders back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am not afraid of her,' said he. 'No, I am not. I have done nothing
+to anger or humiliate her. I am not afraid of her at all--not the
+least in the world. I will go in myself. I will beard her just to show
+you I am not at all afraid of her.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Will you do that? Nick, you <i>are</i> a friend,' cried Kelly, who was
+most reasonably startled by his friend's heroism.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To be sure I will,' said Nick, looking up at the window. 'I am not
+afraid of her. A little slip of a girl! Why should we fear her at all?
+Haven't we killed men more than once? Do you wait here, George. If I
+hold my hand up at the window with my fingers open--so, you may come
+in. But if I hold up a clenched fist, you had best go home as fast as
+your legs can carry you. You see, the case is different with you. I
+have no reason whatever to be frightened at her.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He knocked at the door, and in a little the door was opened. 'Not the
+least bit in the world!' he stopped to say to Mr. Kelly in the street.
+Then he stepped into the passage.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_26" href="#div1Ref_26">MR. WOGAN TRADUCES HIS FRIEND, WITH THE
+HAPPIEST CONSEQUENCES</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan's title of Hilton was now, thanks to the <i>Flying Post</i>, as
+familiar as his name; he refused both the one and the other to the
+servant, and was admitted to Rose Townley without any formalities. Her
+eyes flashed as they remarked his livery, but she was not in any
+concern about Mr. Wogan, and asked him no questions. She rose with the
+utmost coldness, did not give him her hand, and only the bare mockery
+of a bow, as though her indignation against Mr. Kelly was so complete
+that it must needs embrace his friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I thought that he would have plucked up enough courage to come
+himself,' said she, with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He is a man of the meanest spirit,' replied Wogan, in a sullen
+agreement. 'It is a strange thing how easily one may be misled. Here
+have I been going up and down the world with him for years, and I
+never knew him until now, never knew the black heart of him, and his
+abominable perfidies.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Rose was taken aback by Wogan's speech. No doubt she expected a
+hotch-potch of excuses and arguments on Mr. Kelly's behalf, which
+would but have confirmed her in her own opinion; but falling in with
+her views, he took the words out of her mouth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'So,' she said doubtfully, 'he has lost your friendship too?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To be sure,' cried Wogan in a heat, 'would you have me keep friends
+with a vile wretch whose thoughts writhe at the bottom of his soul
+like a poisonous nest of vipers?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Rose neither answered the question nor expressed any approval of
+Wogan's elegant figure describing Mr. Kelly's mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Oh,' said she, 'then he did not send you to make his peace with me?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan answered with all the appearances of reluctance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No. In fact the man was coming himself, and with a light heart. He
+made a great to-do about the infinite fairness and charity of women,
+which place them equal to the angels, and how you excelled all women
+in that and other womanly qualities. But I told him, on the contrary,
+that I knew your spirit, and that you were of too noble a pride to
+shut your eyes to a slight, and would certainly dismiss him. However,
+he would not be persuaded, so I slipped away from him and ran here, so
+that I might warn you against him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Rose forgot to thank Mr. Wogan for his zeal on her behalf. Indeed her
+face, in spite of herself, had lightened for a second; in spite of
+herself her eyes had sparkled when Wogan spoke of the great faith Mr.
+Kelly had in her charity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It was more than a slight,' she said, 'I could forgive a slight--He
+would have come himself had not you prevented him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But he is coming. He would have been here already, but that he paid a
+visit on the way to Colonel Montague to discover whether Lady Oxford's
+letters had been restored to her.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Lady Oxford's letters!' exclaimed Rose, her face flushing again with
+anger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To be sure,' said Wogan, 'you would know nothing of them. It is a
+fine story--the story of Lady Oxford's love-letters.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have no wish to hear it,' cried Rose sharply, and she turned
+towards the window. Mr. Wogan took a quick step towards her. If she
+looked out of the window she could hardly fail to observe the Parson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nor is it a story that you should hear,' said Wogan in a soothing
+voice, 'though indeed to hear it from Mr. Kelly's lips would surely
+make you aware of his devilish sophistries. For he declares that, but
+for you, Lady Oxford's love-letters would never have been restored to
+her, nor would he have gone to prison and put his neck in the noose.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Rose shivered at those last words and drew in her breath. She turned
+quickly back to Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But for me?' she asked. 'What have I to do with Lady Oxford's
+love-letters, or with his danger?' and her voice softened towards the
+end of the sentence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Why, Lady Oxford, who knew very well Mr. Kelly's trade, betrayed him
+in revenge for a certain ballad wherein your name was mentioned.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes,' interrupted Rose, 'Lady Mary told me of the ballad.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well, you heard Mr. Kelly perhaps assure Lady Oxford that he had her
+brocades in his lodging, and perhaps you remarked her ladyship's
+confusion.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes. I guessed what the brocades were.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Very well. Mr. Kelly remained with her Ladyship, who informed him
+that he would be taken outside his door, and his rooms searched. There
+were papers in his rooms of a kind to bring him into great danger. But
+there were also Lady Oxford's letters. The story he will tell you is
+this, that he meant to use Lady Oxford's letters as a weapon by which
+he might save his papers and so himself; but a complete revolution
+took place in his thoughts. He suddenly understood that he owed it to
+you that no woman's name should be smirched by his fault, and that
+thus he was bound, at the peril of his life, to rescue Lady Oxford's
+letters, as he did. A strange chance put it into his hands to burn his
+own papers, and leave Lady Oxford's to be seized, in which case he
+would have been saved, and she lost. But he saved his honour instead,
+and his love for you helped him to it. He rescued her Ladyship's
+letters, his own are in the hands of the Minister.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan, who had now secured a most attentive listener, disclosed
+all that Mr. Kelly had told him of what took place in Ryder Street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'This is the story he will tell you. And to be sure, he adds a pretty
+touch to the pretence. For he went whistling to prison and he says
+that he whistled because he felt as if you were walking by his side.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But what if it were no pretence at all?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan sagely shook his head, though the story had the stamp of
+truth on it to those who knew the Parson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'If he had held you in such respect would he have sent you Lady
+Oxford's miniature to wear at Lady Oxford's rout?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But he did not send it to me for that purpose,' she cried, 'he did
+not even know that I was going to the rout. He gave me the miniature a
+long time ago, when it would have been very difficult for him to tell
+me whose it was.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But he told you it was Queen Clementina's.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No. It was I who guessed at that, and he--did not deny it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here at all events was sophistry, but Mr. Wogan was less indignant at
+it than his anger with the Parson's subtleties would lead one to
+expect.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Well,' said Wogan, 'I have told you what it was my plain duty to
+disclose to you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this moment Wogan chanced to look towards the window. He beheld Mr.
+Kelly's face pressed against the glass. The man had grown impatient
+and so had climbed on to the railings. Mr. Wogan broke off with an
+exclamation he could not repress.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'What is it?' said Rose, turning about.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Some most beautiful diamonds,' said Wogan, spreading out his hand to
+the window. He then dropped on to the floor and began picking up the
+diamonds which Rose had scattered when she set her foot on the
+miniature. Rose bit her lips, and flushed, as he held them in his
+palm. Then he said carelessly:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That fine miniature had diamonds set about it. D'ye know, Miss
+Townley, that miniature would have been at the bottom of the sea long
+before Mr. Kelly came to Avignon, but for the diamonds about it. 'Twas
+I held his arm when, having done with her Ladyship, he would also have
+done with her Ladyship's present, and I bade him keep it for the value
+of the jewels.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a loud knocking at the door, which came not a moment earlier
+than was necessary to prevent Mr. Wogan revealing himself as still the
+Parson's friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'There's the fellow come to importune you,' said Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Then he would have thrown it away but for you,' said Miss Townley
+thoughtfully. 'He did not keep it out of any--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Wogan heard the servant pass down to the door, and thought it
+would be as well if he had a private word with the Parson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You will excuse me,' he said with dignity, 'but I have no heart for
+the man's company. Besides, I have stayed too long in London as it is.
+Delays would be dangerous.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Rose had no ears for any dangers of Mr. Wogan, as he was
+indescribably glad to remark. For her eyes looked past him to the
+door; from head to foot she seemed to listen for the sound of the
+Parson's voice. Mr. Wogan bowed, and opened the door. Though she
+followed him to the door, and held it open as he passed out, she did
+not notice that he was going, she had no word of farewell. She did not
+even notice that Mr. Wogan put the diamonds in his pocket. For Mr.
+Wogan had his wits about him. Diamonds were diamonds, and the carpet
+no place for them. Some day they might be of use to the Parson. The
+door of the street was opened as Wogan stepped into the passage. But
+Rose did not shut the door of the parlour and so Wogan, as he met
+Kelly, could only whisper hurriedly, 'Remember, I am your worst
+enemy,' and so left him to his own resources.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It appeared, however, that they were sufficient. The Parson made no
+excuses whatever; he carried the day by the modesty of his omissions.
+Both with regard to the miniature and to the saving of Smilinda he
+disclosed to her no more than a bald array of facts. He made no parade
+of the part which the thought of Rose had played in the revulsion of
+his feelings, bringing him to see that he was bound in honour to save
+Smilinda's honour; he did not tell her why he went whistling to
+prison. But Rose knew from Wogan of these evidences of his love, and
+no doubt thought of them the more because he would not use them to
+soften her just resentments.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Wogan left them together, and, walking out to Dulwich, found the
+Colonel's horse waiting in the road between the chestnut trees. He
+came to the coast of Sussex in the morning, where he had friends among
+the smugglers, and lay all that day in a hut within sound of the
+waves. It was a black, melancholy day for Nicholas Wogan, who was
+leaving his friends behind him to face their perils alone, and who
+felt very solitary; not even the memory of the noble deeds of his
+illustrious forefathers had any power to cheer him, until he heard the
+grating noise of the boat's keel as it was dragged down the beach to
+the sea, and saw the sail like a great wing waft up between him and
+the stars.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He got safe to Paris, where he heard of the strange use to which the
+Parson put his few weeks of liberty, for the Parson married Rose
+Townley three weeks later at St. James's Church in Piccadilly, and
+wrote to Mr. Wogan a very warm, human sort of letter which had not one
+single classical allusion to disfigure it. In that letter he gave the
+reasons which had induced him to the marriage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am told,' he wrote, 'that a man so dangerously circumstanced must
+be selfish in the extreme to marry a woman who, in a short while, may,
+at the worst, be widowed; and at the best must be separated from her
+husband in his gaol. I do not fear that you will have so mean an
+opinion of my inclinations, but I would not have you think me careless
+upon this point neither. Dr. Townley is old, and his health breaks. He
+will leave his daughter, when he dies, but little money, and that
+moment cannot be very far off. It is true that Rose has beauty, and no
+doubt she might make a rich marriage if she had only beauty. But she
+has frankness, truth, and constancy as well, qualities which are not
+marketable wares, since those who possess them will not bring them
+into the market. Now, if I suffer death for the Cause, Rose will be no
+poorer than she was before; if, on the other hand, I live, there are
+the booksellers, and from the silence of my prison I can make shift to
+earn for her a decent livelihood.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As all the world knows, Mr. Kelly lived, and even gained much credit
+by his speech at his trial. He made it plain, to all but prejudiced
+Whigs, that there was no Plot, nor he concerned in any, if there were.
+But what is Whig justice? He was sentenced to prison for life. The
+papers in his strong box were enough to help a foolish fellow,
+Counsellor Layer, on his way to Tyburn, enough to send Lord Orrery to
+the Tower, and Lord North and Grey into exile. The Plot was ruined for
+that time; the Bishop of Rochester was banished, for Mar's traitorous
+mention of the dog Harlequin fixed the guilt on that holy man. Mr.
+Kelly came off with loss of fourteen years of his life, which years he
+passed in the Tower.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not, after all, so silent a prison as he imagined it would be.
+For though during the first months his confinement was severe, and he
+never drew air except from between the bars, afterwards this rigour
+was relaxed. He was placed in a room of which one window took the
+morning sun, and the other commanded the river, and the ships going up
+and down with the tide; he was allowed the use of his books, and to
+receive what visitors he would. His visitors were not few, and amongst
+them Colonel Montague was the most frequent. His gaolers, the officers
+who were stationed in the Tower, and their wives, became his familiar
+friends, and it is said that when, after fourteen years, he escaped,
+not a woman in the precincts could make up her mind whether to clap
+her hands for joy, or weep at the loss of his society. Moreover, Rose
+came and went at her pleasure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first years of his imprisonment were thus not wholly unhappy
+years. He sat amongst his books translating Cicero, and if at times
+his limbs ached for the stress and activity of his youth, and he began
+to dream of hours in the saddle and starry nights at sea, it was not
+perhaps for very long. He had friends enough to divert his leisure
+moments, and Rose to keep him busy at his work. For what he had
+foreseen came to pass. Two years after Mr. Kelly came to the Tower,
+Dr. Townley died, and left Rose but poorly circumstanced. She came to
+lodge close by the Tower Gates, and the Parson set his pen to his
+paper and wrote essays and translations till the whole Tower of London
+buzzed with his learning, and no doubt a friendly Jacobite here and
+there bought one of his books. Mr. Wogan, indeed, bought them all. He
+has them ranged upon a bookshelf in his lodging at Paris, all bound in
+leather and most dignified; the very print has a sonorous look. 'Mr.
+Kelly's <i>Opera</i>' he calls them, and always speaks of the books as
+'tomes' with prodigious respect and perhaps a sigh. For--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'He lacks one quality,' Mr. Wogan was heard to say, 'to set him on the
+pinnacle of fame. He cannot write poetry. It is a trick, no doubt, a
+poor sort of trick; but George had it not, and so when there was
+poetry to be written, he had to come to his friends.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus ten years passed, and then came the black day, when Rose fell
+sick of a fever and must keep her bed. She sent word to George daily
+that he should expect her on the morrow, until a delirium took her,
+and the doctor, who had been charged by Rose to make light of her
+suffering, was now forced to tell Mr. Kelly the truth. She lay at
+death's door, calling on her husband, who could not come to her, and
+talking ever of that little garden at Avignon above the Rhone, in
+which she fancied that he and she now walked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Kelly took the news in silence as a dog takes pain, and never
+slept and barely moved while the fever ran its course. Rose was at the
+Tower Gates, George was in his prison; a few yards only were between
+them, but those few yards were built upon with stones. In the daytime
+messages were brought to him often enough, but at night, when the
+mists rose from the river and the gates were closed, and the Parson
+had the dark loitering hours wherein to picture the sick room with its
+dim light and the tired figure tossing from this side to that of the
+bed, then indeed Smilinda had her revenge.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_27" href="#div1Ref_27">HOW, BY KEEPING PAROLE, MR. KELLY BROKE
+PRISON</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Every morning Mr. Kelly looked for the doctor to come to him with word
+that in the little house without the Tower Gate the blinds were drawn.
+But that message was not brought to him, and Colonel Montague, making
+a visit to the prison, three weeks after Rose fell ill, found the
+Parson sitting very quiet in his chair with a face strangely
+illumined.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Last night she slept,' said George, 'and waked only at midday. The
+fever has left her, and she will live. It is wonderful.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel said what was fitting to the occasion, and the Parson
+replied to him absently, with his eyes upon the river and the boats
+swinging on the tide; and after a while Father Myles Macdonnell, whom
+the Colonel had neither seen nor heard of, was ushered into the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Reverend Father was a kinsman of Parson Kelly, and though their
+acquaintance had been of the slightest, the Parson now turned to him
+with a great welcome. For his thoughts were now entirely bent upon an
+escape from his captivity. He dared not survey the possibility that
+some time Rose might again fall ill, and that again he must sit behind
+the bars and only hear news of how she fared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Reverend Myles, who was of the honest party, but not as yet blown
+upon by suspicion, seemed to him his only help and instrument. For a
+long while, when the Colonel had gone, the pair debated the means of
+escape, but found no issue; and Rose brought her white face back to
+the Tower, and the Parson's spirits drooped, so that at last his
+health began to fail. He was therefore allowed to drive out in a coach
+to any place within ten miles of London in the custody of a warder,
+and on his parole to return before dark. Of this favour he made
+frequent use, and no doubt the sight of the busy faces in the streets
+urged him yet more to make a bid for his freedom.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now these journeys of the Parson to take the air set Father Myles
+Macdonnell upon a pretty plan, which he imparted to Rose and to
+George.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You drive one afternoon up into Highgate Woods--d'ye follow that? I
+have half-a-dozen well-disposed persons hiding in a clump of trees who
+will take care of your warder--d'ye see? There will be a stout horse
+tethered to a branch close by, and a lugger waiting off the coast of
+Essex--'but the Parson would hear no more of the scheme.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I have given my parole to come back to the Tower before dark,' said
+he, and glanced at Rose, who was looking away, to strengthen him in
+his objection. 'I cannot break it, can I, Rose? I have given my
+parole. I am not one of the Butcher Cumberland's officers. We must
+keep troth.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Rose made an effort and agreed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes,' said she, 'he has given his parole, and he cannot break it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Not so long as he's a lost Protestant,' said the Reverend Father. He
+tapped George on the knee, and continued in a wheedling voice: 'It is
+a matter of religion, d'ye see? Just let me convert you. I can do it
+in a twinkling, and so I shall save your body and your soul in one
+glorious moment.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'How so? 'asked the Parson with a laugh, for he was by this time well
+used to his kinsman's efforts to convert him. 'How shall a Catholic
+creep out of the Tower more easily than a Protestant?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Because a Catholic can break his parole. It's a great sin, to be
+sure, but I can absolve him for it afterwards.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To Mr. Kelly's thinking (and, indeed, to Mr. Wogan's) this was no
+sterling theology, and he would not be persuaded. Another device had
+to be invented, and when at last a satisfactory plan was resolved
+upon, the plotters must wait for the quick nightfalls of autumn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was on Guy Fawkes day, the fifth of November, 1736, that Mr. Kelly
+made his escape. On the morning of that day he drove out to Epsom in
+the custody of his warder and upon his parole to return before dark.
+At four o'clock, when the light was just beginning to fall, Father
+Myles Macdonnell came into the Tower by the Sally Port Stairs opposite
+the Mint. He was told that the Parson was taking the air, and replied
+that he would go to the Parson's room and wait. Thereupon he crossed
+the precincts of the Tower, and coming over the green and down the
+steps of the main-guard, he inquired of the porter at Traitor's Gate
+whether or no Mr. Kelly had returned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The porter answered 'Not yet.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is a great pity,' said the Reverend Myles, who seemed much
+flustered. 'I am in a great hurry, and would you tell him, if you
+please, the moment he comes, to run with all haste to his room?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Upon that he turned off under the archway of the Bloody Tower, and
+again mounted the steps of the main-guard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">About half-an-hour afterwards, in the deepening twilight, Mr. Kelly
+was set down within the Traitor's Gate; he had kept his parole. The
+porter gave him Father Myles's message; and the warder, since it
+appeared that he could only proceed as usual to his lodging, took his
+leave of him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Parson accordingly ran up the steps of the main-guard on to the
+green, which was by this time very obscure. Three minutes afterwards
+Father Myles Macdonnell hurried past the sentry at the Sally Port
+Stairs opposite the Mint, grumbling that he would wait no longer, and
+so came out upon Tower Hill. Just at that time to a moment another
+Father Myles Macdonnell accosted the porter at Traitor's Gate and
+requested him to let him out, seeing that he was, as he had already
+said, in a great hurry. The porter let him out with no more ado.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The second Father Myles was the real Father Myles; the first one who
+went grumbling out by the Sally Port Stairs was Parson Kelly. He had
+met Father Myles in the dark corner by Beauchamp Tower, had slipped
+over his head a cassock which the Father had brought with him, and had
+run across to the entrance over against the Mint, and so into freedom.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The carriage which had driven him to Epsom, after putting him down
+again at the Tower, had driven to Tower Hill, where it waited for the
+Parson close by the Sally Port Stairs. It did not wait long: and the
+Parson was hurried at a gallop out of London amidst the crackling of
+fireworks and the burning of effigies of Guy Fawkes. It seemed the
+town was illuminated to celebrate his escape.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the Tower his evasion was not discovered until half-past seven of
+the evening, when the two porters, being relieved from their separate
+stations at the Traitor's Gate and the Sally Port Stairs, each vowed
+that he had let out Father Myles Macdonnell. This seemed so miraculous
+an occurrence that the warder ran to Mr. Kelly's chamber. It was
+empty, and then the clamour began. The Parson had thus three hours'
+start, and, though a reward of 300<i>l</i>. was offered for his recapture,
+no more was heard of him for a week.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, however, two fishermen coming into an alehouse at Broadstairs
+saw the reward for Kelly proclaimed in print upon the wall, and fell
+into a great fury and passion, saying that they had only received five
+pounds when they might have had three hundred. For a fee of five
+pounds they had put a man over from Broadstairs to Calais, who, when
+once he was landed in France, had said to them:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'If anyone inquires for George Kelly, you may say that he is safely
+landed in France.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And indeed at the very moment when the fishermen were lamenting their
+mistake in the alehouse, George Kelly and Rose were taking their
+dinner in Mr. Wogan's lodging at Paris. Rose had travelled into France
+the day before the Parson escaped, and so, after fourteen years, they
+were united. It was a merry sort of a party, and no doubt Wogan made a
+great deal of unnecessary noise. He drew the Parson aside into a
+window before the evening was over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You are not very rich, I suppose?' said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I want for nothing,' said the Parson with a foolish eye on Rose, like
+a boy of eighteen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan fumbled in his fob and brought out a packet which he unfolded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Diamonds!' cried Kelly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'They are yours,' said Wogan. 'I picked them up off the floor of a
+room in Soho on an occasion which you may remember. A miniature frame
+had come by a mischance.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Smilinda's?' asked Kelly with a frightened glance over his shoulder
+to Rose, who had the discretion not to meddle in this private
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Yes,' says Wogan; 'Smilinda's. She gave the stones to you. Very
+likely they are worth a trifle.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'We'll slip out and sell them to-morrow,' answered the Parson in a
+whisper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They slipped out, but they did not sell them. The diamonds were paste,
+and Mr. Wogan at last understood why Lady Oxford, when she gave her
+miniature set with brilliants to the Parson, had been so anxious that
+he should never part with it.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_28" href="#div1Ref_28">MR. WOGAN AGAIN INVADES ENGLAND, MEETS THE
+ELECT LADY, AND BEARS WITNESS TO HER PERFECTIONS</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed to Wogan that this particular story of the Parson's
+fortunes, which began in Paris so long ago, had now ended in Paris.
+But he was wrong, and it was not till ten years after Mr. Kelly's
+escape from the Tower that Wogan witnessed the last circumstance in
+England, and himself spoke the closing word.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Retiring soon from Paris, which ill suited a slender purse, Mr. Kelly
+lived, with his fair wife, at Avignon, where he played secretary to
+the Duke of Ormond. The Parson was a <i>gêne</i> on the amours of the aged
+Duke, who posted him off, in the year Forty-Five, to, escort the
+Prince of Wales to the Scottish islands. Wogan himself, earlier in the
+same year of grace, lost an arm at the battle of Fontenoy, but got a
+leaf of the laurels, being dubbed Chevalier of the Order of St. Louis.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His arm amputated and the wound healed, Wogan must needs join the
+Prince of Wales, then residing in his palace of Holyrood, near
+Edinburgh. Wogan came too late for that pretty onfall at Prestonpans,
+but he marched south with the Prince's forces, riding again the old
+roads from Carlisle to Lancaster and Preston. The buxom maids of the
+inns were broad-blown landladies now; some of them remembered Wogan;
+and the ale was as good as ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It chanced that at Preston, where he tarried for a couple of days, Mr.
+Wogan was billeted on a cobbler, a worthy man, but besotted with a new
+religion, which then caused many popular tumults. To England it had
+been brought over from America by two brothers of Wogan's old friend,
+Sam Wesley, the usher at Westminster School, and familiar of Bishop
+Atterbury.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan's host could talk of nothing but this creed, whose devotees
+cried out (it seemed), laughed, fell down in fits, barked, and made
+confession in public.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah, sir,' he said to Wogan, 'if you could but hear the Brothers
+Wesley, Charles and John, in the pulpit or singing hymns! Charles
+sings like an angel, and to hear John exhort the unaroused might waken
+those who have lain for a score of years in the arms of the Devil.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'John Wesley, little Jack Wesley?' cried Wogan. 'Why, I have saved him
+from many a beating at Westminster School!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Do you know that saint, sir? 'asked the cobbler, in an enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Know him, I know nobody else, if he is the brother of honest Sam
+Wesley, that once let me into the Deanery on a night in May. Assuredly
+I knew little Jack.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cobbler came near kneeling to Wogan. 'Here, indeed, is the finger
+of Providence,' he exclaimed. 'Dear sir, you may yet cast off the
+swathings of the Scarlet Woman.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Easy, be easy, Mr. Crispin!' quoth Wogan. 'But tell me, is Jack to
+preach and is Charles to sing in this town of yours to-night?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Unhappily no, but we are promised the joy of hearing that famed
+disciple, Mr. Bunton, discourse, and the Elect Lady, as the Brethren
+style her, will also speak.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Do the women preach in your new Church?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No, but they are permitted to tell the story of their call, and
+to-night we shall hear the Elect Lady--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Confess before the congregation? 'Faith, the discourse may be
+improving. Is the Elect Lady handsome?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'She hath been one of the most renowned beauties of her age, and there
+are some who say that she is little altered by time. Ah, sir, she will
+make you embrace the truth.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My embraces were ever at the mercy of feminine persuasion,' said
+Wogan. 'Is this Elect Lady of these parts?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'No, sir, she comes from the South, travelling with holy Mr. Bunton.
+You will oblige me infinitely, sir, if you will take pity on your own
+poor soul and join our love-feast. We meet in the warehouse of Mr.
+Brown, our most eminent grocer, in Scotch Lane, behind the &quot;Jackdaw
+and Bagpipes.&quot;'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I thank you for your solicitude,' Wogan said; 'and as to the
+love-feast, I'll think of it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Consequently he thought no more of it till the bottle had gone round
+half-a-dozen times at the Prince's mess in the 'Bull Tavern.' Lord
+Elcho, who had certainly drunk his dose, began telling, as a good
+thing, of his conversation with a <i>bourgeois</i> of Preston.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'&quot;What is your Prince's religion?&quot; asked the <i>bourgeois</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'&quot;That is still to seek, my good man, still to seek,&quot; I answered him,'
+cried Elcho, laughing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Prince laughed also; the free-thinking philosophers had been at
+him already, first in Rome, then in Paris.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Good for you, Elcho,' he cried; then, musing, ''Tis a very awkward
+business, this of religion. We have given three crowns for a mass, and
+there's the difficulty, there it is, as black as ever. I wish some one
+would invent a new creed, and the rest agree about it, d----n them,
+and then what is still to seek, my religion, would be found.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A thought came into Wogan's head; the bottle had made rounds enough,
+and more; next morning they were to march early.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sir,' he said, 'there <i>is</i> a new religion, and a handsome lady to
+preach it.' Then he repeated what his host, the cobbler, had chanted
+to him, 'The meeting is at night in the warehouse of Mr. Brown, the
+eminent grocer.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A handsome woman!--a new belief! By St. Andrew, I'll go,' cried
+Charles. 'You'll come, Nick, you and--' he looked at the faces looming
+through the tobacco smoke round the wine-stained table. The blue reek
+of pipes clouded and clung to men's faces; to the red rough beard of
+Lochgarry, the smart, clean-shaven Ker of Graden and Maxwell of
+Kirkconnell, the hardy gaze of brave Balmerino, the fated Duke of
+Perth. Wogan thought of the Highland belief in the shroud of mist that
+is seen swathing men doomed soon to die, as were so many of them. The
+Prince stood and stared, his pipe in his hand. 'Nick, you will come,
+you and Ker of Graden; he's sober! <i>Allons!</i>'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Sir,' whispered Mr. Murray of Broughton, 'think of the danger! The
+Elector has his assassins everywhere; they are taken; your Royal
+Highness laughs and lets them go, and the troops murmur.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Danger! Will they look for me at a tub-thumping match?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Prince picked up a cork from the floor; he set it to the flame of
+a candle; he touched with it his eyebrows and upper lip; he tucked his
+brown hair under his wig, standing before the mirror on the
+chimneypiece. Then he flung a horseman's cloak over his shoulders,
+stooped, and limped a little in his walk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'A miracle,' everyone called out, for scarce a man of them could have
+known him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He tossed his hand in the air; '<i>Allons, en avant!</i>' he cried, with a
+laugh; and Wogan, with Ker of Graden, did what all might have better
+done at Derby--followed their leader.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The night was wintry, and a cold north wind blew about the rare
+flickering oil lamps in the street. All three men buttoned themselves
+up in their cloaks. The Prince, still stooping and limping, took an
+arm of each of his aides-de-camp; indeed, he somewhat needed their
+support.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am like that Sultan in Monsieur Galland's Eastern tales,' he said,
+'visiting my subjects incognito. Nick, you are Mesrour, the Chief of
+the--no, you're Giaffar. Graden is--I forget the Eastern minister's
+name. I am the Caliph. But what are the rabble about?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The three pilgrims had entered the lane that led to the warehouse of
+the devout grocer. There was a mob around the door waving torches and
+shouting insults at a few decent tradesmen and their wives who were
+bent on the same pious errand as Wogan and his friends.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Away, swaddlers!' 'Down with the Methodists!' they cried; and a burly
+fellow brushed against Wogan's shoulder in the least gentlemanly
+style. He reeled off and fell flat in the lane, while the other
+ragamuffins laughed at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The three devotees stepped briskly through the grinning crowd that
+cried to Graden, 'Come to buy brimstone, Scotch Sandy?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Come to escape it, my dear friend,' quoth Wogan's host, the cobbler,
+who stood at the door, and kept it, too, against the mob with a great
+show of spirit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You <i>have</i> thought of us, sir?' asked the cobbler.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ay, and brought two other inquiring spirits,' said Wogan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were conducted into a long half-empty warehouse, smelling of
+cheese and festooned with cobwebs. A light or two burned dimly in horn
+lanterns; a low platform of new planks had been set up at the top of
+the room; a table with seven candles made an illumination there; a big
+black Bible, and a jug of water with a glass flanked the Bible. The
+preacher sat on a chair (most of the congregation stood, or reposed on
+barrels and benches), and on another chair, beside the preacher, was a
+lady, veiled, her fine figure obscured by widow's weeds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Is that your beauty?' whispered the Prince.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The Elect Lady, sir,' murmured the cobbler devoutly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'<i>Mon Dieu!</i> she has a very pretty foot!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Wogan, too, noticed the blaze of a diamond buckle that nearly
+covered the little arched instep. Tap, tap! went the Elect Lady's
+foot, thrust out in front of her heavy petticoat of crape.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The lady is travelling everywhere, for the good of souls, gentlemen,
+with Mr. Wesley's friend and choice disciple, the preacher, Mr.
+Bunton.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'L'heureux Monsieur Bunton! Quelle chance!' quoth his Highness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Bunton, the preacher, was indeed a fine, handsome young fellow as
+any widow could wish to look upon. He wore lay dress, not being a
+priest ordained of the Church of England. As for the congregation,
+they were small trading people, not rabble; indeed, the mob outside
+broke most of the windows during the sermon, that was interrupted, not
+only by the pebbles of the ragamuffins, but by the antics of the
+congregation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Bunton, after a hymn had been sung without any music, began his
+preaching. He assured the audience that none of them could be a gayer
+dog than he had been, that was now a shining light. He obliged the
+congregation with a history of his early life and adventures, which
+Wogan now tells in few words, that people may know what manner of men
+were certain of these saints, or had been. Mr. Bunton was reared in
+sin, he said, as a land-surveyor. A broth of a boy he was, and nine
+times his parents sent him from Reading to London to bind him to a
+trade. Nine times his masters returned him on their hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here the audience groaned aloud, and one went off in a fit. Mr. Bunton
+then told how he was awakened to sin as he walked in Cheapside. At
+this many, and the cobbler among them, cried 'Hallelujah!' but some
+went off into uncontrollable fits of laughter, which did not disturb
+the gravity of the rest of the assembly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The preacher's confession was, indeed, of such a nature that Wogan let
+a laugh out of himself, while Graden and the Prince rolled in extreme
+convulsions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Go on, gentlemen; you are in the right path,' said the cobbler. 'Our
+converts are generally taken in this way first. It is reckoned a very
+favourable sign of grace. Some laugh for a week without stopping to
+sleep, eat, or drink.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I'll try to stop to drink,' hooted his Highness, his face as red as a
+lobster; and then off he went again, the bench shaking beneath him,
+while Wogan and Graden laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks in
+their dark corner. The sympathetic cobbler murmured texts of an
+appropriate character. Indeed, now he thinks of it all, and sees Mr.
+Bunton sawing the air while he tells the story of his early wicked
+days, Mr. Wogan laughs as he writes. The man was greasy and radiant
+with satisfied vanity. His narrative of what he did and thought after
+he awoke to sin in Cheapside was a marvel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I felt that beef and mutton were sinful things.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here came a groan from an inquiring butcher.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I wished to put away all that was of the flesh fleshy. My desire was
+to dwell alone, in a cave, far from the sight of woman.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Elect Lady groaned, and all the wenches in the congregation
+followed suit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Abstaining from feasts of fat things, my mind was set on a simple
+diet of acorns, grass, and crabs.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Les glands, les écrevisses, et l'herbe des champs!' hooted the
+Prince. 'Mon Dieu, quel souper, et quelle digestion il doit avoir, cet
+homme-là!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But, sisters and brethren,' Mr. Bunton went on, 'did I yield to these
+popish temptations? Did I live, like one of their self-righteous
+so-called saints, on crabs, acorns, and grass? Did I retire to a cave?
+No, dear sisters and brethren. My motive for abstaining was bad; it
+was a suggestion of the Old Man--'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Qui donc est-il, ce vieillard bien pensant?' whispered the Prince.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'The devil, sir,' answered Graden, who knew the doctrine of the Scotch
+ministers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'My motive for not living on crabs in a cave was bad, I confess, but
+it was over-ruled for the best. Dear friends, I kept myself far from
+these temptations, because, indeed, I was afraid of ghosts that haunt
+caves and such places.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Il ne mangeait pas les écrevisses, parce qu'il avait peur des
+revenants! O c'est trop!' said the Prince, in a voice choked with
+emotion, while more advanced disciples cried 'Glory!' and
+'Hallelujah!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'But next,' the preacher went on, much gratified and encouraged by
+these demonstrations, 'I was happily brought acquainted with that
+precious sister, that incomparable disciple of Mr. Wesley, whom we
+call the Elect Lady. Then I awoke to light, and saw that it was laid
+upon me to preach, continually and unceasingly, making in every town
+confession of my offences. That dear lady, friends, promises for this
+once (she is as modest as she is generous and good) to tell us the
+moving story of her own early dangers, while she was a dweller in the
+tents of--of Shem, I think.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The congregation cheered and stamped with their feet, all but a few
+who were rolling on the floor in fits and foaming at the mouth. Mr.
+Bunton sat down very warm, and applied himself to the mug of water.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Elect Lady rose up to her full height, and tossed back her veil
+over her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Ah, nous sommes trompés,' said the Prince. 'C'est une femme de
+quarante ans, bien sonnés!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Wogan, between the shoulders of the congregation, stared from his
+dim corner as he had never stared at mortal woman before. The delicate
+features were thickened, alas, the lips had fallen in, the gold
+threads had been unwoven out of the dark brown hair. There were two
+dabs of red on a powdered face, where in time past the natural roses
+and lilies had bloomed; but the voice and the little Andalusian foot
+that beat the time with the Elect Lady's periods were the voice and
+the foot of the once incomparable Smilinda! Nay, when she turned and
+looked at the converted land-surveyor beside her, Mr. Wogan knew in her
+gaze the ghost of the glance that had bewitched Scrope, and Kelly, and
+Colonel Montague, and Lord Sidney Beauclerk, and who knows how many
+other gallants? In that odd place Wogan felt a black fit of the
+spleen. A woman's loss of beauty,--Wogan can never think of it
+unmoved. What tragedy that we men endure or enact is like this?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But her ladyship spoke, and she spoke very well. The congregation, all
+of them that were not in fits or in laughing hysterics, listened as if
+to an angel. Heavens! what a story she told of her youth! What dangers
+encountered! What plots prepared against her virtue, ay, by splendid
+soldiers, beautiful young lords, and even clergymen; above all, by one
+monster whom she had discovered to be, not only a monster, but a
+traitor to the King, and an agent of the Pretender. She was a young
+thing then, married to an old lord, all unprotected, on every side
+beset by flattery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The congregation groaned and swayed at the picture of man's depravity,
+but Wogan, his spleen quite forgotten, was chuckling with delight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, all unawakened as she was, said this penitent, an unknown
+influence had ever shielded her. She remembered how one of these evil
+ones, the clergyman, after kneeling vainly at her feet, had cried,
+'Sure, some invisible power protects your ladyship.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here the groans gave place to cries of praise, arms were lifted, the
+simple, good people wept. Wogan listened with a less devotional air,
+bending forward on his bench, and rubbing his hands for joy. In truth
+it had just come upon him that it was his duty to stand up when the
+Elect Lady sat down, and bear his witness to the truth of her
+narrative.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Not to her be the triumph,' she went on, 'all unawakened as she then
+was, and remained, till she heard Mr. Wesley preach,' and thereafter
+went through the world with Brother Bunton, converting land-surveyors,
+colliers, and others.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan does not care to remember or quote any more of this lady's
+pieties. They had a kind of warmth and ease of familiarity which, in
+sacred things, are not to his liking. However, when she ceased, Mr.
+Wogan stood up, a tall figure of a French officer with an empty sleeve
+in his dim corner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Good people,' he said; 'in my heedless youth I had the honour to be
+of the acquaintance of this lady who has just spoken to you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Elect Lady glanced at Wogan; she gave a strange, short cry, and
+the black veil swept over her face again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I was,' Wogan went on, 'the eye-witness of these trials to which her
+Ladyship's virtue was exposed by the wicked ones of whose company I
+was a careless partaker. I have heard that wicked minister say that
+some invisible power protected her Ladyship. If any testimony to the
+truth of her ladyship's moving tale were needed I could bear that
+evidence, as could my friend the Rev. Mr. Kelly, now in France with
+despatches, and also General Montague, at present serving with
+Field-Marshal Wade, in the neighbourhood of Newcastle.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wogan sat down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'That was providential indeed,' said the cobbler; and all the
+congregation bawled 'Miracle.' But the Elect Lady sat still, her face
+in her hands, like a Niobe in black bombazine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the confusion, the three inquirers from the Prince's army slipped
+modestly out. A heavy shower of snow had swept the rabble out of the
+lane. All was dark and cold, after the reek of the crowded warehouse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Nick,' said the Prince, 'was that story all true? Was the Elect Lady
+a prude?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'It is Mr. Kelly's story, sir,' said Wogan. Your Royal Highness can
+ask him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'George was her adorer? Then George shall tell me the tale over a
+bottle. How the cold strikes! Hey, for a bowl of punch!' cried the
+Prince.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'I am at your commands, sir, but may I say that it is one of the
+morning, and the pipes play the reveillé at four?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'To quarters, then! What is the word, damme? What is the word?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'<i>Slaint an Righ</i>, sir.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'Slaint an Righ? I never can get my tongue about it. Oh, if our
+subjects had but one language and one religion! But it shall not be
+the religion of Mr. Bunton. <i>Bon soir!</i>'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">'You have taken every trick, Wogan!' said Graden, as the Prince
+entered his inn. 'A sober night, for once, before a long day's march.'</p>
+
+
+<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * * * * * *</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal">Next morning the army went south, to Derby, and then (by no fault of
+the Irish officers or of their Prince) came back again. Wogan was at
+Falkirk, Culloden, and Ruthven, woe worth the day! How he reached
+France when all was over, is between him and a very beautiful young
+lady of Badenoch; she said she bore a king's name--Miss Helen
+Macwilliam. Of King Macwilliam Wogan hath never heard, but the young
+lady (whose brothers had taken to the heather) protected Wogan in his
+distress, tended his wound, hid him from the red-coat soldiers, and at
+last secured for him a passage in a vessel from Montrose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And for all souvenir, she kept the kerchief with which she had first
+bound up the bayonet-stab that Wogan came by, when he, with the
+Stewarts, broke through Barrel's regiment at Culloden. He writes this
+at Avignon, where George and his wife also dwell, in the old house
+with the garden, the roses, and the noisy, pretty children that
+haunted Mr. Kelly's dreams when he was young.</p>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_01" href="#div2Ref_01">Footnote 1</a>: Sophia, a nickname of the <i>Duke</i> of Wharton.</p>
+
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Parson Kelly, by
+A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason and Andrew Lang
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARSON KELLY ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Parson Kelly, by
+A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason and Andrew Lang
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Parson Kelly
+
+Author: A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason
+ Andrew Lang
+
+Release Date: January 27, 2012 [EBook #38684]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARSON KELLY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+ 1. Page scan source:
+ http://books.google.com/books?id=dNMjAAAAMAAJ
+
+ 2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: "BUT I AM GRIEVED I HAVE NO VIRGIL." P. 160]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ PARSON KELLY
+
+
+ BY
+
+ A. E. W. MASON
+
+ AND
+
+ ANDREW LANG
+
+
+
+
+
+ NEW YORK
+ LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
+ LONDON AND BOMBAY
+ 1899
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ _Copyright, 1899_,
+ By Longmans, Green, And Co.
+ * * *
+ _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+ First Edition, September, 1899
+ Reprinted October, 1899
+
+
+
+
+ University Press
+ John Wilson And Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ TO THE
+ BARON TANNEGUY DE WOGAN
+
+ _The Representative of a House illustrious for its Antiquity:_
+ _In Prosperity splendid: in Exile and Poverty gay_
+ _and constant: of Loyalty unshaken;_
+
+
+ Is Dedicated
+
+ _This Narrative, founded on the deeds of his Ancestor_,
+
+ The Chevalier Nicholas De Wogan.
+
+ A. E. W. M.
+ A. L.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ PREFACE
+
+
+The authors wish to say that the proceedings of Lady Oxford are
+unhistorical. Swift mentions a rumour that there was such a lady, but
+leaves her anonymous.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ Chapter
+
+ I. The Parson expresses Irreproachable Sentiments at the
+ Mazarin Palace.
+
+ II. Mr. Wogan refuses to Acknowledge an Undesirable
+ Acquaintance in St. James's Street.
+
+ III. Mr. Wogan instructs the Ignorant Parson in the Ways of
+ Women.
+
+ IV. Shows the Extreme Danger of knowing Latin.
+
+ V. A Literary Discussion in which a Critic, not for the
+ first time, turns the tables upon an Author.
+
+ VI. Mr. Nicholas Wogan reminds the Parson of a Night at the
+ Mazarin Palace.
+
+ VII. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has a word to say about
+ Smilinda.
+
+ VIII. Mr. Kelly has an Adventure at a Masquerade Ball.
+
+ IX. Wherein the Chivalrous Mr. Kelly behaves with Deplorable
+ Folly.
+
+ X. What came of Mr. Kelly's Winnings from the South Sea.
+
+ XI. The Parson departs from Smilinda and learns a number of
+ Unpalatable Truths.
+
+ XII. The Parson meets Scrope for the Third Time, and what came
+ of the Meeting.
+
+ XIII. Of the Rose and the Rose-Garden in Avignon.
+
+ XIV. Of the Great Confusion produced by a Ballad and a Drunken
+ Crow.
+
+ XV. At the Deanery of Westminster.
+
+ XVI. Mr. Wogan acts as Lightning Conductor at Lady Oxford's
+ Rout.
+
+ XVII. Lady Oxford's 'Coup De Theatre'.
+
+ XVIII. Wherein a New Fly discourses on the innocence of the
+ Spider's Web.
+
+ XIX. Stroke and Counter-stroke.
+
+ XX. Mr. Scrope bathes by Moonlight and in his Peruke.
+
+ XXI. In which Mr. Kelly surprises Smilinda.
+
+ XXII. An Eclogue which demonstrates the Pastoral Simplicity of
+ Corydon and Strephon.
+
+ XXIII. How the Messengers captured the wrong Gentleman; and of
+ what Letters the Colonel burned.
+
+ XXIV. Mr. Wogan wears Lady Oxford's Livery, but does not remain
+ in her Service.
+
+ XXV. How the Miniature of Lady Oxford came by a Mischance.
+
+ XXVI. Mr. Wogan Traduces his Friend, with the Happiest
+ Consequences.
+
+ XXVII. How, by keeping Parole, Mr. Kelly broke Prison.
+
+ XXVIII. Mr. Wogan again invades England, meets the elect Lady,
+ and bears witness to her Perfections.
+
+
+
+
+
+ PARSON KELLY
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER I
+
+ THE PARSON EXPRESSES IRREPROACHABLE SENTIMENTS
+ AT THE MAZARIN PALACE
+
+ "What mighty quarrels rise from trivial things!"
+
+
+So wrote Mr. Alexander Pope, whom Nicholas Wogan remembers as a
+bookish boy in the little Catholic colony of Windsor Forest. The line
+might serve as a motto for the story which Mr. Wogan (now a one-armed
+retired colonel of Dillon's Irish Brigade in French Service) is about
+to tell. The beginnings of our whole mischancy business were trivial
+in themselves, and in all appearance unrelated to the future. They
+were nothing more important than the purchase of a couple of small
+strong-boxes and the placing of Parson Kelly's patrimony in Mr. Law's
+company of the West. Both of these events happened upon the same day.
+
+It was early in February of the year 1719, and the streets of Paris
+were deep in snow. Wogan, then plotting for King James's cause, rode
+into Paris from St. Omer at ten o'clock of the forenoon, and just
+about the same hour Parson Kelly, plotting too in his way, drove
+through the Orleans gate.
+
+A few hours later the two men met in the Marais, or rather Nicholas
+Wogan saw the skirts of Kelly's coat vanishing into an ironmonger's
+shop, and ran in after him. Kelly was standing by the counter with a
+lady on either side of him, as was the dear man's wont; though their
+neighbourhood on this occasion was the merest accident, for the Parson
+knew neither of them.
+
+'Sure it's my little friend the lace merchant,' said Wogan, and
+clapped his hand pretty hard on the small of his friend's back, whom
+he had not seen for a twelvemonth and more. Kelly stumbled a trifle,
+maybe, and no doubt he coughed and spluttered. One of the ladies
+dropped her purse and shuddered into a corner.
+
+'_Quelle bete sauvage!_' murmured the second with one indignant eye
+upon Nicholas Wogan, and the other swimming with pity for Mr. Kelly.
+
+'Madame,' said Wogan, picking up the purse and restoring it with his
+most elegant bow, 'it was pure affection.'
+
+'No doubt,' said Kelly, as he rubbed his shoulder; 'but, Nick, did you
+never hear of the bear that smashed his master's skull in the
+endeavour to stroke off a fly that had settled on his nose? That was
+pure affection too.'
+
+He turned back to the counter, on which the shopman was setting out a
+number of small strong-boxes, and began to examine them.
+
+'Well, you must e'en blame yourself, George,' said Nick, 'for the mere
+sight of you brings the smell of the peat to my nostrils and lends
+vigour to my hand.'
+
+This he said with all sincerity, for the pair had been friends in
+county Kildare long before Kelly went to Dublin University, and took
+deacon's orders, and was kicked out of the pulpit for preaching
+Jacobitism in his homilies. As boys they had raced bare-legged over
+the heather, and spent many an afternoon in fighting over again that
+siege of Rathcoffey Castle which an earlier Nicholas Wogan had held so
+stoutly for King Charles. The recollection of those days always played
+upon Wogan's foolish heartstrings with a touch soft as a woman's
+fingers, and very likely it now set George Kelly's twanging to the
+same tune; for at Wogan's words he turned himself about with a face
+suddenly illumined.
+
+'Here, Nick, lay your hand there,' said he and stretched out his hand.
+'You will be long in Paris?'
+
+'No more than a night. And you?'
+
+'Just the same time.'
+
+He turned again to the counter, and busied himself with his boxes in
+something of a hurry, as though he would avoid further questioning.
+Wogan blew a low whistle.
+
+Maybe we are on the same business, eh?' he asked. 'The King's
+business?'
+
+'Whisht, man,' whispered Kelly quickly, and he glanced about the shop.
+'Have you no sense at all?'
+
+The shop was empty at the moment, and there was no reason that Wogan
+could see for his immoderate secrecy. But the Parson was much like the
+rest of the happy-go-lucky conspirators who were intriguing to
+dislodge the Elector from the English throne--cautious by fits and
+moods, and the more often when there was the less need. But let a
+scheme get ripe for completion, and sure they imagined it completed
+already, and at once there would be letters left about here, for all
+the world to read, and a wink and a sly word there, so that it was
+little short of a miracle when a plot was launched before it had been
+discovered by those it was launched against. Not that you are to
+attribute to Mr. Wogan any superior measure of reticence. On the
+contrary, it is very probable that it was precisely Mr. Wogan's tongue
+which George Kelly distrusted, and if so, small blame to him. At any
+rate, he pursed up his lips and stiffened his back. Consequence turned
+him into a ramrod, and with a voice pitched towards the shopman:
+
+'I am still in the muslin trade,' said he, meaning that he collected
+money for the Cause. 'I shall cross to England to-morrow.'
+
+'Indeed and will you now?' said Wogan, who was perhaps a little
+contraried by his friend's reserve. 'Then I'll ask you to explain what
+these pretty boxes have to do with the muslin trade?'
+
+'They are to carry my samples in,' replied Kelly readily enough; and
+then, as if to put Wogan's questions aside, 'Are you for England,
+too?'
+
+'No,' said Wogan, imitating Mr. Kelly's importance; 'I am going to
+visit my Aunt Anne at Cadiz; so make the most of that, my little
+friend.'
+
+Wogan was no great dab at the cyphers and the jargon of the plots, but
+he knew that the Duke of Ormond, being then in Spain, figured in the
+correspondence as my Aunt Anne. It was now Kelly's turn to whistle,
+and that he did, and then laughed besides.
+
+'I might have guessed,' said he, 'for there's a likely prospect of
+broken heads at all events, and to that magnet you were never better
+than a steel filing.'
+
+'Whisht, man,' exclaimed Wogan, frowning and wagging his head
+preposterously. 'Is it yourself that's the one person in the world to
+practise mysteries? Broken heads, indeed!' and he shrugged his
+shoulder as though he had a far greater business on hand. Kelly's
+curiosity rose to the bait, and he put a question or two which Wogan
+waived aside. The Parson indeed had hit the truth. Wogan had no
+business whatsoever except the mere fighting, but since the Parson was
+for practising so much dignified secrecy, Wogan would do no less.
+
+To carry the joke a step further, he turned to the counter, even as
+Kelly had done, and examined the despatch-boxes. He would buy one, to
+convince Kelly that he, too, was trusted with secret papers. The boxes
+were as like to one another as peas, but Wogan discovered a great
+dissimilitude of defects.
+
+'There's not one of them fit to keep a mouldy cheese in,' said he,
+tapping and sounding them with his knuckles, 'let alone--' and then he
+caught himself up with a glance at Kelly. 'However, this perhaps may
+serve--but wait a little.' He felt in his pockets and by chance
+discovered a piece of string. This string he drew out and carefully
+measured the despatch-box, depth and width and length. Then he put the
+tip of his thumb between his teeth and bit it in deep thought. 'Well,
+and it must serve, since there's no better; but for heaven's sake, my
+man, clap a stouter lock on it! I could smash this with my fist. A
+good stout lock; and send it--wait a moment!' He glanced towards Kelly
+and turned back to the shopman. 'I'll just write down where you are to
+send it to.'
+
+To Kelly's more complete mystification he scribbled a name and an
+address on a sheet of paper, and folded it up with an infinity of
+precautions.
+
+'Send it there, key and all, by nine o'clock tomorrow morning.'
+
+The name was Mr. Kelly's, the address the inn at which Mr. Kelly was
+in the habit of putting up. Wogan bought the box merely to gull Kelly
+into the belief that he, also, was a Royal messenger. Then he paid for
+the box, and forthwith forgot all about it over a bottle of wine.
+Kelly, for his part, held his despatch-box in his hand.
+
+'Nick, I have business,' said he as soon as the bottle was empty, 'and
+it appears you have too. Shall we meet to-night? Mr. Law expects me at
+the Mazarin Palace.'
+
+'Faith, then I'll make bold to intrude upon him,' said Nicholas, who,
+though Mr. Law kept open house for those who favoured the White Rose,
+was but a rare visitor to the Mazarin Palace, holding the financier in
+so much awe that no amount of affability could extinguish it.
+
+However, that night he went, and so learned in greater particular the
+secret of the Parson's journey. It was nine o'clock at night when
+Wogan turned the corner of the Rue Vivienne and saw the windows of the
+Mazarin Palace blazing out upon the snow. A little crowd shivered and
+gaped beneath them, making, poor devils! a vicarious supper off the
+noise of Mr. Law's entertainment. And it was a noisy party that Mr.
+Law entertained. Before he was half-way down the street Wogan could
+hear the peal of women's laughter and a snatch of a song, and after
+that maybe a sound of breaking glass, as though a tumbler had been
+edged off the table by an elbow. He was shown up the great staircase
+to a room on the first floor.
+
+'Monsieur Nicholas de Wogan,' said the footman, throwing open the
+door. Wogan stepped into the company of the pretty arch conspirators
+who were then mismanaging the Chevalier's affairs. However, with their
+mismanagement Wogan is not here concerned, for this is not a story of
+Kings and Queens and high politics but of the private fortunes of
+Parson Kelly. Olive Trant was playing backgammon in a corner with Mr.
+Law. Madame de Mezieres, who was seldom absent when politics were
+towards, graced the table and conversed with Lady Cecilia Law. And
+right in front of Mr. Wogan stood that madcap her sister, Fanny
+Oglethorpe, with her sleeves tucked back to her elbows, looking
+gloriously jolly and handsome. She was engaged in mincing chickens in
+a china bowl which was stewing over a little lamp on the table, for,
+said she, Mr. Law had aspersed the English cooks, and she was minded
+to make him eat his word and her chicken that very night for supper.
+She had Parson Kelly helping her upon the one side, and a young French
+gentleman whom Wogan did not know upon the other; and the three of
+them were stirring in the bowl with a clatter of their wooden spoons.
+
+'Here's Mr. Wogan,' cried Fanny Oglethorpe, and as Wogan held out his
+hand she clapped her hot spoon into it. 'M. de Bellegarde, you must
+know Mr. Wogan. He has the broadest back of any man that ever I was
+acquainted with. You must do more than know him. You must love him, as
+I do, for the broadness of his back.'
+
+M. de Bellegarde looked not over-pleased with the civility of her
+greeting, and bowed to Wogan with an affectation of ceremony. Mr. Law
+came forward with an affable word. Olive Trant added another, and
+Madame de Mezieres asked eagerly what brought him to Paris.
+
+'He is on his way to join the Duke of Ormond at Cadiz,' cried Kelly;
+'and,' said this man deceived, 'he carries the most important
+messages. Bow to him, ladies! Gentlemen, your hands to your hearts,
+and your knees to the ground! It's no longer a soldier of fortune that
+you see before you, but a diplomatist, an ambassador: His Excellency,
+the Chevalier Wogan;' and with that he ducked and bowed, shaking his
+head and gesticulating with his hands, as though he were some
+dandified court chamberlain. All the Parson's diplomacy had been
+plainly warmed out of him in his present company. Mr. Law began to
+laugh, but Fanny Oglethorpe dropped her spoon and looked at Wogan.
+
+'The Duke of Ormond?' said she, lowering her voice.
+
+'Indeed? and you carry messages?' said Miss Olive Trant, upsetting the
+backgammon board.
+
+'Of what kind?' exclaimed Madame de Mezieres; and then, in an instant,
+their pretty heads were clustered about the table, and their mouths
+whispering questions, advice, and precautions, all in a breath. 'It's
+at Bristol you are to land?' 'The Earl Marischal is for Scotland?'
+'You carry 5,000 barrels, Mr. Wogan?' meaning thereby stands of arms.
+And, 'You may speak with all confidence,' Miss Oglethorpe urged, with
+a glance this way and that over her shoulders. 'There are none but
+honest people here. M. de Bellegarde,' and she looked towards the
+French spark, blushing very prettily, 'is my good friend.'
+
+Mr. Wogan bowed.
+
+'It was not that I doubted M. de Bellegarde,' he replied. 'But 'faith,
+ladies, I have learnt more of the prospects of the expedition from
+your questions than ever I knew before. I was told for a certain thing
+that heads would be broken, and, to be sure, I was content with the
+information.'
+
+At that Mr. Law laughed. Kelly asked, 'What of the despatch-box,
+then?' The ladies pouted their resentment; and Mr. Wogan, for the
+first and last time in his life, wore the reputation of a diplomatist.
+'A close man,' said M. de Bellegarde, pursing his lips in approval.
+
+'But sped on an unlikely venture,' added Mr. Law, getting back to his
+backgammon. 'Oh, I know,' he continued, as the voices rose against
+him, 'you have grumblings enough in England to fill a folio, and so
+you think the whole country will hurry to the waterside to welcome
+you, before you have set half your foot on shore. But, when all is
+said, the country's prosperous. Your opportunity will come with its
+misfortunes.'
+
+But Madame de Mezieres would hear nothing of such forebodings; and
+Olive Trant, catching up a glass, swung it above her head.
+
+'May the Oak flourish!' she cried.
+
+Fanny Oglethorpe sprang from her seat. 'May the White Rose bloom!' she
+answered, giving the counter-word. The pair clinked their glasses.
+
+'Aye, that's the spirit!' cried the Parson. 'Drink, Nick! God save the
+King! Here's a bumper to him!'
+
+He stood with his face turned upwards, his blue eyes afire. 'Here's to
+the King!' he repeated. 'Here's to the Cause! God send that nothing
+ever come between the Cause and me.' He drained his glass as he spoke,
+and tossed it over his shoulder. There was a tinkling sound, and a
+flash of sparks, as it were, when the glass splintered against the
+wall. George Kelly stood for a moment, arrested in his attitude, his
+eyes staring into vacancy, as though some strange news had come of a
+sudden knocking at his heart. Then he hitched his shoulders. 'Bah!' he
+cried, and began to sing in a boisterous voice some such ditty as
+
+
+ Of all the days that's in the year,
+ The tenth of June's to me most dear,
+ When our White Roses do appear
+ To welcome Jamie the Rover.
+
+
+Or it may have been
+
+
+ Let our great James come over,
+ And baffle Prince Hanover,
+ With hearts and hands in loyal bands,
+ We'll welcome him at Dover.
+
+
+It was not the general practice to allow the Parson to sing without
+protest; for he squeezed less music out of him than any other Irishman
+could evoke from a deal board with his bare knuckles. When he sang,
+and may Heaven forgive the application of the word in this
+conjunction, there was ever a sort of mortal duello between his voice
+and the tune--very distressing to an audience. But now he sang his
+song from beginning to end, and no one interrupted him, or so much as
+clapped a hand over an ear; and this not out of politeness. But his
+words so rang with a startling fervour; and he stood, with his head
+thrown back, rigid in the stress of passion. His voice quavered down
+to silence, but his eyes still kept their fires, his attitude its
+fixity. Once or twice he muttered a word beneath his breath, and then
+a hoarse cry came leaping from his mouth.
+
+'May nothing ever come between the Cause and me, except it be
+death--except it be death!'
+
+A momentary silence waited upon the abrupt cessation of his voice:
+Wogan even held his breath; Miss Oglethorpe did not stir; and during
+that silence, there came a gentle rapping on the door. Kelly looked
+towards it with a start, as though there was his answer; but the
+knocking was repeated before anyone moved; it seemed as if suspense
+had hung its chains upon every limb. It was Mr. Wogan who opened the
+door, and in stalked Destiny in the shape of a lackey. He carried a
+note, and handed it to George Kelly.
+
+'The messenger has but this instant brought it,' he said.
+
+Kelly broke the seal, and unfolded the paper.
+
+'From General Dillon,' he said; and, reading the note through,
+'Ladies, will you pardon me? Mr. Law, I have your permission? I have
+but this one night in Paris, and General Dillon has news of importance
+which bears upon my journey.'
+
+With that he took his hat, and got him from the room. Fanny Oglethorpe
+sprang up from her chair.
+
+'Sure, my chicken will be ruined,' she cried. 'Come, M. de
+Bellegarde,' and the pair fell again to stirring in the bowl, and with
+such indiscriminate vigour that more than once their fingers got
+entangled. This Mr. Wogan observed, and was sufficiently indiscreet to
+utter a sly proposal that he should make a third at the stirring.
+
+'There is no need for a third,' said Miss Oglethorpe, with severity.
+'But, on the other hand, I want a couple of pats of butter, and a
+flagon of water; and I shall be greatly obliged if Mr. Wogan will
+procure me them.' And what with that and other requests which chanced
+to come into her head, she kept him busy until the famous supper was
+prepared.
+
+In the midst of that supper back came Mr. Kelly, and plumped himself
+down in his chair, very full of his intelligence. A glass or two of
+Mr. Law's burgundy served to warm out of his blood all the reserve
+that was left over from the morning.
+
+'We are all friends here,' said he, turning to Miss Oglethorpe.
+'Moreover, I need the advantage of your advice and knowledge. General
+Dillon believes that my Lord Oxford maybe persuaded to undertake the
+muslin trade in Britain.'
+
+'Lord Oxford,' exclaimed Miss Oglethorpe, with a start, for Oxford had
+lain quiet since he nearly lost his head five years agone. 'He is to
+collect the money from our supporters?'
+
+'It is the opinion that he will, if properly approached.'
+
+Mr. Law, at the top of the table, shook his head.
+
+'It is a very forward and definite step for so prudential a
+politician,' said he.
+
+'But a politician laid on a shelf, and pining there,' replied George.
+'There's the reason for it. He has a hope of power,--_Qui a bu,
+boira!_ The hope grows real if we succeed.'
+
+'I would trust him no further than a Norfolk attorney,' returned Mr.
+Law; 'and that's not an inch from the end of my nose. He will swear
+through a two-inch board to help you, and then turn cat in pan if a
+Whig but smile at him.'
+
+'Besides,' added Miss Oglethorpe, and she rested, her chin
+thoughtfully upon her hands. As she spoke, all the eyes in that
+company were turned on her. 'Besides,' and then she came to a stop,
+and flushed a little. 'Lord Oxford,' she continued, 'was my good
+friend when I was in England.' Then she stopped again. Finally she
+looked straight into M. de Bellegarde's eyes, and with an admirable
+bravery: 'Some, without reason, have indeed slandered me with stories
+that he was more than my friend.'
+
+'None, Madame, who know you, I'll warrant,' said M. de Bellegarde, and
+gravely lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it.
+
+'Well, that's a very pretty answer,' said she in some confusion. 'So
+Mr. Kelly may know,' she went on, 'that I speak with some authority
+concerning my Lord Oxford. It is not he whom I distrust. But he has
+lately married a young wife.'
+
+'Ah,' said Mr. Law, and 'Oh!' cried Mr. Wogan, with a shrug of his
+shoulders. 'If a lady is to dabble her tender fingers in the pie--'
+
+'And what of it, Mr. Wogan?' Madame de Mezieres took him up coldly.
+
+'Yes, Mr. Wogan, what of it?' repeated Olive Trant hotly, 'provided
+the lady be loyal.' In an instant Mr. Wogan had the whole nest
+swarming about his ears, with the exception of Fanny Oglethorpe. It
+was intimated to him that he had a fine preposterous conceit of his
+sex, and would he be pleased to justify it?
+
+Madame de Mezieres hinted that the ability to swing a shillelagh and
+bring it down deftly on an offending sconce did not comprise the whole
+virtues of mankind. And if it came to the test of dealing blows, why
+there was Joan of Arc, and what had Mr. Wogan to say to her? Mr. Wogan
+turned tail, as he always did when women were in the van of the
+attack.
+
+'Ladies,' he said, 'I do not think Joan of Arc so singular after all,
+since I see four here who I believe from my soul could emulate her
+noblest achievements.'
+
+But Mr. Wogan's gallantry went for very little. The cowardice of it
+was apparent for all that he bowed and laid his hand on his heart, and
+performed such antics as he thought likely to tickle women into good
+humour.
+
+'Besides,' put in Lady Cecilia, with a soothing gentleness, 'Mr. Wogan
+should know that the cause he serves owes, as it is, much to the good
+offices of women.'
+
+Mr. Wogan had his own opinions upon that point, but he wiped his
+forehead and had the discretion to hold his tongue. Meanwhile Fanny
+Oglethorpe, who had sat with frowning brows in silence, diverted the
+onslaught.
+
+'But it is just the loyalty of Lady Oxford which is in question. Lady
+Oxford is a Whig, of a Whig family. She is even related to Mr.
+Walpole, the Minister. I think Mr. Kelly will have to tread very
+warily at Lord Oxford's house of Brampton Bryan.'
+
+'For my part,' rejoined Mr. Law, 'I think the Chevalier de St. George
+would do better to follow the example of Mr. Kelly and my friends
+here.'
+
+'And what is that?' asked Wogan.
+
+'Why, scrape up all the money he can lay hands on and place it in my
+company of the West.'
+
+Mr. Wogan was not well pleased to hear of his friend's speculation,
+and, when they left the house together, took occasion to remonstrate
+with him.
+
+'How much have you placed?' he asked.
+
+'All that I could,' replied George. 'It is little enough--the remnant
+of my patrimony. Mr. Law lent me a trifle in addition to make up a
+round sum. It is a very kindly man, and well disposed to me. I have no
+fears, for all the money in France dances to the tune he fiddles.'
+
+'To his tune, to be sure,' grumbled Wogan; 'but are you equally
+certain his tune is yours? Oh, I know. He is a monstrous clever man,
+not a doubt of it. The computation of figures--it is the devil's own
+gift, and to my nose it smells damnably of sulphur.'
+
+Mr. Wogan has good occasion to reflect how Providence fleers at one's
+apprehensions when he remembers the sleepless hours during which he
+tossed upon his bed that night, seeing all the Parson's scanty savings
+drowned beyond redemption in the China seas. For no better chance
+could have befallen Kelly than that Wogan's forebodings should have
+come true. But the venture succeeded. Fanny Oglethorpe made a fortune
+and married M. de Bellegarde. Olive Trant, the richer by 100,000
+pistoles, became Princess of Auvergne. Do they ever remember that
+night at the Hotel de Mazarin, and how Parson Kelly cried out almost
+in an agony as though, in the heat of passion, he surmised the future,
+'May nothing come between the Cause and me'? Well, for one thing the
+money came. It placed in his hands a golden key wherewith to unlock
+the gates of disaster.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER II
+
+ MR. WOGAN REFUSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE AN
+ UNDESIRABLE ACQUAINTANCE IN
+ ST. JAMES'S STREET
+
+
+Mr. Wogan left Paris early the next morning without a thought for the
+despatch-box that he had sent to Kelly, and, coming to Cadiz, sailed
+with the Spaniards out of that harbour on the tenth of March, and into
+the great storm which dispersed the fleet off Cape Finisterre. In
+company with the Earl Marischal and the Marquis of Tullibardine, he
+was aboard one of those two ships which alone touched the coast of
+Scotland. Consequently, he figured with better men, as Field-Marshal
+Keith, and his brother the Ambassador, and my Lord George Murray, in
+that little skirmish at Glenshiel, and very thankful he was when the
+night shut black upon the valleys and put its limit to the attack of
+General Wightman's soldiers from Inverness. A council of war was held
+in the dark upon a hill-side, whence the fires of General Wightman's
+camp could be seen twinkling ruddily below, but Wogan heard little of
+what was disputed, for he went to sleep with his back against a
+boulder and dreamed of his ancestors. He was waked up about the middle
+of the night by the Earl Marischal, who informed him that the
+Spaniards had determined to surrender at discretion, and that the
+handful of Highlanders were already dispersing to their homes.
+
+'As for ourselves, we shall make for the Western Islands and wait
+there for a ship to take us off.'
+
+'Then I'll wish you luck and a ship,' said Wogan. He stood up and
+shook the dew off his cloak. 'I have friends in London, and I'll trust
+my lucky star to get me there.'
+
+'Your star's in eclipse,' said the Earl. 'You will never reach London
+except it be with your legs tied under a horse's belly.'
+
+'Well, I'm thinking you have not such a clear path after all to the
+Western Islands! Did you never hear of my forefather, Thomas Wogan,
+that rode with twenty-eight Cavaliers through the heart of Cromwell's
+England, and came safe into the Highlands? Sure what that great man
+could do with twenty-eight companions to make him conspicuous, his
+degenerate son can do alone.'
+
+Mr. Wogan began his journey by walking over the hill, near to the top
+of which his friends had been driven off the road to Inverness by the
+English fire, which was very well nourished. He made his way to Loch
+Duich, as they call it, and so by boat round Ardnamurchan, to a hamlet
+they call Oban. There he changed his dress for the Campbell black and
+green, and, joining company with a drove of Rob Roy's cattle from the
+Lennox, travelled to Glasgow. His Irish brogue no doubt sounded a
+trifle strange in a Highland drover, but he was in a country where the
+people were friendly. At Glasgow he changed his dress again for a
+snuff-coloured bourgeois suit, and so rode into England by the old
+Carlisle and Preston route, which he had known very well in the year
+1715.
+
+Wogan was at this time little more than a lad, though full-grown
+enough to make a man and a good-sized boy into the bargain, and the
+exploit of the Cavalier Thomas Wogan, as it had prompted his design,
+so it exhilarated him in the execution. He went lightly on his way,
+weaving all manner of chivalric tales about his ancestor, to the great
+increase of his own vanity, bethinking him when he stopped for an hour
+at a wayside inn that here, too, perhaps Thomas Wogan had reined in
+his horse, and maybe had taken a draught from that very pint-pot which
+Nicholas now held to his lips. Thus the late burst up the hill-side
+above the Shiel was quickly robbed of its sting, and by the time that
+he had reached London he was so come to a pitch of confidence in the
+high destinies of the Wogan family that, after leaving his horse in
+the charge of Mr. Gunning, of Mussell Hill, whom he knew of old as a
+staunch friend of George Kelly's, and borrowing from him a more
+suitable raiment than his stained travelling dress, he must needs walk
+down St. James's Street with no more disguise than the tilting of his
+hat over his nose, and the burying of his chin in his cravat.
+
+Soon Mr. Wogan's confidence and, with his confidence, his legs were
+brought to a sudden check. For when he was come half-way down the hill
+he saw the figure of one Captain Montague in the uniform of the Guards
+turn the corner out of Ryder Street and walk towards him. Wogan had
+met the officer before on an occasion of which he did not wish at this
+particular moment to be reminded. He wheeled about, took a step or
+two, and so came again to a halt. Was it known, he asked himself, that
+he had sailed from Cadiz and landed in Scotland? If so, and it was a
+most likely conjecture, then for Wogan to be straggling about St.
+James's Street was egregious impertinence, and the sooner he got under
+shelter the better for his neck. Now Wogan's destination was the
+lodging of George Kelly, not five hundred yards away, in Bury Street.
+But to reach that lodging it would be necessary for him to turn about
+again and face the Captain. Would the Captain know him again? Wogan
+debated the question, and finding no answer, asked himself another.
+What would Thomas Wogan have done under the like contingency? The
+answer to that was evident enough. Wogan turned about on the instant,
+cocked his hat on the back of his head, took his chin out of his
+cravat, twirled his cane, whistled a tune and sauntered past the
+Captain, looking him over as if he were so much dirt. The Captain
+stopped: Wogan felt his heart jump into his throat, whistled a bit
+louder, and twirled his cane a trifle ferociously. Over his shoulder
+he saw the Captain draw his brows together and rub a check with the
+palm of his hand like a man perplexed. The Captain took a step towards
+Wogan, and stopped again. Wogan sauntered on, expecting every moment
+to hear his name called, and a clattering run, and then to feel a
+heavy hand close upon his shoulder. But no voice spoke, no steps
+clattered on the pavement. Wogan reached the corner and spied up St.
+James's Street as he turned. The Captain was still standing in the
+attitude of perplexity; only, instead of smoothing his cheek, he had
+tilted his peruke aside and was scratching his head to ease the labour
+of his recollections. At the sight of him the ancestor and his
+twenty-eight Cavaliers rode clean out of Mr. Wogan's mind. 'Sure,
+Thomas wouldn't have done it, but Nicholas will,' said he, and kicking
+up his heels he ran. He ran along Ryder Street, turned into Bury
+Street, raced a hundred yards or so up the cobbles, and thundered on
+the door of Kelly's lodging. Here and there a head was poked from a
+window, and Mr. Wogan cursed his own noisiness. It seemed an age
+before the door was opened. Fortunately it was Mrs. Barnes, Kelly's
+landlady, in person, and not her serving-woman, who stood in the
+entrance.
+
+'Is the Parson in London?' says Wogan. 'Say that he is, Mrs. Barnes,
+and say it quick.'
+
+'Why, it's Mr. Wogan!' cries she.
+
+'Whisht, my dear woman!' answered Wogan, pushing through the doorway.
+'It's Mr. Hilton. There's no Wogan anywhere in England. Remember that,
+if you please.'
+
+Mrs. Barnes slammed the door in a hurry.
+
+'Then you are in trouble again,' said she, throwing up her hands.
+
+'Well, there's nothing unusual in that,' said he. 'Sure man is born to
+it, and who am I that I should escape the inheritance?' and he opened
+the door of Mr. Kelly's sitting-room. He saw the figure of a man
+bending over the table. As the door was thrown open, the figure
+straightened itself hurriedly. There was a sound of an iron lid
+clanging down upon a box, and the sharp snap of a lock. George Kelly
+turned and stood between the table and the door, in a posture of
+defence. Then--
+
+'Nick!' he cried, and grasped his friend's hand. The next moment he
+let it go. 'What brings you here?' he exclaimed.
+
+'My ancestor,' said Wogan, dropping into a chair. ''Twas his spirit
+guided me.'
+
+'Then take my word for it,' cried George, 'if there's a Bedlam beyond
+the grave your ancestor inhabits it.'
+
+Wogan made no reply in words at first. But he rose stiffly from his
+chair, bowed to Kelly with profuse ceremony, took his hat, and with
+his hat a step towards the door. Kelly, on the other hand, shut the
+door, locked it, put the key in his pocket and leaned his back against
+the panels. Wogan affected to see nothing of these actions, but spoke
+in a tone of dignity like a man taking his leave.
+
+'Such insults as you are pleased to confer on me,' said he, 'no doubt
+I deserve, and I take them in all Christian meekness. But when my
+ancestor Thomas Wogan, God rest his soul for ever and ever, rode with
+twenty-eight Cavaliers from Dover to Scotland through the thick of his
+bloodthirsty foes to carry the succour of his presence to the friends
+of his blessed Majesty of sacred memory King Charles the Second, it
+was not, I'd have you know, Mr. Kelly, in order that his name should
+be bespattered after he was dead by a snuffling long-legged
+surreptitious gawk of a parson who was kicked out of his Dublin pulpit
+with every circumstance of ignominy because his intellect didn't
+enable him to compose a homily.'
+
+At this point Wogan drew a long breath, which he sorely needed. It was
+not at all truth that he had spoken, as he knew--none better. The
+Parson was indeed stripped of his gown because he preached a very fine
+homily on the text of 'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's,'
+wherein he mingled many timely and ingenious allusions to the
+Chevalier. Nor was there any particular force in that epithet
+'surreptitious,' beyond that it had an abusive twang. Yet it was just
+that word at which Mr. Kelly took offence.
+
+'Surreptitious,' said he, 'and if you please what is the meaning of
+that?'
+
+And then surveying Wogan, he began of a sudden to smile.
+
+'Ta-ta-ta,' he said with a grimace.
+
+'It is a pretty though an interjectional wit,' replied Wogan in a high
+disdain, falling upon long words, as was his fashion on the rare
+occasions when he cloaked himself with dignity.
+
+'Faith,' continued George, with the smile broadening over his face,
+'but it is indeed the very picture of Christian meekness,' and then,
+breaking into a laugh, 'Will you sit down, you noisy firebrand. As for
+Thomas Wogan--be damned to him and to all his twenty-eight Cavaliers
+into the bargain!'
+
+Mr. Wogan will never deny but what the man's laugh was irresistible,
+for the Parson's features wore in repose something of clerkly look.
+They were cast in a mould of Episcopal gravity; but when he laughed
+his blue eyes would lighten at you like the sun from a bank of clouds,
+and the whole face of him wrinkled and creased into smiles, and his
+mouth shook a great rumbling laugh out of his throat, and then of a
+sudden you had come into the company of a jolly man. Wogan put his hat
+on the table and struggled to preserve his countenance from any
+expression of friendliness.
+
+'It is the common talk at the Cocoa Tree that you sailed from Cadiz.
+It is thought that you were one of the remnant at Glenshiel. Oh, the
+rumour of your whereabouts has marched before you, and that you might
+have guessed. But see what it is to know no Virgil, and,' shaking a
+minatory finger,
+
+
+ 'Fama, malum quo non aliud velocius ullum.'
+
+
+Mr. Wogan bowed before Latin like a sapling before the wind. He seated
+himself as he was bid.
+
+'And you must needs come parading your monstrous person through the
+thick of London, like any fashionable gentleman,' continued George.
+'What am I to do with you? Why couldn't you lie quiet in a village and
+send me news of you? Did you meet any of your acquaintance by chance
+when you came visiting your friend Mr. Kelly? Perhaps you passed the
+time of day with Mr. Walpole--' and as he spoke the name he stopped
+abruptly. He walked once or twice across the room, shifting his peruke
+from one side of his head to the other in the fluster of his thoughts.
+Then he paused before Wogan.
+
+'Oh, what am I to do with you?' he cried. 'Tell me that, if you
+please.' But the moment Wogan began,
+
+'Sure, George, it's not you that I will be troubling for my
+security'--Kelly cut in again:
+
+'Oh, if you have nothing better to say than that, you say nothing at
+all. It is dribbling baby's talk,' and then he repeated a question
+earnestly. 'Did you see anyone you knew, or rather did anyone that
+knows you see you?'
+
+'Why,' replied Wogan meekly, 'I cannot quite tell whether he knows me
+or not, but to be sure I ran into the arms of Captain Montague not
+half a dozen yards from the corner of Ryder Street.'
+
+'Montague!' exclaimed Kelly. Wogan nodded.
+
+'The man who fought against you at Preston siege?'
+
+'The same.'
+
+''Tis a pity you were at so much pains to save his life in that
+scuffle.'
+
+'Haven't I been thinking that myself?' asked Wogan. 'If only I had
+left him lying outside the barricades, where he would have been surely
+killed by the cross-fire, instead of running out and dragging him in!
+But it is ever the way. Once do a thoroughly good-natured action and
+you will find it's the thorn in your side that will turn and sting
+you. But I am not sure that he knew me,' and he related how the
+Captain had stopped with an air of perplexed recollection, and had
+then gone on his way. Kelly listened to the account with a certain
+relief.
+
+'It is likely that he would not remember you. For one thing, he was
+wounded when you carried him in, and perhaps gave little heed to the
+features of his preserver. Moreover, you have changed, Nick, in these
+years. You were a stripling then, a boy of fifteen, and,' here he
+smiled and laid a hand on Wogan's shoulder, 'you have grown into a
+baby in four years.'
+
+Then he took another turn across the room. 'Well, and why not?' he
+said to himself, and finally brought his fist with a bang upon the
+table. 'I'll hazard it,' said he. 'I am not sure but what it is the
+safest way,' and, drawing a chair close to Wogan, he sat himself down.
+
+'It was the mention of Mr. Walpole set me on the plan,' he said. 'You
+heard in Paris that Lady Oxford is a kinsman of his. Well, I go down
+to Lord Oxford's in two days. It is a remote village in the north of
+Herefordshire. You shall come with me as my secretary. 'Faith, but I
+shall figure in my lord's eyes as a person of the greatest
+importance.'
+
+Mr. Wogan resisted the proposal as being of some risk to his friend,
+but Kelly would hear of no argument. The plan grew on him, the more he
+thought of it. 'You can lie snug here for the two days. Mrs. Barnes is
+to be trusted, devil a doubt. You can travel down with me in safety. I
+am plain Mr. Johnson here, engaged in smuggling laces from the
+Continent into England. And once out of London there will be little
+difficulty in shipping you out of the country until the affair's blown
+over.'
+
+So it was arranged, and Kelly, looking at his watch, says--
+
+'By my soul, I am late. I should have been with my Lord of Rochester
+half-an-hour since. The good Bishop will be swearing like a dragoon.'
+
+He clapped his hat on his head, took up his cane, and marched to the
+door. His hand was on the knob, when he turned.
+
+'By the way, Nick, I have something which belongs to you. 'Twas sent
+to my lodging in Paris by mistake. I brought it over, since I was sure
+to set eyes on you shortly.'
+
+'Ah,' said Nick. 'Then you expected me, for all your scolding and
+bullying.'
+
+'To speak the honest truth, Nick,' said Kelly, with a laugh, 'I have
+been expecting you all the last week.'
+
+He went into his bedroom, and brought out the strong-box which Wogan
+had purchased in Paris.
+
+'Sure there was no mistake,' said Wogan. 'I sent it to you as a reward
+for your discretion.'
+
+'Oh, you did. Well, you wasted your money, for I have no need for it.'
+
+'Nor I,' replied Wogan. 'But it has a very good lock, and will serve
+to hold your love-letters.'
+
+Kelly laughed carelessly at the careless words, and laid the box aside
+upon his scrutore. Many a time in the months that followed Wogan saw
+it there, and the sight of it would waken him to a laugh, for he did
+not know that a man's liberty, his honour, his love, came shortly to
+be locked within its narrow space.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER III
+
+ MR. WOGAN INSTRUCTS THE IGNORANT PARSON IN
+ THE WAYS OF WOMEN
+
+
+Mr. Wogan then remained for two days closeted in his friend's
+lodgings, and was hard put to it to pass the time, since the Parson,
+who acted as secretary and right-hand man to Bishop Atterbury, was
+ever dancing attendance upon his lordship at Bromley or the Deanery of
+Westminster. Wogan smoked a deal of tobacco, and, knitting his brows,
+made a strenuous endeavour to peruse one of George Kelly's books--a
+translation of Tully's _Letters_. He did, indeed, read a complete
+page, and then being seized with a sudden vertigo, such as from his
+extreme youth had prevented him from a course of study, was forced to
+discontinue his labours. At this juncture Mrs. Barnes comforted him
+with a greasy pack of cards, and for the rest of that day he played
+games of chance for extraordinary stakes, one hand against t'other,
+winning and losing millions of pounds sterling in the space of a
+single hour. By bedtime he was sunk in a plethora of wealth and an
+extremity of destitution at one and the same time; and so, since he
+saw no way of setting the balance right, he bethought him of another
+plan. On the morrow he would write out a full history of his
+ancestors, as a memorial of their valour and a shame to the men of
+this age.
+
+The Parson, when he was informed of the notable design, quoted a scrap
+of Latin to the effect that it would be something more than a brazen
+proceeding. Wogan, however, was not to be dissuaded by any tag of
+rhyme, and getting up before daylight, since he had but this one day
+for the enterprise, was at once very busy with all of Kelly's
+spluttering pens. He began with the founder of the family, the great
+Chevalier Ugus, who lived in the time of my little Octavius Caesar, and
+was commissioned by that unparalleled monarch to build the town of
+Florence. 'Ugus,' wrote Mr. Wogan in big round painful letters with a
+flourish to each, and, coming to a stop, woke up George Kelly to ask
+him in what year of Our Lord Octavius Caesar was born into this weary
+world. 'In no year of Our Lord,' grumbled George, a little churlishly
+to Wogan's thinking, who went back to his desk, and taking up a new
+pen again wrote 'Ugus.' Thereupon he fell into a great profundity of
+thought; so many philosophic reflections crowded into his head while
+he nibbled his pen, as he felt sure must visibly raise him in the
+estimation of his friends. So, taking his candle in one hand and his
+pen in the other, he came a second time to Kelly's bedside and sat him
+down heavily upon his legs, the better to ensure his awakening. It is
+to be admitted that this time the Parson sat up in his bed, and swore
+with all the volubility of a dragoon or even of my Lord Bishop of
+Rochester. But Wogan smiled amiably, knowing when he communicated his
+thoughts how soon those oaths would turn to cries of admiration.
+
+'It is a very curious thing,' said Wogan, shifting himself a little so
+that Kelly's shins should not press so sharply, 'how the mere inking
+of one's fingers produces speculation. Just as great valorous deeds
+are the consequence of swords,' here he paused to snuff the candle
+with his fingers, 'so great philosophic thoughts are the consequence
+of pens. Put a sword in a man's hand! What does he want to do but cut
+his neighbour right open from the chine to the ribs? Put a pen between
+his fingers, on the other hand, and what does he want to do but go
+away by himself and write down great thoughts?'
+
+'Then, in Heaven's name, why don't you do it?' cried George.
+
+'Because, my friend,' replied Wogan, 'out of the great love I bear for
+you, I shall always, always communicate my thoughts first of all to
+you.' Here the Parson groaned like a man giving up the ghost, and
+Wogan continued:
+
+'For instance, you have doubtless heard of my illustrious forbear the
+Chevalier Ugus.' At this Kelly tried to turn on his side; but he could
+not do so, since his legs were pinned beneath Wogan's weight. 'The
+Chevalier Ugus,' repeated Wogan, 'who built and beautified the city of
+Florence to the glory of God in the reign of the Emperor Octavius. How
+many of the English have loitered in the colonnades, and feasted their
+eyes upon the cathedral, and sauntered on the bridges of the Arno? How
+many of them, I say, have drawn profitable thoughts and pleasurable
+sensations from the edifices of my great ancestor? And yet not one of
+them--if poor Nicholas Wogan, his degenerate son, were to poke his
+nose outside of Mrs. Barnes's front door--not one of them but would
+truss him hands and heels and hang him up to derision upon a nasty
+gibbet.'
+
+So far Wogan had flowed on when a sigh from Kelly's lips brought him
+to a pause. He leaned forward and held the candle so that the light
+fell upon Kelly's face. Kelly was sound asleep.
+
+'To be sure,' said Wogan in a soft voice of pity, on the chance that
+Kelly might be counterfeiting slumber, 'my little friend's jealous of
+my reflective powers,' and going back to his chair wrote 'Ugus' a
+third time with a third pen; and then, in order to think the more
+clearly, laid his hand upon the table and closed his eyes.
+
+It was Mrs. Barnes's hand upon his shoulder, some three hours
+afterwards, which roused him from his so deep reflections, and to a
+man in Wogan's course of life the shoulder is a most sensitive member.
+She took the paper, whereon the great name was thrice inscribed, very
+daintily between her forefinger and thumb, as though she touched
+pitch; folded it once, twice, thrice, and set it on the mantelshelf.
+There Mr. Kelly, coming into the room for breakfast, discovered it,
+hummed a little to himself like a man well pleased, and turned over
+the leaf to see what was written t'other side.
+
+'That is all,' said Wogan, indifferently.
+
+'And it is a very good night's work,' replied Kelly, with the politest
+gravity, 'not a letter--and there are precisely twelve of them in
+all--but is writ with scrupulous correctness. Such flourishes, too,
+are seldom seen. I cannot call to mind that ever I saw a _g_ so
+pictorially displayed. Ugus--Ugus--Ugus--' and he held the paper out
+at arm's length.
+
+'I went no further with my work,' explained Wogan, 'because I
+reflected--'
+
+'What, again?' asked the Parson in a voice of condolence.
+
+'That the mere enunciation of the name Ugus gives an epitome of the
+Wogan family.'
+
+'Indeed, it gives a history in full,' said the Parson.
+
+'It comprises--'
+
+'Nay, it conveys--'
+
+'All that need be known of the Wogan family.'
+
+'All that need be known, indeed, and perhaps more,' added George with
+the air of a man turning a compliment Mr. Wogan was sensibly
+flattered, and took his friend's words as an apology for that
+disrespect which he had shown towards Thomas Wogan two days before,
+and the pair seated themselves to breakfast in the best of good
+humour.
+
+'We start at nine of the evening,' said George. 'I have commanded a
+sober suit of grey cloth for you, Nick, since you cannot squeeze into
+my coats, and it should be here by now. Meanwhile, I leave you to Mrs.
+Barnes's attentions.'
+
+Of these attentions Mrs. Barnes was by no means sparing. For the buxom
+widow of the bookseller, who, to her credit be it said, had her full
+share of good looks, joined to an admirable warmth of heart a less
+adorable curiosity. With the best intentions in the world for her
+lodgers' security, she was always prying into their secrets. Nor did
+she always hold her tongue outside her own doors, as Mr. Kelly had
+bitter reason afterwards to know. In a word, she had all the
+inquisitiveness of her class, and sufficient wiles to make that
+inquisitiveness difficult to parry. Not that Nicholas Wogan was at all
+troubled upon this score, for if there was one quality upon which the
+good man prided himself, it was his comprehension of the sex. 'Woman,'
+he would say with a sententious pursing of the lips and a nod of the
+head; and again 'woman,' and so drop into silence; as who should say,
+'Here's a nut I could show you the kernel of were I so disposed.'
+
+This morning, however, Mrs. Barnes made no demand upon Wogan's
+cunning. For she took the paper with the thrice iterated Ugus which
+the Parson had replaced upon the mantelshelf, and, with the same
+gingerly precautions as she had used in touching it before, dropped it
+into the fire.
+
+'And why that?' asked Wogan.
+
+Mrs. Barnes flung out at him in reply.
+
+'I have no patience with you,' she cried. 'What's Ugus, Mr. Wogan?
+Answer me that,' and she struck her arms akimbo. 'What's Ugus but one
+of your cypher words, and you must needs stick it up on your
+mantelshelf for all the world to see?'
+
+'It's no cypher word at all,' replied Wogan with a laugh.
+
+'What is it then?' said she.
+
+'My dear woman, the merest mare's nest,' said he.
+
+'Oh, you may "dear woman" me,' cried she, and sat herself down in a
+chair, 'and you may laugh at a woman's fears; but, good lack, it was a
+bad day when Mr. Kelly first found a lodging here. What with his
+plottings here and his plottings there, it will be a fortunate thing
+if he doesn't plot us all into our graves.'
+
+'Whisht,' interrupted Wogan. 'There are no plots at all, any more than
+there's sense in your talk.'
+
+But the woman's eloquence was not so easily stemmed.
+
+'Then if there are no plots, why is Mr. Kelly "Mr. Johnson," why is
+Mr. Wogan "Mr. Hilton"; and why, oh why, am I in danger of my life and
+liberty, and in peril of my immortal soul?'
+
+'Sure you are bubbled with your fears, answered Wogan. 'It is
+sufficiently well known that since Mr. George Kelly ceased to minister
+to souls he has adopted the more lucrative profession of a lace
+merchant. There's some secrecy no doubt in his comings and goings, but
+that is because he is most honourably engaged in defrauding the
+revenue.'
+
+'A pretty lace merchant, upon my soul,' said she, and she began to
+rock her body to and fro. The sight alarmed Nicholas Wogan, since he
+knew the movement to be a premonition of tears. 'A lace merchant who
+writes letters in Latin, and rides in the Bishop of Rochester's coach,
+and goes a-visiting my Lord Oxford in the country. Thirteen shillings
+have I paid for letters in one day. Laces, forsooth! It is hempen
+ropes the poor gentleman travels in, and never was a man so eager to
+fit them to his own neck.' And, at the affecting prospect which her
+words called up, the good woman lifted her apron to her eyes and
+forthwith dissolved into tears. Sobs tore her ample bosom, her soft
+frame quivered like a jelly. Never did Mr. Wogan find his intimate
+knowledge of the sex of more inestimable value. He crossed the room;
+he took one plump hand into his left palm and gently cherished it with
+his right. The tears diminished to a whimpering. He cooed a compliment
+into Mrs. Barnes's ear, 'A little white dove of a hand in a brown
+nest, my dear woman,' said he, and affectionately tweaked her ear.
+Even the whimpering ceased, but ceased under protest! For Mrs. Barnes
+began to speak again. Wogan, however, kissed the tearful eyes and
+sealed them in content.
+
+'Hoity-toity, here's a set out,' he said, 'because my Lord Oxford
+wants a pair of Venice ruffles to hide his gouty fingers, or a new
+mantilla for his new spouse,' and so, softly chiding her, he pushed
+her out of the room.
+
+At nine o'clock to the minute the chaise drove up to the door. Mr.
+Kelly took a stroll along the street to see the coast was clear; Mrs.
+Barnes was in two minds whether to weep at losing her lodgers, or to
+smile at their prospects of security, and compromised between her
+emotions by indulging them alternately; and finally the two friends in
+burgess dress entered the chaise and drove off. Mr. Wogan thrust his
+head half out of the window, the better to take his fill of the cool
+night air, but drew it back something of the suddenest at the corner
+where Ryder Street debouches into St. James's.
+
+'Sure the man's a spy,' said he, flinging himself back. Parson Kelly
+leaned cautiously forward, and under an oil-lamp above the porch of a
+door he saw Captain Montague. The Captain was standing in an
+indecisive attitude, tapping with his stick upon the pavement and
+looking up and down the street.
+
+'I doubt it,' returned Kelly. 'I have ever heard he was the most
+scrupulous gentleman.'
+
+'But he's a Whig. A Whig and a gentleman! But it's a contradiction in
+terms. Whigging is a nasty insupportable trade, and infects a man like
+a poison. A Whig is a sort of third sex by itself that combines all
+the failings of the other two.'
+
+However, this time it was evident that Captain Montague had taken no
+note of Nicholas Wogan. He could not but reflect how it was at this
+very spot that he had come upon the captain before, and mighty glad he
+was when the lights of Knightsbridge had sunk behind them, and they
+were driving betwixt the hedgerows. Then at one spring he jumped to
+the top of his spirits.
+
+'George, what a night!' cries he. 'Sure I was never designed to live
+in a house at all, but to be entirely happy under the blue roof-tree
+of the sky. Put me out on a good road at night and the whole universe
+converses with me on the most familiar terms. Perhaps it's a bush that
+throws out a tendril and says, "Smell that, you devil, and good luck
+to you." Or, maybe it's the stars that wink at me and say, "Here's a
+world for you, Nick, my little friend. Only wait a moment, and we'll
+show you a bit of a moon that'll make a poet of you." Then up comes
+the moon, perhaps, in a crescent like a wisp of fire, and, says she,
+"It's all very well here, Nicholas, but take my word for it, I can
+show you as good on the sea and better. For you'll have all this, and
+the hiss of the water under your lee besides, and the little bubbles
+dancing on the top." But what troubles you, George?'
+
+But Kelly made little or no reply, being sunk in the consideration of
+some difficulty. For two days he remained closeted with his trouble,
+and it was not until they had got to Worcester that he discovered it.
+They changed horses at the 'Dog and Turk' and drove through the town
+under the Abbey clock.
+
+'It is five minutes to twelve,' said Wogan, looking at the clock.
+
+'Yes,' said Kelly with a sigh, 'the face is very plain to read.' Then
+he sighed again.
+
+'Now, if the clock were a woman,' said he, 'it might be half-past four
+and we still thinking it five minutes to twelve.'
+
+'Oh, is it there you are?' said Wogan.
+
+'Why, yes,' replied Kelly. 'Lord Oxford, do you see, Nick, is a
+half-hearted sort of trembler--that we know and are ready for him. But
+what of my lady?'
+
+Wogan crossed his legs and laughed comfortably. Here was matter with
+which he could confidently deal.
+
+'Well, what of her?' he asked.
+
+'You heard what Fanny Oglethorpe said. She is a kinswoman of Mr.
+Walpole's. How shall we be sure of her at all? A woman, Nick, is a
+creature who walks in the byways of thought. How shall an obtuse man
+follow her?'
+
+Wogan took a pinch of snuff.
+
+'It is very well, George,' said he, 'that I took this journey with
+you. I'll make your conduct plain to you as the palm of my hand. In
+the first place, there was never a woman yet from Cleopatra downwards
+that cared the scrape of a fiddle for politics. 'Twas never more than
+a path that led to something else, and is held of just as small
+account as the road a girl dances down when she goes to meet her
+lover. Look at Fanny Oglethorpe, Olive Trant, and the rest of them in
+Paris! D'you think it's the Cause they ever give a thought to? If you
+do you're sadly out, my friend. No; what troubles their heads is
+simply that the Chevalier is a romantical figure of a man, and would
+look extraordinarily well with a gold crown on the top of his periwig.
+Now I'm wagering it will be just the same with my Lady Oxford. You
+have all the qualifications down to your legs, and let my lady once
+take a liking to your person she will gulp your politics without a
+grimace.'
+
+Mr. Kelly turned a startled face towards his instructor.
+
+'You would have me pay court to her?' says he.
+
+'Just that,' says Wogan, imperturbably. 'Keep your politics for my
+lord and have a soft word ready for my lady. Pen her a delicate ode in
+Latin. To be sure the addresses of an erudite man have something
+particularly flattering to the sex. Or drop out a pretty compliment on
+her ear.'
+
+'Oh, on her ear?' said Kelly, beginning to smile. 'Of what sort?'
+
+'Faith, George, but you exasperate me,' said Nick. 'Isn't there an
+infinity of images you could use? For instance--,' said he, and hummed
+a little.
+
+'Well, for instance!' said Kelly, urging him on.
+
+'For instance,' returned Wogan, 'you can speak of its functions--'
+
+'I understand. I am to tell her that it is a very proper thing for a
+woman to sit and listen to other people.'
+
+'Tell her that,' cries Wogan, lifting up his hands, 'and you will be
+drubbed down the staircase pretty quick! No. Tell her there is never a
+poet laureate in the world would print a single one of his poems if he
+could treasure his music within her ear.'
+
+'Ah,' says Kelly. 'That is a compliment of quite a different kind,'
+and he repeated it three times to commit it to memory. 'But one, Nick,
+will not suffice. I must have more sayings about her ear.'
+
+'And you shall,' says Wogan. 'You can speak of its appearance.'
+
+'Of its appearance?'
+
+'And fit a simile to it.'
+
+'Give me one,' said Kelly.
+
+'You can say her ear is like a rosy shell on the sea-banks.'
+
+Mr. Kelly began to laugh outright.
+
+'Sure,' said he, 'I might as well tell her at once her hair is sandy.'
+
+'Oh, she will not examine your words so nicely. She will just perceive
+that you intend a compliment.'
+
+'And take me for a very impertinent fellow.'
+
+'George' said Wogan, 'for a parson you are a man of a most unnatural
+modesty.' In which remark Wogan did his friend no more than the merest
+justice. For he had nothing in common with that usual foible of the
+young chaplains and tutors who frequent the houses of the great.
+
+To listen to them over a bottle you would think them conquerors of all
+hearts, from the still-room maid to my lady and her daughters. But Mr.
+Kelly was in a different case. The Bishop of Rochester himself gave
+him the character of being prudent and reserved beyond his years. And
+perhaps it was by reason of that very modesty that he slid insensibly
+into the thoughts of more women than he knew of. Of these, however,
+Lady Oxford was not one.
+
+It was about three in the afternoon of the next day when the chaise
+drove up to the door of the great house at Brampton Bryan. The Parson
+and Nicholas Wogan had barely stepped into the hall before an inner
+door opened and my lady came forward to greet them. She was for her
+sex uncommonly tall, and altogether of a conquering beauty, which a
+simple country dress did but the more plainly set forth. For, seeing
+her, one thought what a royal woman she would look if royally attired,
+and so came to a due appreciation of her consummate appearance.
+Whereas, had she been royally attired, her dress might have taken some
+of the credit of her beauty. She stood for a second between the two
+men, looking from one to the other as though in doubt.
+
+'And which is Mr. James Johnson? 'said she, with a sly emphasis upon
+the name.
+
+'I am,' said George, stepping forward, 'and your Ladyship's humble
+servant.'
+
+She gave him a smile and her hand. Mr. Kelly clicked his heels
+together, bent over the hand and kissed it reverentially.
+
+The lady sighed a quick little sigh (of pleasure) as she drew her hand
+away.
+
+'I have taken the liberty, your Ladyship,' said Kelly, 'to bring my
+secretary, Mr. Hilton, with me,' and he waved a hand towards Wogan.
+
+'Mr. Hilton,' she returned, 'is very welcome. For, indeed, we hear too
+few voices in the house.' She bowed very graciously, but she did not
+give her hand to Mr. Wogan. 'Gentlemen,' she continued, 'my lord bids
+me make you his apologies, but he lies abed. Else would he have
+welcomed you in person.'
+
+'Your Ladyship,' said Kelley, 'if we come at an inopportune time--'
+
+'By no means,' interrupted Lady Oxford. 'My lord is troubled with the
+gout, but the fit is passing. And if for a couple of days my poor
+hospitality will content you--'
+
+'Your Ladyship,' protested Kelly, but that was all he said. Now, to
+Mr. Wogan's thinking, here was as timely an occasion for a compliment
+as a man could wish. And since Mr. Kelly had not the tact to seize it,
+why, his friend must come to his help. Accordingly,
+
+'So might the holy angels apologise when they open the gates of
+Paradise,' said Wogan with his hand on his heart, and bowed. As he
+bowed he heard some stifled sounds, and he looked up quickly. My lady
+was crimson in the face with the effort to check her laughter.
+
+'Mr. Hilton is too polite,' said she instantly, with an elaborate
+courtesy, and turned again to Kelly with some inquiries about his
+journey. Wogan was shown up the stairs before the inquiries were
+answered. The staircase ran round the three sides of the hall up to a
+landing on the fourth, and as Wogan came to the first turn he saw Lady
+Oxford cross to the great wood fire which was burning on the hearth;
+when he came to the second he saw that the Parson had crossed too and
+stood over against her; when he reached the third turn, my lady was
+seated toasting a foot at the blaze; when he reached the landing, Mr.
+Kelly had drawn up a chair.
+
+Wogan leaned for a moment over the balustrade. It was a very small
+foot with an admirably arched instep; Mr. Wogan had seen the like in
+Spain. Well, very likely she only thrust it out to warm it. The
+firelight coloured her face to a pretty rose hue, sparkled in her dark
+eyes, and searched out the gold threads in her brown hair. Mr. Wogan
+was much tempted to whisper a reminder to his friend concerning her
+ear. But he resisted the temptation, for after all it seemed there
+would be little to do about my lady's politics.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER IV
+
+ SHOWS THE EXTREME DANGER OF KNOWING LATIN
+
+
+An hour later the three sat down to dinner, though, for all the
+talking that one of them did, there might have been present only the
+two whom Wogan had left chatting in the hall. It was not that Lady
+Oxford omitted any proper courtesy towards Mr. Johnson's secretary,
+but the secretary himself, sensible that he was something too apt to
+say in all companies just what came into his head, was careful to keep
+his tongue in a strict leash, lest an inconvenient word should slip
+from him. His deficiency, however, was not remarked. Lady Oxford was
+young, and for all that my lord lay upstairs in a paroxysm of the
+gout, she was in the highest feather; she rattled from course to
+course, plying Mr. Kelly with innumerable questions as to the latest
+tittle-tattle of the tea-parties, and whether Lady Mary Wortley and
+Mr. Pope were still the best of friends.
+
+'Then your Ladyship is acquainted with Lady Mary?' says Kelly, looking
+up with some eagerness. For Lady Mary, then a toast among the wits and
+a wit among the toasts, was glanced at by some tongues as if, being
+sister to the Duchess of Mar, she was not of the most loyal to the
+Elector. The Duke of Mar was still Secretary to King James over the
+water.
+
+'Without doubt,' returned Lady Oxford. 'Lady Mary is my bosom friend.
+The dear malicious creature! What is her latest quip? Tell me, Mr.
+Johnson, I die to hear it. Or rather whisper it. It will be too
+deliciously cruel for loud speaking. Lady Mary's witticisms, I think,
+should always be spoken in a low voice, with a suggestive nod and a
+tap of the forefinger on the table, so that one may not mistake where
+the sting lies. Not that the sayings are in themselves at all
+clumsy--how could they be, when she has such clever friends? But they
+gain much from a mysterious telling of them. You agree with me?'
+
+It was evident that Lady Oxford wasted no love on Lady Mary, and
+Kelly's face fell.
+
+'Your ladyship,' he replied, 'though I have no claims to be considered
+clever, I have the honour to be ranked amongst her friends.'
+
+'Indeed!' said she with a light laugh at the rebuff. 'No doubt you
+have brought her some of your laces and brocades from France,
+Mr.--Johnson.' She paused slyly upon the name.
+
+Kelly glanced quickly at her, their eyes met, and the lady laughed.
+There could be no doubt that she knew something of Kelly's business.
+Indeed, she would hardly have asked him for the fashionable gossip at
+all had she taken him for just what he represented himself to be.
+Wogan put his foot on his friend's pretty heavily, and, he knows not
+how, encountered her ladyship's. To his horror, Lady Oxford made a
+moan of pain. Kelly starts up in a hurry.
+
+'Your ladyship is unwell,' says he, and bids the servant bring a
+bottle of salts.
+
+'No,' she replied with a smile on her lips and her eyes full of tears,
+'but your secretary has dropped a blot on the wrong paper.'
+
+'Your ladyship,' cried Wogan in an extremity of confusion, 'it was the
+most miserable accident, believe me. A spasm in the leg, madam, the
+consequence of a sabre cut across the calf,' he explained, making the
+matter worse.
+
+'Oh, and in what battle was Mr. Johnson's secretary wounded?' she
+said, taking him up on the instant.
+
+'In a struggle with the Preventive men,' replied Wogan hurriedly, and
+he too broke off with a wry face, for Mr. Johnson was warning _him_
+and with no less vigour. Before he knew what he was doing Wogan had
+stooped down and begun to rub his leg. Lady Oxford's smile became a
+laugh.
+
+'To be sure,' said she, 'and I think Mr. Johnson must have been
+wounded too, in just that same way, and in just that same encounter.'
+
+'Faith, madam,' said Kelly, 'the smuggling trade is a hard one. No man
+engages in it but sooner or later he gets a knock that leaves its
+mark.'
+
+Lady Oxford expressed the profoundest sympathy with a great deal of
+disbelief; and when her ladyship left her guests to their wine, they
+looked at one another across the table.
+
+'Well,' said Wogan cheerfully, 'if my Lady Oxford is in Mr. Walpole's
+interest we have not made the best beginning in the world,' and in a
+little he went off to smoke a pipe in the stables.
+
+Kelly withdrew to the great library, and had not been there many
+minutes before Lady Oxford came in. It seemed she did not see him at
+the first, although he sat bent up over the fire and his shadow huge
+upon the walls. Mr. Kelly certainly did not remark her entrance. For
+one thing, he was absorbed in his book; for another, the carpet was
+thick and the lady's step of the lightest. She went first to the
+bookcase, then she crossed the room and shuffled some papers on a
+table, then she knocked against a chair, the chair knocked against the
+table, and at the noise Kelly looked up. He rose to his feet. Lady
+Oxford turned round, started, and uttered a sharp little cry.
+
+'My lady,' began Mr. Kelly.
+
+'Oh, it is you, Mr. Johnson,' she broke in with a hand to her heart,
+and dropped into the chair. 'I believe,' she said with a broken laugh,
+'I was foolish enough to be frightened. I fancied you had gone with
+your friend to the stables,' which was as much as to say that she knew
+he had not. Kelly commenced an apology for so disordering her, but she
+would not listen to it.
+
+'No,' she said, 'it is I that am to be blamed. Indeed, such stupid
+fears need chiding. But in a house so lonely and silent they grow on
+one insensibly. Indeed, I have known the mere creak of the stairs keep
+me awake in terror half the night.'
+
+She spoke with the air of one gently railing at her own distress, but
+shivered a little to prove the distress genuine, and Kelly, as he
+looked at her, felt a sudden pang of pity.
+
+'Your place, my lady, is not here,' he cried, 'but in the Mall, at the
+Spring Gardens, in the lighted theatres, when even your ladyship's own
+sex would pay you homage for outrivalling them.'
+
+'Nay,' she replied, with the sweetest smile of reproof, 'you go too
+fast, Mr. Johnson. My place is here, for here my duty lies.' She
+looked up to the ceiling with a meek acceptance of the burden laid
+upon her fair shoulders. 'But I am not come to disturb you,' she
+continued briskly; 'I came to fetch a book to read aloud to my lord.'
+At that a sigh half broke from her and was caught back as it were upon
+her lips. 'Perhaps, Mr. Johnson,' she said in a well-acted flurry,
+'you will help me in the selection?'
+
+'With all the heart in the world,' said he, laying down his volume.
+The choice took perhaps longer than need have been, for over each book
+there was some discussion. This one was too trivial to satisfy my Lord
+Oxford's weighty mind; that other was too profound to suit his health.
+'And nothing too contentious, I implore you, lest it throw him into a
+heat,' she prayed, 'for my lord has a great gift of logic, and will
+argue with you by the hour over the merest trifle.' This with another
+half-uttered sigh, and so the martyr sought her lord's bedside. It
+appeared, however, that Lord Oxford was sleepy that night, or had no
+mind for the music of his lady's voice, for in a very little while she
+returned to the library and Mr. Kelly, where Wogan presently found
+them discussing in a great animation the prospects of Mr. Law's
+ventures.
+
+'You are in for a great stake?' she asked.
+
+'For all I have,' replied Kelly, 'and a little more. It is not a great
+sum.'
+
+'But may become one,' said she, 'and will if a friend's good wishes
+can at all avail.' And so she wished her guests good night.
+
+The next morning Lord Oxford sent a message that he was so far
+recovered as would enable him to receive his visitors that afternoon.
+Meanwhile Lady Oxford, after breakfast carried off the two gentlemen
+to visit a new orchard she was having planted. The orchard was open to
+the south-west, and Kelly took objection to its site, quoting Virgil
+in favour of a westerly outlook.
+
+'Ah, but the west wind,' she said, 'comes to us across the Welsh
+mountains, which even in the late spring are at times covered deep in
+snow. However, I should be pleased to hear the advice of Virgil,' and
+the Parson goes off to the library and fetches out a copy.
+
+It was a warm day in April, with the sky blue overhead and the buds
+putting out on the trees, and for the most part of that morning Mr.
+Kelly translated the Georgics to her ladyship, on a seat under a great
+yew-tree, in a little square of grass fenced off with a hedge. She
+listened with an extraordinary complaisance, and now and then a
+compliment upon the Parson's fluency; so that Mr. Wogan lost all his
+apprehensions as to her meddling in the King's affairs. For, to his
+thinking, than listening to Virgil, there was no greater proof of
+friendship.
+
+Nor was it only upon this occasion that she gave the proof. Lord
+Oxford was a difficult man from his very timidity, and the Parson's
+visit was consequently protracted. His lordship needed endless
+assurances as to the prospects of a rising on behalf of King James,
+before he would hazard a joint of his little finger to support it. Who
+would take the place of the Royal Swede? Could the French Regent be
+persuaded to lend any troops or arms or money, or even to wink? Had
+the Czar been approached? Indeed he had, by Wogan's brother Charles.
+And what office would my Lord Oxford hold when James III. was crowned?
+Each day saw these questions reiterated and no conclusion come to.
+Lady Oxford was never present at these discussions; the face of her
+conduct was a sedulous discretion. It is true that after a little she
+dropped the pretence of laces, and, when the servants were not
+present, styled the Parson 'Mr. Kelly.' But that was all. 'These are
+not women's matters,' she would say with a pretty humility, and then
+rise like a queen and sail out of the room. Mr. Wogan might have
+noticed upon such occasions that the Parson hesitated for a little
+after she had gone, and spoke at random, as though she had carried off
+some part of his mind from affairs with the waft of her hoop. But he
+waited on the lady's dispositions and set down what he saw of his
+friend's conduct at the time as merely the consequence of an endeavour
+to enlist her secrecy and good-will.
+
+These councils with Lord Oxford took place, as a rule, in the
+afternoon, his lordship being a late riser, and even when risen
+capable only of sitting in a chair, with a leg swathed in a mountain
+of flannel. So that, altogether, Mr. Kelly had a deal of time upon his
+hands, and doubtless would have found it hang as heavy as Nick Wogan
+did, but for the sudden interest he took in Lady Oxford's new orchard.
+He would spend hours over the 'Observations on Modern Gardening,' and
+then,
+
+'Nick,' he would cry,' there's no life but a country life. One wakes
+in the morning, and the eye travels with delight over the green
+expanse of fields. One makes friends with the inanimate things of
+nature. Nick, here one might re-create the Golden Age.'
+
+'To my mind,' says Nick, 'but for the dogs and horses it would be
+purely insupportable. With all the goodwill in the world I cannot make
+friends with a gatepost, and I'm not denying I shall be mightily glad
+when the wambling old sufferer upstairs brings his mind at last to an
+anchor.'
+
+But the Parson was already lost in speculation, and would presently
+wake to ask Wogan's opinion as to whether a Huff-cap pear was
+preferable to a Bar-land. To which he got no answer, and so, snatching
+up his Virgil, would go in search of Lady Oxford. He acquired, indeed,
+a most intimate knowledge of apples and pears, and would discourse
+with her ladyship upon the methods of planting and grafting as
+though he had been Adam, and she Flora, or, rather, our mother Eve,
+before the apple was shared between them. For apples the store, the
+hayloe-crab, the brandy-apple, the red-streak, the moyle, the
+foxwhelp, the dymock-red; for pears the squash pear, the Oldfield, the
+sack-pear, never a meal passed but one of these names cropped up at
+the table and was bandied about between Kelly and her ladyship like a
+tennis-ball. Now all this, though dull, was none the less reassuring
+to Wogan, who saw very clearly that Lady Oxford was altogether devoted
+to country pursuits, and wisely inferred that while there might result
+confusion in the quality of the pears, there would be the less
+disorder in the affairs of the Chevalier.
+
+Moreover, her ladyship's inclination towards Mr. Kelly plainly
+increased. He translated the whole of the second book of the Georgics
+to her, five hundred and forty-two mortal lines of immortal poetry,
+and she never winced. Nor did she cry halt at the end of them, but,
+thereafter, listened to the Eclogues; and, all at once, their
+conversation was sprinkled with Melib[oe]us and M[oe]ris, and Lycidas
+and Mopsus, and Heaven knows what other names. Mr. Wogan remembers
+very well coming upon them one wet afternoon in the hall when it was
+growing dark. The lamps had not been lit, and Kelly had just finished
+reading one of the pastorals by the firelight. Lady Oxford sat with
+her hands clasped upon her knees, and, as he closed the book,
+
+'Oh for those days,' she cried, 'when a youth and a maid could roam
+barefoot over the grass in simple woollen garments! But now we must go
+furbelowed and bedecked till there's no more comfort than simplicity,'
+and she smoothed her hand over her petticoat with a great contempt for
+its finery. Lady Mary Wortley, to whom Wogan related this saying
+afterwards, explained that doubtless her ladyship had laced her stays
+too tight that morning; but the two men put no such construction on
+her words, nor, indeed, did they notice a certain contradiction
+between them and Lady Oxford's anxiety for London gossip--the Parson,
+because he had ceased to do anything but admire; Wogan, because a
+little design had suddenly occurred to him.
+
+It was Lady Oxford's patience under the verses which put it into
+Wogan's head. For since she endured to listen to poetry about trees
+and shepherds, poetry about herself must be a sheer delight to her.
+So, at all events, he reasoned, not knowing that Lady Oxford had
+already enjoyed occasion to listen to poetry about herself from Lady
+Mary's pen, which was anything but a delight. Accordingly he hinted to
+his friend that a little ode might set a firm seal upon her
+friendliness.
+
+'Make her a Dryad in one of the trees of her own orchard, d'ye see?'
+he suggested; 'something pretty and artful, with sufficient allusions
+to her beauty. Who knows but what she may be so flattered as to carry
+the verses against her heart; and so, when some fine day she brings
+her husband's secrets to Mr. Walpole, she may hear the paper crackling
+against her bodice, and turn back on the very doorstep.'
+
+'She will carry no secrets,' replied Kelly with a huff. 'She is too
+conscious of her duties. Besides, she knows none. Have you not seen
+her leave the room the moment politics are so much as hinted of?'
+
+'True,' said Wogan. 'But what's her husband for except to provide her
+with secrets when they are alone to which she cannot listen without
+impertinence in company?'
+
+Kelly moved impatiently away. He stood with a foot upon the fender,
+turning over the pages of his Virgil.
+
+'You allow her no merit whatsoever,' he said slowly with a great
+gentleness.
+
+'Indeed, but I do,' replied Wogan. 'I allow that she will be charmed
+by your poetry, and that's a rare merit. She will find it as soothing
+as a soldier does a pipe of tobacco after a hard day's fighting.'
+
+'I would not practise on her for the world,' says Kelly with just the
+same gentleness, and goes softly out by the door.
+
+Wogan, however, was troubled by no such delicate scruples. An ode must
+be written, even if he had to write it himself. He slapped his
+forehead as the notion occurred to him. The ode might be dropped as
+though by accident at some spot where her ladyship's eyes could not
+fail to light on it. Wogan heaved a deep breath, took a turn across
+the room, and resolved on the heroical feat. He would turn poet to
+help his friend. For two nights he fortified himself with the perusal
+of Sir John Suckling's poems, and the next morning took pencil and
+paper into the garden. He walked along the terrace, and seated himself
+on the bench beneath the yew-tree. Wogan sucked strenuously at his
+pencil.
+
+'Strephon to his Smilinda, running barefoot over the grass in a gale
+of wind,' he wrote at the top, and was very well pleased with the
+title. By noonday he had produced a verse, and was very well pleased
+with that, except, perhaps, that the last line halted. The verse ran
+as follows:--
+
+
+ Nay, sweet Smilinda, do not chide
+ The wind that wantons with thy hair;
+ The grass will all his prickles hide
+ Nor harm thy snowy feet and bare.
+ And, listen, the enamoured air
+ Makes lutestrings of thy locks so fair.
+ At night the stars are mirrors which reflect
+ Thine eyes: at least that is what I expect.
+
+
+Mr. Wogan spent an hour and three pipes of tobacco over his unwonted
+exercise, which brought him into a great heat.
+
+Having finished the verse he blew out his cheeks and took a rest from
+his labours. It was a fine spring morning, and the sun bright as a
+midsummer day. To his right the creepers were beginning to stretch
+their green tendrils over the red bricks of the garden wall. To his
+left half-a-dozen steps led up to a raised avenue of trees. Wogan
+looked down the avenue, noted the border of spring flowers, and a
+flash of a big window at the extreme end; and in all the branches the
+birds sang. The world seemed all together very good, and his poem
+quite apiece with the world. Wogan stretched his arms and kicked out
+his feet. His feet struck against something hard in a tuft of grass.
+He stooped down and picked it up. It was Kelly's Virgil. The book was
+open, and the pages all blotted and smeared with the dew. It had
+evidently lain open on the grass by the bench all night. Wogan wiped
+the covers dry, and, using it as a desk, settled himself to the
+composition of his second verse. He had not, however, thought of an
+opening for it before a voice hailed him from behind.
+
+He turned round and saw Kelly coming towards him from the direction of
+the orchard, and at that moment the opening of his verse occurred to
+him; Strephon offered to Smilinda his heart's allegiance. Wogan set
+his pencil to the paper, fearful lest he should forget the line.
+
+'Nick,' cries Kelly, waving a bundle of letters, and starts to run.
+Wogan slipped his paper between the leaves of the book; just as he did
+so, Strephon, in return for his heart's 'allegiance,' asked for
+Smilinda's soft 'obedience.'
+
+'Nick,' cries Kelly again, coming up to the bench, 'what d'you think?'
+
+'I think, 'says Wogan, 'that interruption is the true source of
+inspiration.'
+
+'What do you mean?' asked Kelly, looking at Wogan's pencil.
+
+'I mean,' says Wogan, looking at the cover of the book, 'that if I
+lived by my poetry, I would hire a man to rap at my door all day
+long.'
+
+Kelly, however, had no ears for philosophy.
+
+'Nick,' says he, 'will you listen to me, if you please? I have a
+letter from Miss Oglethorpe. It explains--'
+
+'Yes,' interposed Wogan thoughtfully. 'It explains why the best poets
+are ever those who are most dunned by their creditors.'
+
+Kelly snatched the Virgil out of Wogan's hand, and threw it on to the
+grass. The book opened as it fell. It opened at the soiled pages, and
+it was behind those pages that Wogan had slipped his poem.
+
+'You are as contrarious as a woman. Here am I, swollen with the
+grandest news, and you must babble about poets and creditors. Nick,
+there'll be few creditors to dun you and me for a bit. Just listen,
+will you?'
+
+He leaned his elbows on the back of the bench, and read from his
+letter. It was to the effect that, during April, an edict had been
+published in France, transferring to Mr. Law's company of the West the
+exclusive rights of trading to the East Indies and the South Seas.
+
+'Think of it, Nick!' he cried. 'The actions have risen from 550 livres
+to 1,000, and we are as yet at the budding of May. Why, man, as it is
+we are well to do. Just imagine that, if you can, you threadbare
+devil! We shall be rich before August.'
+
+'We shall dine off silver plates in September!' cries Nick, leaping up
+in the contagion of his friend's good spirits..
+
+'And drink out of diamond cups in November,' adds Kelly, dropping at
+once into the Irish accent.
+
+'Bedad!' shouts Wogan, 'I'll write my poetry on beaten gold,' and he
+sprang on to the seat.
+
+'You shall,' replies Kelly; 'and your ink shall be distilled out of
+black pearls.'
+
+'Sure, George, one does not write on gold with ink, but with a graving
+tool.'
+
+'This nonsense, and poetry, are what the lucky heart sings,' said
+Kelly.
+
+'To a tune of clinking coins,' said Wogan. He stooped down to his
+friend. 'Have it all in solid gold, and tied up in sacks,' said he
+earnestly. 'None of their bills of exchange, but crowns, and pieces of
+eight, and doubloons, and guinea-pieces; and all tied up in sacks.'
+
+'What will we do with it?' asked Kelly.
+
+'Why, sit on the sacks,' replied Nick, and then grew silent. He looked
+at Kelly. Kelly looked away to the garden-wall.
+
+'Ah!' said the Parson, with a great start of surprise. 'There's a
+lizard coming out of the bricks to warm himself,' and he made a step
+away from the bench. Wogan's hand came quickly down upon his shoulder.
+
+'George,' said he, 'I think we are forgetting something. Not a
+farthing of it is mine at all.'
+
+'Now, that's a damned scurvy ungenerous remark,' replied George.
+'Haven't I borrowed half of your last sixpence before now?'
+
+Wogan got down from the seat.
+
+'Poverty may take a favour from poverty, George, and 'tis all very
+well.'
+
+Kelly sat himself down on the bench, crossed his knees, and swung a
+leg to and fro.
+
+'I don't want the money,' said he, with a snort.
+
+'My philosophy calls it altogether an encumbrance,' said Wogan,
+sitting down by his side.
+
+Kelly turned his back on Wogan, and stared at the garden-wall. Then he
+turned back.
+
+'I know,' said he of a sudden, and smacks his hand down on Wogan's
+thigh. 'We'll give it to the King. He can do no more than spend it.'
+
+'He will certainly do no less.' But they did not give it to the King.
+
+Wogan was sitting turned rather towards the house, and as he looked
+down the avenue, he saw the great windows at the end open, and Lady
+Oxford come out.
+
+'Here's her ladyship come for her Latin lesson,' said Wogan, and he
+rose from his seat.
+
+'I'll tell her of our good fortune,' said Kelly, and he walked quickly
+to the steps at the end of the avenue. Lady Oxford stopped on the
+first step, with a hand resting on the stone balustrade. George Kelly
+stood on the grass at the foot of the steps, and told her of his news.
+
+'The shares,' he ended, 'have risen to double value already.'
+
+It seemed to Wogan that her eyes flashed suddenly with a queer,
+unpleasant light, and the hand which was resting idly on the
+balustrade crooked like the claws of a bird. He had seen such eyes,
+and such a hand, at the pharo tables in Paris.
+
+'It is the best news I have heard for many a day,' she said the next
+instant, with a gracious smile, and coming down the steps, walked by
+Mr. Kelly's side towards the bench.
+
+'And what will you do with it?' she asked. It was her first question,
+for she was a practical woman.
+
+'In the first flush,' replied Kelly, hesitating as to how he should
+put the answer, 'we had a thought of disposing of it where it is
+sorely needed.'
+
+She looked quickly at Kelly; as quickly looked away. She took a step
+to the seat with her eyes on the ground.
+
+'Oh,' she observed slowly; 'you would give it away.' There was,
+perhaps, a trifle of a pucker upon her forehead, perhaps a shade of
+disappointment in her eyes. But it was all gone in a moment. She
+clasped her hands fervently together, raised her face to the heavens,
+her cheeks afire, her eyes most tender. 'Indeed,' she exclaimed, 'the
+noblest, properest disposition of it! Heaven dispense me more such
+friends who, in a world so niggardly, retain so ancient a spirit of
+generosity,' and she stood for a little, with her lips moving, as if
+in prayer. It was plain to Mr. Wogan that her ladyship had guessed the
+destination of the money. No such thought, however, troubled George
+Kelly, who was wholly engaged in savouring the flattery, and, from his
+appearance, found it very much to his taste.
+
+'I would not, however, if a woman might presume to advise,' she
+continued, 'be in any great hurry to sell the shares. Though they have
+risen high, they will doubtless rise higher. And your gift, if you
+will but wait, in a little will grow worthier of the spirit which
+prompts it.'
+
+'Madam,' returned Kelly, 'it is very prudent advice. I will be careful
+to follow it.'
+
+Was it relief which showed for an instant in Lady Oxford's face? Kelly
+did not notice; Wogan could not tell; and a second afterwards an event
+occurred which wholly diverted his thoughts.
+
+All three had been standing with their faces towards the garden-seat,
+the yew-tree and the orchard beyond, Lady Oxford between, and a little
+in advance of Kelly and Wogan, so that each saw her face obliquely
+over her shoulders. Now, however, she turned and sat down, giving thus
+her whole face to the two men; and both saw it suddenly blanch,
+suddenly flush as though all the blood had leaped from her heart into
+her cheeks, and then fade again to pallor. Terror widened and fixed
+her eyes, her lips parted, she quivered as though she had been struck
+a buffet across the face.
+
+'Your ladyship--' began Kelly, and, noticing the direction of her
+gaze, he broke off his sentence, and turned him about. As he moved,
+Lady Oxford, even in the midst of her terror, stole a quick, conscious
+glance at his face.
+
+'Sure, 'tis a predecessor to George,' thought Wogan; and he too turned
+about.
+
+Some twenty paces away a man was waiting in an easy attitude. He was
+of the middle height, and, judged by his travelling dress and bearing,
+a gentleman. His face was thin, hard, and sallow of complexion, the
+features rather peaked, the eyes dark, and deepset beneath the brows.
+Without any pretension to good looks, the stranger had a certain
+sinister distinction--stranger, for that he was to the two men at this
+time, whatever he may have been to Lady Oxford. Yet George thought he
+had seen the man's eyes before, at Avignon, when the King was there;
+and Wogan later remembered his voice, perhaps at Genoa, which he had
+used much at one time. He stood just within the opening in the hedge,
+and must needs have come through the trees beyond, while Lady Oxford
+and her guests were discussing the Parson's good fortune.
+
+As soon as he saw the faces turned towards him, he took off his hat,
+made a step forwards, and flourished a bow.
+
+'Your ladyship's most humble and obedient servant.'
+
+He laid a stress upon the word 'obedient,' and uttered it with a
+meaning smile. Lady Oxford returned his bow, but instinctively shifted
+her position on the bench towards Kelly, and timidly put out a hand as
+though she would draw him nearer.
+
+The stranger took another step forwards. There was no change in his
+expression, but the step was perhaps more swiftly taken.
+
+'Mr. George Kelly,' he said quietly, and bowed again. 'The Reverend
+Mr. George Kelly, I think,' and he bowed a third time, but lower, and
+with extreme gravity.
+
+Wogan started as the stranger pronounced the name. Instantly the
+stranger turned to him.
+
+'Ah,' said he, 'Captain Nicholas Wogan, I think,' and he took a third
+step. His foot struck in a tuft of grass, and he stumbled forward; he
+fell plump upon his knees. For a gentleman of so much dignity the
+attitude was sufficiently ridiculous. Wogan grinned in no small
+satisfaction.
+
+'Sure, my unknown friend,' said he, 'I think something has tripped you
+up.'
+
+'Yes,' said the stranger, and, as he stood up, he picked up a book
+from the grass.
+
+'It is,' said he, 'a copy of Virgil.'
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER V
+
+ A LITERARY DISCUSSION IN WHICH A CRITIC, NOT
+ FOR THE FIRST TIME, TURNS THE TABLES
+ UPON AN AUTHOR
+
+
+Kelly frowned at Wogan, enjoining silence by a shake of the head. Her
+ladyship was still too discomposed to speak; she drew her breath in
+quick gasps; her colour still came fitfully and went. The only person
+entirely at ease in that company was the disconcerting stranger, and
+even behind his smiling mask of a face one was somehow aware of
+sleeping fires; and underneath the suave tones of his voice one
+somehow felt that there ran an implacable passion.
+
+'Upon my word,' said he, 'I find myself for a wonder in the most
+desirable company. A revered clergyman, a fighting captain, a lady
+worthy of her quality, and a poet.' He tapped the Virgil as he spoke,
+and it fell open between his hands. His speech had been uttered with a
+provocative politeness, and since no one responded to the provocation,
+he continued in the same strain. 'The story of Dido'--the book was
+open at the soiled pages--'and all spluttered with tears.'
+
+'It has lain open in the dew since yesterday,' interrupted Wogan.
+
+'Tears no less because the night has shed them,' he replied; 'and
+indeed it is a sad story, though not all true as the poet relates it.
+For Dido had a gout-ridden husband hidden discreetly away in a dark
+corner of the Palace, and AEneas was no more than an army chaplain,
+though he gave himself out for a general.'
+
+Kelly flushed at the words, and took half a step towards the speaker
+of them.
+
+'It is very true, Mr. Kelly. A chaplain, my soul upon it, a chaplain.
+Didn't he invoke his religion when he was tired of the lady, and so
+sail away with a clear conscience? A very parsonical fellow, Mr.
+Kelly. _O infelix Dido!_ he burst out, 'that met with an army
+chaplain, and so became food for worms before her time!'
+
+He shut up the book with a bang, and, as ill-luck would have it, Mr.
+Wogan's poem peeped out from the covers as if in answer to his knock.
+
+'Oho,' says he, 'another poet,' and he read out the dedication.
+
+'Strephon to his Smilinda running barefoot in a gale of wind.'
+
+Kelly laughed aloud, and a faint smile flickered for the space of a
+second about Lady Oxford's lips. Wogan felt his cheeks grow red, but
+constrained himself to a like silence with his companions. His
+opportunity would come later; meanwhile some knowledge was needed of
+who the stranger was.
+
+'A pretty conceit,' resumed the latter, 'though consumption in its
+effects. Will the author pardon me?'
+
+He took the sheet of paper in his hand, dropped the Virgil carelessly
+on the grass, and read out the verses with an absolute gravity which
+mocked at them more completely than any ridicule would have done. 'It
+breaks off,' he added, 'most appropriately just when the gentleman
+claims the lady's obedience. There is generally a break at that point.
+"At least, that is what I expect,"' he quoted. Then he looked at each
+of his two adversaries. For adversaries his language and their faces
+alike proved them to be. 'Now which is Strephon?' he asked, with an
+insinuating smile, as he calmly put the verses in his pocket. 'Is it
+the revered clergyman or the fighting captain?'
+
+Kelly's face flushed darkly.
+
+'The revered clergyman,' he broke in, and his voice shook a little,
+'would be happy to be reminded of the occasion which brought him the
+honour of your acquaintance.'
+
+'A sermon,' replied the stranger. 'I was much moved by a sermon which
+you preached in Dublin upon the text of "Render unto Caesar the things
+that are Caesar's."'
+
+Mr. Kelly could not deny that he had preached that sermon; and for all
+he knew the stranger might well have been among his audience. He
+contented himself accordingly with a bow. So Wogan stepped in.
+
+'And the fighting captain,' he said, with a courtesy of manner no whit
+inferior to his questioner's, 'would be glad to know when he ever
+clapped eyes upon your honour's face, if you please.'
+
+'Never,' answered the other with a bow. 'Captain Nicholas Wogan never
+in his life saw the faces of those who fought behind him. He had eyes
+only for the enemy.'
+
+Now, Mr. Wogan had fought upon more than one field of which he thought
+it imprudent to speak. So he copied the Parson's example and bowed.
+
+'Does her ladyship also wish to be reminded of the particulars of our
+acquaintance?' said the stranger, turning now to Lady Oxford. There
+was just a tremor, a hint of passion discernible in his voice as he
+put the question. Both Wogan and Kelly had been waiting for it, had
+restrained themselves to silence in the expectation of it. For only
+let the outburst come, and the man's design would of a surety tumble
+out on the top. Lady Oxford, however, suddenly interposed and
+prevented it. It may be that she, too, had caught the threatening
+tremble of his words, and dreaded the outburst as heartily as the
+others desired it. At all events, she rose from the bench as though
+some necessity had spurred her to self-possession.
+
+'No, Mr. Scrope,' she said calmly, 'I do not wish to be reminded of
+our acquaintance either in particular or in general. It was a slight
+thing at its warmest, and I thank God none of my seeking. Mr. Kelly,
+will you give me your arm to the house?'
+
+The stranger for a second was plainly staggered by her words. Kelly
+cast a glance at Wogan which the 'fighting captain' very well
+understood, offered his arm to Lady Oxford, and before the stranger
+recovered himself, the pair were up the steps and proceeding down the
+avenue.
+
+'A slight thing!' muttered Mr. Scrope in a sort of stupor. 'God,
+what's a strong thing, then?' and at that the passion broke out of
+him. 'It's the Parson now, is it?' he cried. 'Indeed, Mr. Wogan, a
+parson is very much like a cat. Whether he throws his cassock over the
+wall, or no, it is still the same sly, soft-footed, velvety creature,
+with a keen eye for a soft lap to make his bed in,' and with an oath
+he started at a run after Kelly. Wogan, however, ran too, and he ran
+the faster. He got first to the steps, sprang to the top of them, and
+turned about, just as Mr. Scrope reached the bottom.
+
+'Wait a bit, my friend!' said Wogan.
+
+'Let me go, if you please,' said Mr. Scrope, mounting the lowest step.
+
+'You and I must have a little talk first.'
+
+'It will be talk of a kind uncommon disagreeable to you,' said Mr.
+Scrope hotly, and he mounted the second step.
+
+Wogan laughed gleefully.
+
+'Why, that's just the way I would have you speak,' said he. Mr. Scrope
+stopped, looked over Wogan from head to foot, and then glanced past
+him up the avenue.
+
+'I have no quarrel with you, Mr. Wogan,' he said politely, and took
+the third step.
+
+'And have you not?' asked Wogan. 'I'm thinking, on the contrary, that
+you took exception to my poetry.'
+
+'Was the poetry yours? Indeed, I did not guess that,' he replied. 'But
+the greatest of men may yet be poor poets.'
+
+'In this case you're mightily mistaken,' cried Wogan, and he stamped
+his foot and threw out his chest. 'I am my poetry.'
+
+Mr. Scrope squinted up the avenue under Wogan's arm.
+
+'Damn!' said he.
+
+Wogan turned round; Parson Kelly and her ladyship were just passing
+through the window into the house. Wogan laughed, but a trifle too
+soon. For as he still stood turned away and looking down the avenue,
+Mr. Scrope took the last three steps at a bound, and sprang past him.
+Luckily as he sprang he hit against Wogan's shoulder, and so swung him
+round the quicker. Wogan just caught the man's elbow, jerked him back,
+got both his arms coiled about his body, lifted him off his feet, and
+flattened him up against his chest. Mr. Scrope struggled against the
+pressure; he was lithe and slippery like a fish, and his muscles gave
+and tightened like a steel spring. Wogan gripped him the closer,
+pinioning his arms to his side. In a little Scrope began to pant, and
+a little after to perspire; then the veins ridged upon his face, and
+his eyes opened and shut convulsively.
+
+'Have you had enough, do you think?' asked Wogan; 'or shall I fall on
+you? But you may take my word for it, whatever you think of my
+love-poems, that I never yet fell on any man but something broke
+inside of him.'
+
+Mr. Scrope was not in that condition which would enable him to
+articulate, but he seemed to gasp an assent, and Wogan put him down.
+He staggered backwards towards the house for a yard or two, leaned
+against one of the trees, and then, taking out his handkerchief, wiped
+his forehead; at the same time he walked towards the house, but with
+the manner of a man who is dizzy, and knows nothing of his direction.
+
+'Stop!' cried Wogan.
+
+Scrope stooped, and turned back carelessly, as though he had not heard
+the command. Indeed, he seemed even to have forgotten why he was out
+of breath.
+
+'Mr. Wogan,' he said, 'I do not quite understand. It seems you write
+love-poems to her ladyship, and yet encourage the Parson to court
+her.'
+
+Wogan was not to be drawn into any explanation.
+
+'Let us leave her ladyship entirely out of the question. There's the
+value of my poetry to be argued out.'
+
+Mr. Scrope bowed, and they walked down the steps side by side, and
+through the opening in the hedge. A path led through the trees, and
+they followed it until they came to an open space of sward. Wogan
+measured it across with his stride.
+
+'A very fitting place for the argument, I think,' he said, and took
+off his coat.
+
+'What? In Smilinda's garden?' asked Scrope easily. 'Within view of
+Smilinda's windows? Surely the common road would be the more
+convenient place.'
+
+'Why, and that's true,' answered Wogan. 'It would have been an
+outrage.'
+
+'No,' said Scrope, 'merely a flaw in the argument. This is the nearest
+way. At least, I think so,' and he turned off at an angle, passed
+through a shrubbery, and came out opposite a little postern-gate in
+the garden-wall.
+
+'You know the grounds well,' said Wogan.
+
+'It is my first visit,' replied Scrope, with a trace of bitterness,
+'but I have been told enough of them to know my way.'
+
+He stepped forward and opened the gate. Outside in the road stood a
+travelling chaise with a pair of horses harnessed to it.
+
+'There is no one within view,' said Wogan. The road ran to right and
+left empty as far as the eye could reach; in front stretched the empty
+fields.
+
+'No one,' said Mr. Scrope, and he looked up to the sky.
+
+'Well, I would as lief take my last look at the sunlight as at
+anything else, and I doubt not it is the same with you.'
+
+Wogan, in spite of himself, began to entertain a certain liking for
+the man. He had accepted each stroke of ill-fortune--his discomfiture
+at Lady Oxford's hands, the grapple on the steps, and now this
+duel--without disputation. Moreover Wogan was wondering whether or no
+the man had some real grievance against her ladyship and what motive
+brought him, in what expectation, in his chaise to Brampton Bryan. He
+felt indeed a certain compunction for his behaviour, and he said
+doubtfully,
+
+'Mr. Scrope, you and I might have been very good friends in other
+circumstances.'
+
+'I doubt it very much, Mr. Wogan.' Scrope shook his head and smiled.
+'Your poetry would always have come between us. I would really sooner
+die than praise it.'
+
+He looked up and down the road as he spoke, and then made an almost
+imperceptible nod at his coachman.
+
+'That field opposite will do, I think,' Scrope said, and advanced from
+the doorway to the side of his chaise as though he was looking for
+something. It was certainly not his sword; Wogan now thinks it was his
+pistols. Wogan felt his liking increase and was inclined to put the
+encounter off for a little. It was for this reason that he stepped
+forward and passed an arm through Scrope's just as the latter had set
+a foot on the step of the chaise, no doubt to search the better for
+what he needed.
+
+'Now what's amiss with the poem?' asked Wogan in a friendly way.
+
+'It is altogether too inconsequent,' replied Scrope with a sudden
+irritation for which Wogan was at a loss to account.
+
+'But my dear man,' said he, 'it was not intended for a syllogism.'
+
+Scrope took his foot off the step and turned to Wogan as though a new
+thought had sprung into his brain.
+
+'Mr. Wogan,' he said, 'I shall have all the pleasure imaginable in
+pointing out the faults to you if you care to listen and have the
+leisure. Then if you kill me afterwards, why I shall have done you
+some slight service and perhaps the world a greater. If I kill you, on
+the other hand, why there's so much time wasted, it is true, but I am
+in no hurry.'
+
+There was no escape from the duel; that Wogan knew. Mr. Scrope had
+insulted the Parson, Lady Oxford, and himself; he was aware besides
+that the Parson and Wogan, both of them at the best suspected
+characters, were visiting the Earl of Oxford; and he had, whether it
+was justified or no, a hot resentment against the Parson. He might,
+since he knew so much, know also more, as, for instance, the names
+under which the Parson and Wogan were hiding themselves. It would not
+in any case need a very shrewd guess to hit upon their business, and
+if Mr. Scrope got back safe to London, why he might make himself
+confoundedly unpleasant. Wogan ran through these arguments in his
+mind, and was brought to the conclusion that he must most infallibly
+kill Mr. Scrope; but at the same time a little of his company
+meanwhile could do no harm.
+
+'Nor I,' replied Wogan accordingly. 'I shall be delighted to confute
+your opinions.'
+
+Mr. Scrope bowed; it seemed as though his face lighted up for a
+moment.
+
+'There is no reason why we should stand in the road,' he said, 'when
+we can sit in the chaise.'
+
+'Very true,' answered Wogan.
+
+Scrope mounted into the chaise. Wogan followed upon his heels. They
+sat down side by side, and Scrope pulled out the verses from his
+pocket. He read the dedication once more:
+
+'Strephon to Smilinda running barefoot over the grass in a gale of
+wind.'
+
+'Let me point out,' said he, 'that you have made the lady run barefoot
+at the very time when she would be most certain to put on her shoes
+and stockings. And that error vitiates the whole poem. For the wind is
+severe, you will notice. So when she reprimands the storm, she should
+really reprimand herself for her inconceivable folly.'
+
+'But Smilinda has no shoes and stockings at all in the poem,' replied
+Wogan triumphantly.
+
+'That hardly betters the matter,' returned Scrope. 'For in that case
+her feet might be bare but they would certainly not be snowy.'
+
+He stooped down as he spoke and drew from under the seat a bottle of
+wine, which he opened.
+
+'This,' he said, 'may help us to consider the poem in a more
+charitable light.'
+
+He gave Wogan the bottle to hold, and stooping once more fetched out a
+couple of glasses. Then he held one in each hand.
+
+'Now will you fill them?' he said. Wogan poured out the wine and while
+pouring it:
+
+'Two glasses?' he remarked. 'It seems you came prepared for the
+conversation.'
+
+Scrope raised his eyes quickly to Wogan's face, and dropped them again
+to the glasses.
+
+'One might easily have been broken,' he explained.
+
+They leaned back in the chaise, each with a glass in his hand.
+
+'It is to your taste, I hope,' said Scrope courteously.
+
+Wogan smacked his lips in contentment.
+
+'Lord Oxford has no better in his cellars.'
+
+'I may agree without boastfulness. It is indeed Florence of a rare
+vintage, which I was at some pains to procure.' He laughed with a
+spice of savagery and resumed the consideration of Wogan's verses.
+
+'You seem to me to have missed the opportunity afforded by your gale
+of wind. A true poet would surely have made great play with the lady's
+petticoats.'
+
+'Smilinda had none,' again replied Wogan in triumph, and he emptied
+his glass.
+
+'No shoes and stockings and no petticoats,' said he in a shocked
+voice. 'It is well you wrote a poem about her instead of painting her
+portrait,' and he filled Wogan's glass again, and added a little to
+his own, which was no more than half empty.
+
+'Don't you comprehend, my friend,' exclaimed Wogan, 'that Smilinda's a
+nymph, an ancient Roman nymph?'
+
+'Oh, she's a nymph!'
+
+'Yes, and so wears no clothes but a sort of linsey-wolsey garment
+kirtled up to her knees.'
+
+'Well, let that pass. But here's a line I view with profound
+discontent. "The grass will all its prickles hide." Thistles have
+prickles, Mr. Wogan, but the grass has blades like you and me; only,
+unlike you and me, it has no scabbards to sheathe them in.'
+
+'Well,' said Wogan, 'but that's very wittily said,' and he laughed and
+chuckled.
+
+'It is not bad, upon my faith,' replied Scrope. 'Let us drink to it in
+full glasses.'
+
+He emptied the bottle into Wogan's glass and tossed it into the road.
+
+'Now here's something more. The wind, you observe, makes lutestrings
+of Smilinda's hair.'
+
+'There is little fault to be discovered in that image, I fancy,' said
+Wogan, lifting his glass to his lips with a smile.
+
+'It is a whimsical image,' replied Scrope. 'It is as much as to call
+her hair catgut.'
+
+Wogan was startled by the criticism. He sat up and scratched his nose.
+
+'Well, I had not thought of that,' he said. He was somewhat
+crestfallen, and he looked to his glass for consolation. The glass was
+empty; he looked on to the road where the empty bottle rolled in the
+dust.
+
+'I have its fellow,' said Scrope, interpreting Wogan's glance. He
+produced a second bottle from the same place. The second bottle
+brought them to the end of the verse. There was, however, a little
+discussion over the last line, and a third bottle was broached to
+assist.
+
+'"At least that is what I expect." It is a very vile line, Mr. Wogan.'
+
+'It is, perhaps, not so good as the others,' Wogan admitted. 'But you
+must blame the necessities of rhyming.'
+
+'But the art of the poet is to conceal such necessities,' answered
+Scrope. 'And observe, Mr. Wogan, you sacrifice a great deal here to
+get an accurate rhyme, but in the remaining two lines of the next
+verse you do not trouble your head about a rhyme at all.'
+
+'Oh, let me see that!' said Wogan, holding out a hand for the paper.
+He had clean forgotten by this time what those two lines described.
+
+'Allegiance, Mr. Wogan,' said Scrope, politely handing him the verses,
+'is no rhyme to obedience.'
+
+'Allegiance--obedience--obedience--allegiance,' repeated Wogan as
+clearly as he could. 'Nay, I think it's a very good rhyme.'
+
+'Oh!' exclaimed Scrope in a sudden comprehension. 'If you tell me the
+verses are conceived in the Irish dialect, I have not another word to
+say.'
+
+Now Mr. Wogan, as a rule, was a little touchy on the subject of his
+accent. But at this moment he had the better part of three bottles of
+admirable Florence wine under his belt and was so disposed to see
+great humour in any remark. He grew uproarious over Mr. Scrope's
+witticism.
+
+'Sure, but that's the most delicate jest I have heard for months,' he
+cried. 'Conceived in the Irish dialect! Ho! Ho! I must tell it at the
+Cocoa Tree--though it hits at me,' and he stood up in the chaise.
+'Obedience--allegiance.' Mr. Scrope steadied him by the elbow. 'Faith,
+Mr. Scrope, but you and I must have another crack one of these days.'
+He put a foot out on the step of the chaise. 'I love a man that has
+some warmth in his merriment--and some warmth in his bottle too.' He
+stepped out of the chaise on to the ground. 'The best Florence I have
+tasted--the best joke I have heard--the Irish dialect. Ha, ha!' and he
+waved a hand at Scrope. Scrope called quickly to the coachman; the
+next instant the chaise started off at a gallop.
+
+Wogan was left standing in the road, shouting his laughter. When the
+coach chaise was some thirty yards away, however, his laughter stopped
+completely. He rubbed his hand once or twice over his bemused
+forehead.
+
+'Stop!' he yelled suddenly, and began to run after the chaise. Scrope
+stood up and spoke to the driver. The horses slackened their pace
+until Wogan got within twenty yards of it. Then Scrope spoke again,
+and the coachman drove the horses just as fast as Wogan was running.
+
+'You have forgotten something, my friend,' cries Wogan.
+
+'And what's that?' asked Scrope pleasantly, leaning over the back of
+the chaise.
+
+'You have forgotten the duel.'
+
+'No,' shouted Scrope with a grimace. 'It is you that forgot that.'
+
+'Ah, you cheese-curd!--you white-livered coward!' cried Wogan, 'and I
+taking you for a fine man--equal to myself--you chalky cheese-curd!'
+He quickened his pace; Scrope called to the coachman; the coachman
+whipped up his horses. 'Oh wait a bit till I come up with you. I'll
+eat you in your clothes.'
+
+Wogan bounded along the road, screaming out every vile epithet he
+could lay his tongue to in the heat of the moment. His hat and wig
+fell off on the road; he did not stop, but ran on bareheaded.
+
+
+ 'But listen, the enamoured air
+ Makes lutestrings of thy locks so fair,'
+
+
+quoted Scrope, rubbing his hands with delight. Wogan's fury redoubled,
+he stripped off his coat and ran till the road grew dizzy and the air
+flashed sparks at him. But the chaise kept ever at the same distance.
+With this interval of twenty yards between them, chaise and Wogan
+dashed through the tiny street of Brampton Bryan. A horde of little
+boys tumbled out of the doors and ran at Wogan's heels. The more he
+cursed and raved, the more the little boys shouted and yelled. Scrope
+in the chaise shook with laughter, clapped his hands as if in
+commendation of Wogan's powers, and encouraged him to greater efforts.
+They passed out of the village; the children gave up the pursuit, and
+sent a few parting stones after Wogan's back; in front stretched the
+open road. Wogan ran half a mile further, but he was too heavily
+handicapped with his three bottles of wine, and Scrope's horses were
+fresh. He shouted out one last oath, and then in a final spasm of fury
+sat down by the roadside, stripped off his shoe, and springing into
+the middle of the road, hurled it with all his might at the retreating
+chaise. The shoe struck the top of the hood, balanced there for a
+moment, and bounced over on to the seat. Scrope took it up and waved
+it above his head.
+
+
+ 'The grass will all its prickles hide,
+ Nor harm thy snowy feet and bare.'
+
+
+The driver plied his whip; the chaise whirled out of sight in a cloud
+of dust; and the disconsolate Wogan hobbled back to Brampton Bryan
+with what secrecy he could.
+
+Mr. Scrope was on his way with the road to London open, were he
+disposed to follow it. Mr. Wogan seemed to see his chaise flashing
+through the turnpikes, and his sallow cheeks taking on an eager colour
+as the miles were heaped behind him.
+
+He knew that Mr. Kelly and Nicholas Wogan were at Lord Oxford's house
+at Brampton Bryan. He knew enough, therefore, to throw some disorder
+on the Chevalier's affairs were he disposed to publish his news. But
+not in that way did he take, at this time, his revenge upon the
+Parson.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VI
+
+ MR. NICHOLAS WOGAN REMINDS THE PARSON OF A
+ NIGHT AT THE MAZARIN PALACE
+
+
+While Wogan pursued in vain a flying foe, Lady Oxford and Parson Kelly
+waited in the house for his return, her ladyship in a great
+discomposure and impatience, and the Parson more silent than ordinary.
+Whatever he may have thought of Scrope's unexpected visit, his pride
+forbade him questions.
+
+'The most unfortunate affair,' exclaimed her ladyship distractedly.
+'Sure never was a woman so cursed. But indeed I was born under a
+frowning star, Mr. Kelly, and so my lord's friends cannot visit him,
+but some untoward accident puts them into peril.'
+
+'You need be troubled by no fears on our account,' replied Kelly, 'for
+Nick will ensure the fellow's silence before ever he lets him out of
+his sight.'
+
+'True,' said she, with a fresh pang of anxiety, 'Mr. Wogan is with him
+and will doubtless seek an explanation.'
+
+Kelly smiled, but without any overwhelming amusement.
+
+'Neither,' said he, 'need your ladyship fear that he will listen to
+any indiscreet explanation. Words have very little to do with the
+explanations which Nicholas favours.'
+
+Lady Oxford remarked the distant stateliness in Kelly's tone and was
+in a hurry to retrieve the slip she had made.
+
+'It is just that I mean,' she cried, coming over to Kelly. 'If Mr.
+Wogan--kills this man,' and her eyes flashed as though she did in her
+heart desire that consummation, 'here at the Park Gates--'
+
+'Believe me,' replied Kelly reassuringly, 'he will omit no proper
+ceremony if he does.'
+
+'No, nor will the county justices either,' retorted Lady Oxford, 'and
+there are Mr. George Kelly and Mr. Nicholas Wogan to explain their
+presence at Brampton Bryan Manor, as best they can, to a bench of
+bumpkins.'
+
+'Again your ladyship is unnecessarily alarmed. For if Mr. Scrope is
+now no more, Mr. George Kelly and Mr. Nicholas Wogan are still Mr.
+James Johnson and his secretary Mr. Hilton. No harm threatens Brampton
+Bryan Manor from their visit.'
+
+This he said no less coldly, and to cut the conversation short,
+stalked with excessive dignity to the door. Lady Oxford was gazing
+ruefully down the avenue from the window, when she heard the knob of
+the door move under his hand. She turned quickly about.
+
+'It was not of Brampton Bryan Manor I was thinking,' she said
+hurriedly, 'nor of our safety. Why, in what poor esteem do you hold
+me! Am I then so contemptible a thing?' There was no anger in her
+reproach. Rather it melted in a most touching sadness. 'Have I no
+friends whose safety troubles me?' she added. At that out came her
+handkerchief and fluttered at her eyes. 'Nay, but I thought I had--two
+of the noblest.' It was a mere scrap of a handkerchief, and the
+greater part of that a lace edging. It would not have sopped up many
+tears, but it served her ladyship's turn. For indeed the mere sight of
+it convinced Kelly of his monstrous cruelty.
+
+'Your ladyship!' he cried, turning back. 'Tears! And I have caused
+them. Faith, I should be hanged for that. Yet they flow for my friend
+and me, and I am blessed instead.'
+
+But she would have none of his apologies. She stepped back as he
+approached.
+
+'No,' said she, and wiped an imaginary tear-drop from the dryest of
+eyes; 'you have asked me for an explanation of Mr. Scrope's coming and
+you have a right to ask it.'
+
+'Madam,' expostulated Kelly, 'I was careful, on the contrary, to ask
+for no explanation whatever. For I have no right to it.'
+
+'Oh, but you have,' returned her ladyship with asperity; and then up
+went her handkerchief again.
+
+'All men,' she said, in a voice most pathetical, 'have a right to ask
+any explanation of any woman, at anytime. Women, poor sad creatures,
+are suspect from their cradles, and to distrust them is the
+prerogative of manhood.' Here she tore away her handkerchief and
+lifted her hands in an ardent prayer. 'Oh that some day I might meet
+with one single man who would believe us worthy of respect!' She
+walked away to the window and said in a low voice, 'With what
+friendship would I requite him.'
+
+Thus the unfortunate Mr. Kelly was not merely plunged in remorse, but
+brought to see that he had missed the one solitary path which would
+have led him into this great lady's friendship.
+
+'Your ladyship,' he implored, 'mistakes my sentiments altogether.'
+
+'Mr. Kelly,' she replied, proudly, 'we will not, if you please, pursue
+the matter. You have your explanation and I trust you will allow it to
+content you,' and so she sailed majestically out of the room, leaving
+Mr. Kelly in that perturbation that he quite failed to notice he had
+received no explanation whatever. She dropped her stateliness,
+however, when the door was closed behind her, and, hurrying across the
+hall, lay in wait behind a shrubbery for Wogan's return. Wogan, on the
+other hand, had admirable reasons for avoiding all paths, and so
+slipped into the back of the house unseen. Consequently it was not
+until half-an-hour later, when Lady Oxford was fairly distracted, that
+she discovered him, decently clothed, and urging upon Kelly the
+necessity of an immediate retreat. He broke off from his advice as
+Lady Oxford entered.
+
+'You have done him no hurt? 'she asked, looking Wogan over from head
+to foot in search of a speck of blood, and ready to swoon if she saw
+one.
+
+'Not the least in the world,' replied Wogan.
+
+'Nor he you?'
+
+'There was never any likelihood of that.' Wogan had to put the best
+face on the matter possible, and since he could not own to the
+humiliating truth, why, the necessary lie might just as well redound
+to his credit. 'I swore him to secrecy upon his bended knees. He took
+the oath on the hilt of this very sword, 'and Wogan hitched forward
+his hanger.
+
+A footman at this moment announced that dinner was served.
+
+'Will you give me your hand, Mr. Wogan?' asked Lady Oxford, and
+detaining him until Kelly had passed out of the room:
+
+'He gave you doubtless a reason for his coming?' she asked.
+
+'Surely he did,' said Wogen, who was not for admitting any omission on
+his own part.
+
+'And what reason?' asked her ladyship.
+
+Mr. Wogan looked at the ground and got a flash of inspiration.
+
+'Why,' said he as bold as brass, 'precisely the same reason which you
+gave to my friend George Kelly,' in which answer Wogan hit the literal
+truth, although her ladyship looked puzzled, as well she might, and
+then flushed a fine crimson.
+
+However, she made up an ingenious story, and that same day hinted
+rather than told it with a pretty suggestion of sympathy which quite
+melted Mr. Kelly's heart, and threw Wogan into some doubt whether to
+believe her or no. Scrope, it appeared, had been at some indefinite
+time a secretary to Mr. Walpole, and was entrusted with the keeping of
+the good man's accounts. Lady Oxford was then simply Mistress Margaret
+Middleton and intimate with her cousin, Mr. Walpole, although since
+her marriage, as Mr. Kelly and his friend were requested to note, that
+intimacy had entirely ceased. Hence it came about that the rash Scrope
+cast longing eyes upon the humble relation of his patron, and was
+indeed so carried away by passion that Margaret was forced now and
+again to chide him for the forwardness of his demeanour. Also, alas!
+he transgressed in a more serious way. For Mr. Walpole's accounts fell
+into the saddest disorder; there were sums of money of which no trace
+could be found until--well, the deplorable affair was hushed up. Mr.
+Scrope was turned off and set down his dismissal to Margaret, who,
+gentle soul, would not have hurt a fly. From that time he had not
+spared her his resentment, and would go miles out of his way if by any
+chance he might fix a slight upon her. Which conduct she most
+Christianly forgave, since indeed the poor man's head must needs be
+turned.
+
+'Yet he had all the appearances of prosperity,' objected Wogan.
+
+'I fancied that I said that there were large sums missing,' replied
+her ladyship.
+
+'Yes, you did indeed say so,' said Mr. Kelly, 'but you avoided the
+implication out of your generous pity.'
+
+It is not in truth very difficult to befool a man who does half the
+fooling himself. Mr. Kelly was altogether appeased by Lady Oxford's
+explanation, which to his friend seemed to explain nothing, but none
+the less he readily acknowledged to Wogan the propriety of hurrying
+his business to a close.
+
+'To tell the truth,' said Wogan, as soon as her ladyship had
+withdrawn, 'I feel my cravat stiffening prophetically about my neck.
+My presence does not help you; indeed, it is another danger; and since
+we are but a few miles from Aberystwith, I am thinking that I could do
+nothing wiser than start for that port to-night.'
+
+The Parson drew figures with his forefinger on the table for a while;
+then:
+
+'I would not have you go, he said slowly. 'I will use what despatch I
+may; but I would not have you go, and leave me here.'
+
+Kelly was true to his word, and used so much despatch that within two
+days he extorted a promise from Lord Oxford to undertake the muslin
+trade in England, as the cant phrase went. Possibly he might have won
+that same promise before had used the same despatch. But Lord Oxford's
+foible was to hold long discourses, and Mr. Pope truly said that he
+had an epical habit of beginning everything at the middle. However it
+may be, the two men left the Manor on the morning of the third day.
+Wogan drove back with the Parson as far as Worcester, who for the
+first few miles remained in a melancholy silence, and then burst out
+of a sudden.
+
+'To think that she should be mewed up in a corner of Herefordshire,
+with no companions but drunken rustics! Mated to an old pantaloon,
+too!'
+
+'Sure it was her ladyship's own doing,' murmured Wogan.
+
+'No woman in all London could hold a candle to her. And we distrusted
+her--we distrusted her, Nick.' He beat a clenched fist into the palm
+of his other hand to emphasise the enormity of the crime. 'Why, what
+impertinent fools men are!'
+
+Then he again relapsed into silence and again broke out.
+
+'Damme! but Fortune plays bitter tricks upon the world. 'Tis all very
+well to strike at a pair of rascals like you and me, Nick, but she
+strikes at those who offend her least. Faith, but I am bewildered.
+Here is a woman indisputably born to be a queen and she is a nurse.
+And no better prospect when my lord dies than a poor jointure and a
+dull Dower House.'
+
+'Oh, she told you that, did she?' said Wogan. 'Sure it was a queenly
+complaint.'
+
+'She made no complaint,' said Kelly fiercely. 'She would not--she
+could not. It is a woman of unexampled patience.'
+
+He grumbled into silence, and his thoughts changed and turned moodily
+about himself.
+
+'Why did I ever preach that sermon?' he exclaimed. 'But for that I
+might now have the care of half-a-dozen rambling parishes. Instead of
+hurrying and scurrying from one end of Europe to the other, at the
+risk of my neck, I might sit of an evening by the peat fire of an inn
+kitchen and give the law to my neighbour. I might have a little
+country parsonage all trailed over with roses, and leisure to ensure
+preferment by my studies and enjoy the wisdom of my Latin friend
+Tully. I might have a wife, too,' he added, 'and maybe half a score of
+children to plague me out of my five wits with their rogueries.'
+
+He fetched up a sigh as he ended which would have done credit to my
+Lady Oxford; and Wogan, seeing his friend in this unwonted pother, was
+minded to laugh him out of it.
+
+'And a credit to your cloth you would have been,' says he. 'Why, it's
+a bottle you would have taken into the pulpit with you, and a mighty
+big tumbler to measure your discourse by. Indeed there would have been
+but one point of resemblance between yourself and your worthier
+brethren, and that's the number of times you turned your glass upside
+down before you came to an end.'
+
+Kelly, however, was not to be diverted from his melancholy. The
+picture of the parsonage was too vivid on the canvas of his desires.
+And since he dreamed of one impossibility, no doubt he went a step
+further and dreamed of another besides. No doubt his picture of the
+parsonage showed the figure of the parson's wife, and no doubt the
+parson's wife was very like to my Lady Oxford.
+
+Wogan, though he had laughed, was, to tell the truth, somewhat
+disturbed, and began to reckon up how much he was himself to blame for
+setting Kelly's thoughts towards her ladyship. He had not thought that
+his friend had taken the woman so much to heart. But whenever the
+Parson fell a dreaming of a quiet life and the cure of souls, it was a
+sure sign the world was going very ill with him.
+
+'I would have you remember, George,' said Wogan, 'that not so long ago
+I saw you stand up before a certain company in Paris and cry out with
+an honest--ay, an honest passion, "May nothing come between the Cause
+and me!"
+
+Kelly flushed as his words were recalled to him and turned his head
+away. Wogan held out his hand.
+
+'George, am I then to understand that something has come between the
+Cause and you?' And he had to repeat the question before he got an
+answer. Then Kelly turned back.
+
+'Understand nothing, Nick, but that I am a fool,' he cried heartily,
+and slapped his hand into Wogan's. 'True, the Cause, the Cause,' he
+muttered to himself once or twice. After all, Nick,' he said, 'we have
+got the old man's assurance. My Lord Oxford will lend a hand. We have
+not failed the Cause.' And they did not speak again until they drove
+into Worcester. Then Kelly turned to Nick with a sad sort of smile.
+
+'Well, have you nothing to say to me? 'said he.
+
+Mr. Wogan could discover nothing to say until he had stepped out of
+the chaise at the post-house and was shaking his friend's hand. Then
+he delivered himself of the soundest piece of philosophy imaginable.
+
+'Woman,' he said, 'is very much like a jelly-fish--very pretty and
+pink and transparent to look at, but with a devil of a sting if you
+touch it.'
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VII
+
+ LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU HAS A WORD
+ TO SAY ABOUT SMILINDA
+
+
+From Worcester Nicholas Wogan made his way to Bristol, and, taking
+passage there on a brigantine bound for Havre-de-Grace with a cargo of
+linen, got safely over into France. He travelled forthwith to Paris
+that he might put himself at the disposition of General Dillon, and,
+being commanded to supper some few days after his arrival by the Duke
+of Mar, saw a familiar swarthy face nodding cheerily at him across the
+table. The lady was embrowned with the Eastern sun, and, having lost
+her eye-lashes by that disease which she fought so manfully to
+conquer, her eyes were fierce and martial. It was indeed the face of
+the redoubtable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, sister to the Duchess of
+Mar, who chanced to be passing through Paris on her travels from
+Constantinople. Wogan remembered that Mr. Kelly's rustic friend at
+Brampton Bryan had spoken of Lady Mary with considerable spleen. And
+since he began to harbour doubts of her rusticity, he determined to
+seek some certain information from Lady Mary.
+
+Lady Mary was for a wonder in a most amiable mood, and had more than
+one question to put concerning 'Kelly as the Bishop that was to be
+when your King came to his own.'
+
+'Why, madam, he has a new friend,' said Wogan.
+
+Lady Mary maybe caught a suspicion of uneasiness in Wogan's tone. She
+cocked her head whimsically.
+
+'A woman?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Who?'
+
+'My Lady Oxford.'
+
+Lady Mary made a round O of her lips, drew in a breath, and blew it
+out again.
+
+'There go the lawn-sleeves.'
+
+Wogan took a seat by her side.
+
+'Why?'
+
+Lady Mary shrugged her shoulders.
+
+'In what esteem is she held?' continued Wogan, 'of what character is
+she?'
+
+'I could never hear,' returned Lady Mary carelessly. 'For her friends
+always stopped abruptly when they chanced upon her character, and the
+rest was merely pursed lips and screwed-up eyes, which it would be the
+unfairest thing in the world to translate in her disfavour. Her
+character, Mr. Wogan, is a tender and delicate plant. It will not grow
+under glass, but in a dark room, where I believe it flourishes most
+invisibly.'
+
+Lady Mary seemed ill-disposed to pursue the topic, and began to talk
+of her journey and the great things she had seen at Constantinople.
+Wogan waited until she came to a pause, and then stepped in with
+another question.
+
+'Is Lady Oxford political?'
+
+'Lady Oxford! Lady Oxford!' she repeated almost pettishly. 'Upon my
+word, the woman has infected you. You can speak of nothing else.
+Political?' and she laughed maliciously. 'That she is, and on both
+sides. She changes her party more often than an ambitious statesman.
+For politics to my Lady Oxford are just pawns in the great game of
+Love.'
+
+'Oh, Love,' exclaimed Wogan, with a recollection of Mr. Scrope. 'Is
+Love her quarry?'
+
+'She will play cat to any man's mouse,' returned Lady Mary
+indifferently.
+
+'And there are many mice?'
+
+Lady Mary shrugged her shoulders and made no reply. However, Wogan's
+appetite for information was only whetted, and to provoke Lady Mary to
+speak more freely he made an inventory of Lady Oxford's charms. He
+dwelt on her attractions. Lady Mary played with her fan, pulled
+savagely at the feathers, opened it, shut it up, while Wogan
+discoursed serenely on item--a dark eye, big, with a glint of light in
+it like sunshine through a thundercloud. Lady Mary laughed scornfully.
+Wogan went on to item--a profusion of blackish-brown hair, very silky,
+with a gloss, and here and there a gold thread in the brown; item--a
+Barbary shape; item--an admirable instep and a most engaging ankle.
+
+'It would look very pretty in the stocks,' Lady Mary snapped out.
+
+Wogan shook his head with a knowing air.
+
+''Twould slip out.'
+
+'Not if I had the locking of it in,' she exclaimed with a vicious
+stamp of the foot, and rose, as though to cross the room.
+
+'I have omitted the lady's most adorable merit,' said Wogan
+thoughtfully. Lady Mary was altogether human, and did not cross the
+room.
+
+'She has the greatest affection for your ladyship. She spoke of your
+ladyship indeed in quite unmeasured terms, and while praising your
+ladyship's wit would not have it that one single spark was due to the
+cleverness of your ladyship's friends. Upon that point she was most
+strenuous.'
+
+Lady Mary sat down again. The stroke had evidently told.
+
+'I am most grateful to her,' she said, 'and when did Lady Oxford show
+such a sweet condescension towards me?'
+
+'But a few weeks ago at Brampton Bryan, where she was nursing her
+husband with an assiduous devotion.'
+
+'I have known her show the like devotion before, when her losses at
+cards have driven her from London.'
+
+'So she gambles?' inquired Wogan. 'Altogether, then, a dangerous
+friend for George.'
+
+Lady Mary nodded.
+
+'Particularly for George,' said she with a smile. 'For observe, she is
+compact of wiles, and so is most dangerous to an honest man. She is at
+once insatiable in her desires, and implacable if they are not
+fulfilled. She is always in love, and knows nothing of what the word
+means. She is tender at times, but only through caprice; she is never
+faithful except for profit or lack of occasion to be anything else.
+Coquetry is the abiding principle of her nature, and her virtue merely
+a habit of hiding her coquetry. Her mind is larded with affectations
+as is her face with paint, and once or twice she has been known to
+weep--when tears were likely to deceive a man. There, Mr. Wogan, you
+have her likeness, and I trust you are satisfied.'
+
+It was not a character very much to Wogan's liking (Lady Mary, he
+learned later, was quoting from a manuscript 'portrait' of her own
+designing), though he drew a spice of comfort from the thought that
+Lady Mary might have coloured the effigy with her unmistakable enmity.
+But events proved that she had not over-coloured it, and even at that
+time Lady Oxford had no better reputation than Lady Mary Wortley
+attributed to her. The ballad-makers called her gallant, and they did
+her no wrong--the ballad-makers of the _ruelles_, be it understood,
+not they of the streets, but such poets as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
+herself and his Grace Sophia of Wharton.[1] The street-singers knew
+not Lady Oxford, who, indeed, was on the top of the fashion, and could
+hold her own in the war of written verses. It was in truth to her
+ability to give as good as she took in the matter of ballads that she
+owed Lady Mary's hostility, who had no taste for the counter-stroke.
+There were many such daring Penthesileas of the pen who never gave
+each other quarter; but neither Wogan nor the Parson were at this time
+in their secrets, although subsequently a ballad, not from Lady Mary's
+pen, was to have an astonishing effect upon their fortunes.
+
+
+---------------------
+
+Footnote 1: Sophia, a nickname of the _Duke_ of Wharton.
+
+---------------------
+
+
+'Your ladyship can help me to make the best of it, at all events,'
+said Wogan. 'Since you have told me so much, will you tell me this one
+thing more? Have you ever heard of Mr. Scrope?'
+
+'Scrope? Scrope?' said she casting about in her recollections. Wogan
+told her the story of Mr. Scrope's appearance at Brampton Bryan, and
+the explanation which Lady Oxford had given to account for it. Lady
+Mary laughed heartily.
+
+'Secretary to Mr. Walpole?' she said. 'And how, then, did he come to
+hear that mad sermon of Mr. Kelly's at Dublin?'
+
+'Sure I have been puzzled to account for that myself,' says Wogan.
+'But who is he? Where does he come from? What brought him to Brampton
+Bryan? What took him away in such a mighty hurry? For upon my word I
+find it difficult to believe the man's a coward.'
+
+'And you are in the right,' replied her ladyship. 'I know something of
+Mr. Scrope, and I will wager it was no cowardice made him run. I doubt
+you have not seen the last of Mr. Scrope. It is a passionate,
+determined sort of creature. He came to London a year or so agone. It
+was understood that he was a country gentleman with a comfortable
+estate in Leicestershire. He had laid his estate at Lady Oxford's
+feet, before she was as yet her ladyship. Lady Oxford would have it,
+and then would have none of it, and married the Earl. Well, he had
+been her valet for a season, and, I have no doubt, thought the service
+worth any price. She gave him her fan to hold, her gloves to caress,
+and what more can a man want? He spent much of his money, and some
+whisper that he turned informer afterwards.'
+
+'Oh, did he?' asked Wogan, who was now yet more concerned that he had
+let the informer slip through his fingers.
+
+'Yes. An informer for conscience' sake--a gentleman spy. His father
+died for Monmouth's affair. He has ever hated the Pretender and his
+cause. He is a Protestant and a fanatic.'
+
+Then she looked at Wogan and began to laugh.
+
+'I would have given much to have seen you bouncing down the road after
+Mr. Scrope's chaise,' and she added seriously, 'But I doubt you have
+not heard the last of Mr. Scrope.'
+
+That also was Wogan's thought. For Lady Mary's story, though vague
+enough, was sufficiently clear to deepen his disquietude. Well, Mr.
+Wogan would get no comfort by the mere addling his brains with
+thinking of the matter, and he thrust it forth of his mind and went
+upon his way, that led him clean out of the path of this story for a
+while. He was despatched to Cadiz to take charge of a ship, and, in
+company with Captain Galloway of the _Resolution_, who was afterwards
+seized at Genoa, and Morgan, of the _Lady Mary_, he spent much
+fruitless time in cruising on and off the coasts of France, Spain, and
+Sweden. It was given out that they carried snuff, or were engaged in
+the Madagascar trade. But they took no cargoes aboard but barrels of
+powder and stands of arms, and waited on the Rising, which never came.
+There were weeks idled away at Morlaix, at Roscoff in Brittany, at
+Lisbon in Portugal, at Alicant Bay in Spain, until Wogan's heart grew
+sick with impatience. At rare times, when the venture wore a face of
+promise, the little fleet would run the hazard of the Channel and
+creep along the English coast, from Dartmouth, across the West Bay to
+Portland, from Portland on to the Isle of Wight. Mr. Wogan would pace
+the deck of his little ketch, _Fortune_, of a night, and as he looked
+at the quiet fields lying dark beneath the sky, would wonder how the
+world wagged for his friend the Parson, and whether my Lady Oxford was
+shaping it or no, until a longing would seize on him to drop a boat
+into the water and himself into the boat, and row ashore and see. But
+it was not for more than a full twelve months that his longing was
+fulfilled, and during those twelve months the harm was done.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VIII
+
+ MR. KELLY HAS AN ADVENTURE AT A MASQUERADE
+ BALL
+
+
+For the greater part of that year Mr. Kelly simply went about his
+business. He travelled backwards and forwards from General Dillon,
+Lord Lansdowne, the Duke of Mar, in Paris, to the Bishop of Rochester,
+in London, and from the Bishop to the others of the five who
+mismanaged the Chevalier's affairs in England, Lord Arran, Lord
+Strafford, Lord North and Grey, Lord Orrery, and last, though not
+least, the Earl of Oxford. Thus business brought him more than once
+knocking again at the doors of Brampton Bryan Manor, though he did not
+always find her ladyship at home to welcome him. On such occasions he
+found the great house very desolate for the want of her footstep and
+her voice, and so would pull out his watch and fall to wondering what
+at that precise moment she was engaged upon in town.
+
+Thus things dallied, then, until a warm wet night of summer in the
+year 1720. Mr. Kelly was in London and betook himself to His Majesty's
+Theatre in Drury Lane, where he witnessed a farce which was very much
+to his taste. It was entitled 'South-Sea; or the Biter Bit,' and was
+happy not merely in its quips, but in the moment of its performance.
+For the King, or, as the honest party called him, the Elector, and his
+lords had sold out, and were off to Germany with their plunder, and
+the stocks were falling by hundreds every week. Mr. Kelly might well
+laugh at the sallies on the stage and the wry faces with which the pit
+and boxes received them. For he had recently sold out his actions in
+the Mississippi scheme at a profit of 1,200 per cent., and had his
+money safe locked up at Mr. Child's, the goldsmith. Kelly's, however,
+was not a mere wanton pleasure. For the floating of the bubble out of
+reach meant a very solid change in the Jacobite prospects. So long as
+the South-Sea scheme prospered and all the town grew wealthy, there
+would be no talk of changing kings and no chance for Mr. Kelly's
+friends. That great and patriotic bishop whom he served, my Lord of
+Rochester, had said to him this many a month past, 'Let 'em forget
+their politics, let 'em all run mad in Change Alley, and the madder
+the better. For the funds will fall and be the ruin of thousands, and
+when England is sunk into a salutary wretchedness and discontent, then
+our opportunity will come.'
+
+It was altogether, then, in a very good humour that Mr. Kelly left the
+theatre. The night was young, and he disinclined for his lodgings. He
+strolled across to the Groom Porters, in White Hall, where his spirits
+were mightily increased. For taking a hand there at Bassette, in three
+deals he won nine rich septlevas, and, for once, did not need the
+money, and when he left the Groom Porters his pockets were heavy with
+gold, and his head swimming with the fumes of punch.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that those same fumes of punch floated
+Lady Oxford into Mr. Kelly's mind. He swaggered up St. James's Street
+with her ladyship consequently riding atop of his bemused fancies. It
+was a gay hour in St. James's, being then about half past one of the
+morning. Music rippled out of windows open on the night. Kelly heard
+the dice rattle within and the gold clink on the green cloth; lovers
+were whispering on the balconies; the world seemed to be going very
+well for those who had not their money in the Bubble, and for no one
+better than for Mr. Kelly. He looked about him, if by chance he might
+catch a glimpse of his divinity among the ladies of fashion as he
+watched them getting into their chairs, pushing their hoops sidelong
+before them, and the flambeaux flaring on their perfections. He
+imagined himself a Paladin rescuing her from innumerable foes. She was
+an angel, a sprite, a Hamadryad, in fact everything tender and
+immaterial.
+
+He was roused from these dreams by an illumination of more than
+ordinary brilliancy, and looking up saw that he had wandered to the
+theatre in the Haymarket. A ragged crowd of pickpockets and the like
+was gathered about the portico. Carriages and chairs set down in quick
+succession, ladies in dominoes, gentlemen in masks. Mr. Kelly
+remembered that it was a night of the masquerades; all the world would
+be gathered in the theatre, and why not Lady Oxford, who was herself
+the better half of it? Kelly had a ticket in his pocket, pushed
+through the loiterers, and stood on the inner rim of the crowd
+watching the masqueraders arrive. Every carriage that drew up surely
+concealed her ladyship, every domino that passed up the steps hid her
+incomparable figure. Mr. Kelly had staked his soul with unruffled
+confidence upon her identity with each of the first twelve women who
+thus descended before he realised that he was not the only one who
+waited. From the spot where he stood he could see into the lobby of
+the theatre. Heidegger, M. le surintendant des plaisirs du Roi de
+l'Angleterre,
+
+
+ 'With a hundred deep wrinkles impressed on his front,
+ Like a map with a great many rivers upon 't,'
+
+
+was receiving the more important of his guests. The guests filed past
+him into the parterre, Heidegger remained. But another man loitered
+ever in the lobby too. He was evidently expecting someone, and that
+with impatience. For as each coach or chaise drew up he peered eagerly
+forward; as it delivered its occupants he turned discontentedly away.
+It is perhaps doubtful whether Mr. Kelly would have paid him any great
+attention but for his dress, which arrested all eyes and caused the
+more tender of the ladies who passed him to draw their cloaks closer
+about them with a gesture of disgust. For he was attired to represent
+a headsman, being from head to foot in black, with a crape mask upon
+his face and a headsman's axe in his hand. He had carried his
+intention out with such thoroughness, moreover, that he had daubed his
+doublet and hose with red.
+
+Mr. Kelly was in a mood to be charmed by everything strange and
+eccentric, and the presence of this bloodsmeared executioner at a
+masquerade seemed to him a piece of the most delicate drollery.
+Moreover, the executioner was waiting like Mr. Kelly, and with a like
+anxiety. Mr. Kelly had a fellow-feeling for him in his impatience
+which prompted him suddenly to run up the steps and accost him.
+
+'Like me, you are doubtless waiting for your aunt,' said the Parson
+courteously.
+
+The impulse, the movement, the words had all been the matter of a
+second; but the executioner was more than naturally startled, as Mr.
+Kelly might have perceived had he possessed his five wits. For the man
+leaped rather than stepped back; he gave a gasp; his hand gripped
+tight about the handle of his axe. Then he stepped close to Kelly.
+
+'You know me?' he said. The voice was muffled, the accent one of
+menace. Kelly noticed neither the voice nor the menace. He bowed with
+ceremony.
+
+'Without a doubt. You are M. de Strasbourg.'
+
+The headsman laughed abruptly like a man relieved.
+
+'You and I,' he returned, mimicking Kelly's politeness of manner,
+'will be better acquainted in the future.'
+
+Kelly was overjoyed with the rejoinder. 'Here's a devil of a fellow
+for you,' he cried, and with his elbow nudged Heidegger in the ribs.
+Heidegger was at that moment bent to the ground before the Duchess of
+Wharton, and nearly stumbled over her Grace's train. He turned in a
+passion as soon as the Duchess had passed.
+
+'Vas you do dat for dam?' he said all in a breath. Kelly however was
+engaged in contemplating the executioner. He ran his thumb along the
+edge of the axe.
+
+'It is cruelly blunt,' said he.
+
+'You need not fear,' returned the other. 'For your worship is only
+entitled to a cord.'
+
+'Oh, so you know me,' says Kelly, stepping close to the executioner.
+
+'Without a doubt,' replied the latter, stepping back, 'Monsieur le
+Marchand de dentelles.'
+
+It was Kelly's turn to be startled, and that he was effectually; he
+was shocked into a complete recovery of his senses and an accurate
+estimation of his folly. He walked to the entrance and stood upon the
+steps. The executioner knew him, knew something of his trade. Who,
+then, was M. de Strasbourg? Kelly recalled the tones of his voice,
+conned them over in his mind, and was not a penny the wiser. He
+glanced backwards furtively across his shoulder and looked the man
+over from head to foot.
+
+At that moment a carriage drove up to the entrance. Mr. Kelly was
+standing on the top of the steps and the face of the coachman on the
+box was just on a level with his own. He stared, in a word, right at
+it, and so took unconsciously an impression of it upon his mind, while
+pondering how he should act with regard to M. de Strasbourg.
+Consequently he did not notice that a woman stepped out of the
+carriage and, without looking to the right or left, quickly mounted
+the steps. His eyes, in fact, were still fixed upon the coachman's
+face; and it needed the brushing of her cloak against his legs to
+rouse him from his reflections.
+
+He turned about just as she disappeared at the far end of the lobby.
+He caught a glimpse of a white velvet cloak and an inch of blue satin
+petticoat under a muffling domino. He also saw that M. de Strasbourg
+was drawn close behind a pillar, as though he wished to avoid the
+lady. As soon, however, as she had vanished he came boldly out of his
+concealment and followed her into the theatre. Mr. Kelly began
+instantly to wonder whether a closer view of the domino would help him
+discover who M. de Strasbourg really was, and entering the theatre he
+went up into the boxes.
+
+At first his eyes were bedazzled by the glitter of lights and jewels
+and the motley throng which paraded the floor. There was the usual
+medley of Chinese, Turks, and friars; here was a gentleman above six
+feet high dressed like a child in a white frock and leading strings
+and attended by another of very low stature, who fed him from time to
+time with a papspoon; there was a soldier prancing a minuet upon a
+hobby horse to the infinite discomfort of his neighbours; and as for
+the women--it seemed to Mr. Kelly that all the goddesses of the
+heathen mythology had come down from Olympia in their customary
+neglige.
+
+Among them moved M. de Strasbourg like a black shadow, very
+distinguishable. Kelly kept his eyes in the man's neighbourhood, and
+in a little perceived a masked lady with her hair dressed in the Greek
+fashion. What character she was intended to represent he could not for
+the life of him determine. He learnt subsequently that she went as
+Iphigeneia--Iphigeneia, if you please, in a blue satin petticoat. To
+be sure her bosom was bared for the sacrifice, but then all the ladies
+in that assembly were in the like case. She had joined a party of
+friends, of whom M. de Strasbourg was not one. For though he kept her
+ever within his sight, following her hither and thither, it was always
+at a distance; and, so far as Kelly could see, and he did not take his
+eyes from the pair, he never spoke to her so much as a single word. On
+the contrary he seemed rather to lurk behind and avoid her notice.
+Kelly's curiosity was the more provoked by this stealthy pursuit. He
+lost his sense of uneasiness in a wonder what the man designed against
+the woman. He determined to wait the upshot of the affair.
+
+The night wore away, the masqueraders thinned. The inch of blue satin
+petticoat took her departure from the parterre. M. de Strasbourg
+followed her; Mr. Kelly followed M. de Strasbourg.
+
+The lobby was crowded. Kelly threaded his way through the crowd and
+came out upon the steps. He saw the lady, close wrapped again in her
+velvet cloak, descend to her carriage. The coachman gathered up his
+reins and took his whip from its rest. The movement chanced to attract
+Kelly's eyes. He looked at the coachman, at the first glance
+indifferently, at the second with all his attention. For this was not
+the same man who had driven the carriage to the masquerade. And then
+the coachman turned his full face towards Kelly and nodded. He nodded
+straight towards him. But was the nod meant for him? No! Well, then,
+for someone just behind his shoulder.
+
+Kelly did not turn, but stepped quietly aside and saw M. de Strasbourg
+slip past him down the steps. So the nod was meant for him. M. de
+Strasbourg was still masked, but he had thrown a cloak about his
+shoulders which in some measure disguised his dress. The mystery
+seemed clear to Kelly; the lady was to be forcibly abducted unless
+someone, say Mr. James Johnson, had a word to say upon the matter. The
+carriage turned and drove slowly through the press of chairs and
+shouting link-boys; M. de Strasbourg on the side-walk kept pace with
+the carriage. Kelly immediately crossed the road, and, concealed by
+the carriage, kept pace with M. de Strasbourg. Thus they went as far
+as the corner of the Haymarket, and then turned into Pall Mall.
+
+At this point Kelly, to be the more ready should the lady need his
+assistance, stepped off the pavement and walked in the mud hard by the
+hind wheels of the carriage. It was now close upon four of the
+morning, but, fortunately, very dark, and only a sullen sort of
+twilight about the south-eastern fringes of the sky.
+
+In Pall Mall the carriages were fewer, but the coachman did not
+quicken his pace, doubtless out of regard for M. de Strasbourg, and at
+the corner of Pall Mall, where the road was quite empty, he jerked the
+horses to a standstill. Instantly M. de Strasbourg ran across the road
+to the carriage, the coachman bent over on that side to watch, and Mr.
+Kelly, on the other side, ran forward to the box. M. de Strasbourg
+wrenched open the door and jumped into the carriage. Mr. Kelly heard a
+woman's scream and sprang on to the box. The coachman turned with a
+start. Before he could shout, before he could speak, Kelly showed him
+a pistol (for he went armed) under the man's nose.
+
+'One word,' said Kelly, 'and I will break your ugly face in with the
+stock of that, my friend.'
+
+The woman screamed again; M. de Strasbourg thrust his head out of the
+window.
+
+'Go on,' he shouted with an oath, 'you know where. At a gallop! Kill
+the horses, they are not mine! Flog 'em to death so you go but fast
+enough.'
+
+'To the right,' said Kelly, quietly.
+
+The man whipped up the horses. They started at a gallop up St. James's
+Street.
+
+'To the right,' again whispered Kelly.
+
+The carriage turned into Ryder Street, rocking on its wheels. M. de
+Strasbourg's head was again thrust from the window.
+
+'That's not the way. Are you drunk, man?--are you drunk?' he cried.
+
+'To the left,' says Kelly, imperturbably, and fingered the lock of the
+pistol a little.
+
+The carriage swung into Bury Street.
+
+'Stop,' said Kelly.
+
+The coachman reined in his horses; the carriage stopped with a jerk.
+
+'Where in the devil's name have you taken us?' cried M. de Strasbourg,
+opening the door.
+
+Kelly sprang to the ground, ran round the carriage to the open door.
+
+'To the Marchand de dentelles, M. de Strasbourg,' said he with a bow.
+'I have some most elegant pieces of _point d'Alencon_ for the lady's
+inspection.'
+
+M. de Strasbourg was utterly dumbfounded. He staggered back against
+the panels of the carriage; his mouth opened and shut; it seemed there
+was no language sufficiently chaotic to express his discomposure. At
+last:
+
+'You are a damned impudent fellow,' he gasped out in a weak sort of
+quaver.
+
+'Am I?' asked Kelly. 'Shall we ask the lady?'
+
+He peeped through the door. The lady was huddled up in a corner--an
+odd heap of laces, silks, and furbelows, but with never a voice in all
+the confusion. It seemed she had fainted.
+
+Meanwhile M. de Strasbourg turned on the unfortunate coachman.
+
+'Get down, you rascal,' he cried; 'you have been bribed, you're in the
+fellow's pay. Get down! Not a farthing will you get from me, but only
+a thrashing that will make your bones ache this month to come.'
+
+'Your honour,' replied the coachman piteously, 'it was not my fault.
+He offered to kill me unless I drove you here.'
+
+M. de Strasbourg in a rage flung back to Kelly. He clapped a hand on
+his shoulder and plucked him from the carriage door.
+
+'So you offered to kill him, did you?' he said. 'Perhaps you will make
+a like offer to me. But I'll not wait for the offer.'
+
+He unclasped his cloak, drew his sword (happily not his axe) and
+delivered his thrust with that rapidity it seemed all one motion. Mr.
+Kelly jumped on one side, and the sword just gleamed against his
+sleeve. M. de Strasbourg overbalanced himself and stumbled a foot or
+two forwards. Kelly had whipped out his sword by the time that M. de
+Strasbourg had recovered, and a battle began which was whimsical
+enough. A quiet narrow street, misty with the grey morning, the
+carriage lamps throwing here a doubtful shadow, a masked headsman
+leaping, swearing, thrusting in an extreme passion, and, to crown the
+business, the coachman lamenting on the box that whichever honourable
+gentleman was killed he would most surely go wanting his hire, he that
+had a woeful starving family! Mr. Kelly, indeed, felt the strongest
+inclination to laugh, but dared not, so hotly was he pressed. The
+attack, however, he did not return, but contented himself with
+parrying the thrusts. His design, indeed, reached at no more than the
+mere disarming of M. de Strasbourg. M. de Strasbourg, however, lost
+even his last remnants of patience.
+
+'Rascal!' he cried. 'Scullion! Grasshopper!'
+
+Then he threw his hat at Kelly and missed, and at last flung his
+periwig full in Kelly's face, accompanying the present with a thrust
+home which his opponent barely parried.
+
+It was this particular action which brought the contest to a grotesque
+conclusion quite in keeping with its beginnings. For the periwig
+tumbled in the mud, and the coachman, assured that he would get no
+stiver of his hire, scrambled down from his box, rushed at a prize of
+so many pounds in value, picked it up and took to his heels.
+
+M. de Strasbourg uttered a cry and leaped backwards out of reach.
+
+'Stop!' he bawled to the coachman. The coachman only ran the quicker.
+M. de Strasbourg passed his hand over his shaven crown and looked at
+the carriage. It was quite impossible to abduct a lady without a
+periwig to his head. He swore, he stamped, he shouted 'Stop!' once
+more, and then dashed at full speed past Kelly in pursuit.
+
+Kelly made no effort to prevent him, but gave way to his inclination
+and laughed. The coachman threw a startled glance over his shoulder
+and, seeing that M. de Strasbourg pressed after him, quickened his
+pace; behind him rushed a baldheaded executioner hurling imprecations.
+The pair fled, one after the other, to the top of Bury Street, turned
+the corner and disappeared. Kelly laughed till the tears ran down his
+cheeks, and leaned against the carriage.
+
+The touch of the panels recalled him to the lady's presence. The
+street was now fairly roused by the clamour. Night-capped heads peeped
+from the windows; an indignant burgher in a dressing-gown even
+threatened Mr. Kelly with a blunderbuss; and, as he turned to the door
+of the carriage, he saw Mrs. Barnes at a window on the second floor
+looking at him with an air of the gravest discontent.
+
+'Take me into shelter, good sir, at once, at once,' cried the lady
+from out the confusion of her laces, in a feigned tone of the
+masquerade.
+
+'With all my heart, madam,' said Kelly. 'This is my door, and my
+lodging is at your disposal. Only the street is fairly awake, and
+should you prefer, I will most readily drive you to your own house.'
+
+The lady looked out of the window. She was still masked so that Kelly
+could see nothing of her face, and she hesitated for a little, as if
+in doubt what answer she should make.
+
+'You may make yourself at ease, madam,' said Kelly, believing that she
+was not yet relieved of fear; 'you are in perfect safety. Our worthy
+friend had to choose between your ladyship and his periwig, of which
+he has gone in chase. And, indeed, while I deplore his taste, I cannot
+but commend his discretion.'
+
+'Very well,' she replied faintly. 'I owe you great thanks already,
+Mr.--' she paused.
+
+'Johnson,' said Kelly.
+
+'Mr. Johnson,' she replied; 'and I shall owe you yet more if you will
+drive me to my home.'
+
+She gave him the address of a house in Queen's Square, Westminster.
+Kelly mounted on the box, took up the reins, and drove off. He looked
+up, as he turned the carriage in the narrow street, towards the second
+floor of his lodging. Mrs. Barnes shook her head at him in a terrible
+concern.
+
+'I shall write and tell Mr. Wogan,' she bawled out.
+
+'Hush, Mrs. Barnes, have you no sense?' cried Kelly, and he thought
+that from within the carriage he heard a stifled peal of laughter.
+'Poor woman,' thought he, ''tis the hysterics,' and he drove to
+Queen's Square, Westminster, at a gallop.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER IX
+
+ WHEREIN THE CHIVALROUS MR. KELLY BEHAVES
+ WITH DEPLORABLE FOLLY
+
+
+Mr. Kelly did not drive very straight perhaps, but to be sure he had
+the streets entirely to himself, and he certainly hit upon Queen's
+Square. The house was unknown to him, and he drove through the square
+before he found it.
+
+It made an angle at the south corner, and was conspicuous for a solid
+family air, and a fine new statue of Queen Anne. Level windows of a
+distinguished respectability looked you over with indifference and
+said, 'Here's a house you'll take off your hat to, if you please.'
+'Faith, but those windows must have shuddered in their sashes when
+they saw the Parson driving Madam home at five o'clock of the morning
+from a masquerade ball. A sleepy footman opened the door; a no less
+sleepy maid yawned in the hall. However, they both waked up to some
+purpose when Mr. Kelly jumped down from the box, bade the footman take
+the carriage round to the stables, called the maid to attend upon
+Madam, and himself opened the carriage door. He opened it quickly with
+a thought that Madam might very likely have removed her mask, for he
+was not so tipsy but that he was curious to know who it was that he
+had befriended. Madam, however, had done nothing of the kind.
+
+'Is my lady ill?' asked the maid, hurrying forward. So Madam was a
+woman of title.
+
+'A trifle discomposed, no doubt,' answered Kelly.
+
+My lady said nothing whatever. It seemed she was unwilling to speak in
+the feigned voice before her maid, and in the natural voice before Mr.
+Kelly. She took his arm, and, leaning on it somewhat heavily, yet
+walked with a firm enough step into the hall, as Mr. Kelly could not
+but remark.
+
+The maid threw open a door on the right. It gave into a little cheery
+room with a wainscot of polished oak, and a fire blazing on the
+hearth. My lady did not release Mr. Kelly's arm, and they both stood
+in front of the fire, and no doubt found the warmth comfortable enough
+after the chill of the morning. Her ladyship, indeed, went so far as
+to untie the strings of her domino, and make as though she would turn
+it back upon her shoulders. But with a glance at Mr. Kelly, she
+changed her mind, and hugged it somewhat closer over her dress than
+before.
+
+'Were you at the masquerade, Mr. Johnson?' she asked in a low voice.
+
+Mr. Kelly took the movement and the words together, and set them down
+as mere coquetry. Now, coquetry to Kelly at that time was a challenge,
+and it was contrary to his principles of honour to remain under such a
+provocation from man or woman. So he answered:
+
+'Indeed, your ladyship, I was, to my eternal happiness. I shall dream
+of blue satin for a month to come.'
+
+Her ladyship hitched her domino a little tighter still about her neck,
+and quickly tied the strings again, but made no other reply to his
+sally. The action, while it inflamed his curiosity, put him into
+something of a quandary. Was it but another piece of coquetry, he
+asked himself, or did she indeed wish to hinder him from discovering
+who she was? He could answer neither question, but he felt
+constrained, at all events, to offer to take her concealment as a hint
+that he should depart. It seemed a pity, for the adventure promised
+well.
+
+'Your ladyship,' he said, and at that she gave a start and glanced at
+him, 'for so I understand from your maid I may address you,' he added,
+'it grows late, the world is getting on to its legs, and your ladyship
+has had an eventful night.'
+
+He took a step backwards and bowed.
+
+'No,' said she, in a sharp quick voice, and put out a hand to detain
+him. Then she stopped as quickly, and drew in her hand again.
+
+Mr. Kelly had borne himself very prettily in the little affair with M.
+de Strasbourg. Madam, in fact, was in the typical attitude of woman.
+She knew it was inconvenient to keep him, but for the life of her she
+could not let him go, wherefore she found a woman's way out of the
+trouble. For she staggered on her legs, and fainted to all appearance
+clean away, leaving matters to take their own course and shift for
+themselves. She fainted, of course, towards Mr. Kelly, who caught her
+in his arms and set her in an arm-chair. The maid, who all this while
+had been standing in the doorway, smiled. 'I will run to her
+ladyship's dressing-room for the salts,' she said, and so went out of
+the room, carefully closing the door behind her. Kelly kneeled by the
+lady's side, and taking up her fan, sought to waft her that way back
+into the world. She did not stir so much as a muscle, but lay all
+huddled up in her domino and mask. Mr. Kelly leaned over her, and so
+became aware of a penetrating perfume which breathed out from her
+dress. The perfume was bergamot.
+
+Kelly dropped the fan and sat back on his heel. The maid had called
+her 'my lady,' and bergamot was Lady Oxford's favourite perfume. What
+if it was Lady Oxford he had unwittingly rescued! The possibility
+caught his breath away. If that were only true, he thought, why, he
+had done her some slight service, and straightway a great rush of
+tenderness came upon him, which went some way to sober him. In a
+minute, however, he dropped into despondency; for Lord Oxford's house
+was in the northern part of the town, as he knew, though he had never
+as yet been there, and neither the footman nor the maid were of her
+ladyship's household. Yet, if by some miracle the lady might be
+Smilinda! She was of the right height. Mr. Kelly looked at her,
+seeking vainly to trace out the form hidden under the folds of the
+domino. But if it were Smilinda, then Smilinda had swooned.
+
+Mr. Kelly woke to this conclusion with a start of alarm. He clapped
+his hand into his pocket, pulled out his snuff-box, opened it quickly,
+and held it close beneath her ladyship's nose. The effect of the snuff
+was purely magical, for before she could have inhaled one grain of
+it--before, indeed, Mr. Kelly's box was within a foot of her face, up
+went her hands to the tie-strings of her mask.
+
+So the swoon was counterfeit.
+
+'Madam,' said Kelly, 'you interpret my desires to a nicety. It is your
+face I would see, but I did not dream of removing your mask. I did but
+offer to revive you with a pinch of snuff.'
+
+She took the box from his hand, but not to inhale the macawba.
+
+'It is for your own sake, Mr. Johnson, that I do not unmask. 'Tis like
+that I am a fright, and did you see my face you would take me for a
+pale ghost.'
+
+'Madam,' said Kelly, 'I am not afraid of ghosts, nor apt to take your
+ladyship for one of those same airy appearances. A ghost! No,' he
+cried, surveying her. 'An angel! It is only the angels in Heaven that
+wear blue satin petticoats.'
+
+The lady laughed, and checked the laugh, aware that a laugh betrays
+where a voice does not.
+
+'Ghost or angel,' she said,' a being of my sex would fain see herself
+before she is seen. 'Tis a mirror I seek.' She was still holding Mr.
+Kelly's snuff-box. It was open and within the lid a little
+looking-glass was set; and as she spoke she turned away and bent over
+it with a motion as if she was about to lift her mask.
+
+'Nay,' said Kelly abruptly; he stretched out his hand towards the
+snuff-box. 'The glass will be unfaithful, for the snuff has tarnished
+it. Madam, I beseech you, unloose that mask and turn your face to me
+and consult a truer mirror, your servant's eyes.' He spoke, perhaps,
+with a trifle more of agitation than the occasion seemed to warrant.
+Madam did indeed turn her face to Mr. Kelly, but it was in surprise at
+his agitation, and the mask still hid her face. Mr. Kelly could see no
+more than a pair of eyes blazing bright and black through the eyelet
+holes.
+
+'You are gallant, I find, as well as brave,' she said, 'unless some
+other cause prompted the words.'
+
+'What cause, madam? You wrong me.'
+
+'Why,' said she, 'you still hold out your hand.' Mr. Kelly drew it
+away quickly. 'Ah,' she continued, 'I am right. There was a reason.
+You would not have me examine your snuff-box too closely.'
+
+In that she was right, for the snuff-box was at once the dearest and
+the most dangerous of Mr. Kelly's possessions. It was a pretty toy in
+gold and tortoiseshell, with brilliants on the hinges, and had been
+given to Mr. Kelly on a certain occasion when he had been presented to
+his king at Avignon. For that reason, and for another, he was mightily
+loth to let it out of his possession. What that other reason was Madam
+very soon discovered.
+
+'It is a dangerous toy,' she said. 'It has perhaps a secret to tell?'
+
+'Madam, has not your mask?' returned Kelly.
+
+'There is a mystery behind the mirror.'
+
+'Well, then, it's mystery for mystery.'
+
+For all that he spoke lightly he was in some uneasiness. For the lady
+might not be Smilinda, and her fingers played deftly about the setting
+of the mirror, touching a stone here and there. To be sure she wore
+gloves, and was the less likely therefore to touch the spring. But
+give her time enough--however, at that moment Kelly heard the maid's
+footsteps in the hall. He stepped to the door at once and opened it.
+
+'You have the salts?' he asked. 'You have been the deuce of a time
+finding them.'
+
+The maid stared at him.
+
+'But her ladyship fainted,' she argued.
+
+'Well,' said he, 'wasn't that why you went for the salts?'
+
+'To be sure,' says she. ''Twas an order to go for the salts.'
+
+She pushed open the door. My lady was still fingering the box. The
+maid paid no attention to the box, but she looked at my lady's mask;
+from the mask she looked towards Kelly with a shrug of the shoulders,
+which said 'Zany' as plain as writing.
+
+Kelly had no thoughts to spare for the maid.
+
+'Madam,' he said, 'here is your maid, to whose attentions I may leave
+you.'
+
+He advanced, made a bow, took up his hat, held out his hand for his
+snuff-box.
+
+'But I cannot let you go,' she answered, 'without I thank you'--all
+the time she was running her fingers here and there for the spring.
+Kelly noticed, too, with some anxiety, that while he had gone to the
+door she had made use of the occasion to strip off her glove--'and
+thank you fitly, as I should have done ere this. But the trouble I was
+in has made me backward.'
+
+'Nay, madam,' said Kelly impatiently, and taking a step nearer, 'there
+is no need for thanks. No man could have done less.'
+
+Her ladyship's fingers travelled faster in their vain attempt.
+
+'But you risked your life!' said she in admiration.
+
+'It is worth very little,' said he with a touch of disdain; 'and,
+madam, I keep you from your bed.'
+
+The maid turned her eyes up to the ceiling, and then Madam by chance
+pressed on a diamond which loosed a hidden spring; the glass in the
+snuff-box flew down and showed a painting of the Chevalier in
+miniature.
+
+'Oh!' cried my lady with a start in which, perhaps, there was a trace
+of affectation. Then she turned to the maid and bade her bring some
+wine and glasses. She spoke quickly, now forgetting for the moment to
+disguise her voice. Mr. Kelly recognized it with absolute certainty.
+The voice was Smilinda's.
+
+The maid went out of the door. Kelly looked at the lady, and seeing
+that she was seemingly engrossed in the contemplation of the little
+picture, stole after the maid.
+
+'Betty!' he called in a whisper.
+
+'Sir? 'she asked, coming to a stop.
+
+He took a crown from his pocket, spun it in the air, and caught it.
+
+'The Margout,' said he, 'will doubtless be more difficult to discover
+than the salts,' he suggested.
+
+'It might indeed be necessary to go down to the cellar,' she replied
+readily.
+
+'And that would take time,' said Kelly, handing her the crown.
+
+'It would take an entire crown's worth,' said the maid, pocketing the
+coin.
+
+Kelly slipped back into the room.
+
+The lady seemed not to have noticed Mr. Kelly's absence, so fondly did
+she study the portrait; but none the less, no sooner had he closed the
+door than she cried out, not by any means to him but in a sort of
+ecstasy, '_Le Roi!_' Then she hid the snuff-box suddenly and glanced
+with a shudder round the room. The panic was altogether misplaced,
+since there could be no other person in the room except the owner of
+the box, who, if her ladyship was guilty for admiring, was ten
+thousand times more so for possessing it.
+
+She caught with her hand at her heart when she perceived Mr. Kelly,
+then her eyes smiled from out of her mask, as though in the extremity
+of her alarm she had forgotten who he was, and so fell back in her
+chair with an air of languor, breathing deep and quick.
+
+'Upon my word, I fear, Mr. Johnson,' she said, 'that if I have escaped
+one danger by your help I have fallen into another. You seem to me to
+be a man of dangerous company.'
+
+'Indeed I find it so when I am with you, madam, since you discover my
+secrets and show me nothing of your own,' replied Kelly.
+
+The maid it appears, had no less perversity than her mistress, for
+precisely at this moment she rapped on the door, and without waiting
+for any answer sharply entered the room, bearing the wine and glasses
+on a salver. There was a distance of three yards between Kelly and her
+ladyship. The maid measured the distance with her eyes, and her face
+showed some disappointment. Her ladyship dismissed her, filled both
+the glasses and took one in her hand. Mr. Kelly drained the other, and
+the bumper carried off the remnant of his brains.
+
+'You run no danger from my knowing your secret, Mr. Johnson,' said
+she, 'for--'
+
+Breaking off her sentence, she turned her head aside, swiftly pushed
+up her mask and kissed the portrait in the box, stooping her fragrant
+hair over it. Mr. Kelly, speeded by the wine, was this time too quick
+for her ladyship. Before she could raise her face he had paid the same
+compliment to her lips as she to his Majesty. She lifted her head with
+a bewitching air of anger.
+
+'Lady Oxford!' he cried out as if in amazement, since he had bottomed
+the mystery for now some time. 'Forgive me, madam, if my hasty loyalty
+to my Sovereign prevented me from recognising his latest adherent. The
+Cause must now infallibly triumph.'
+
+'Sir,' she began, looking up at him with her eyes melting from anger
+to reproach, 'your apology is something graceless. For though my
+colour be gone'--it was only the worse or artificial part of her
+matchless complexion which the mask had rubbed off--'you yet had time
+to know and respect a face you--'and then she came suddenly to a stop,
+as she untied the strings of her domino and threw it back from her
+shoulders. 'You blame me,' she said pitifully. Her ladyship was a
+ready woman, and even went more than half-way to meet an attack. At
+Brampton Bryan the talk had been of duty and the charms of a rustic
+life; but here the dutiful country wife, violently disarrayed in the
+extreme of fashion, had been alone to a masquerade ball and Mr. Kelly
+might conceive himself tricked. And so 'You blame me,' she said, 'you
+blame me even as you blamed me at Brampton Bryan, and with no more
+justice.'
+
+'At Brampton Bryan!' exclaimed Kelly suddenly.
+
+'M. de Strasbourg! M. de Strasbourg was Scrope.'
+
+Her ladyship nodded.
+
+'And 'twas he attacked _you_--would have carried you off.'
+
+Her ladyship shivered.
+
+'And I let him go. Curse me! I let him go even as Nick did. But the
+third time! Oh, only let the third time come.'
+
+Her ladyship shook her head with the most weariful resignation.
+
+'It will come too late, that third time,' she said; 'too late for me.
+I have no husband who can protect me, and no friend so kind as to
+serve me in his place.'
+
+'Nay, madam,' cried Kelly, instantly softened by the lonely picture
+which her words called up in his mind. She was transfigured all at
+once into Una, Andromeda, Ariadne, or any other young woman of great
+beauty and virtue who has ever been left desolate to face a wintry
+world. 'Believe me, you have one friend whose only aspiration is to
+serve you with his life-blood. 'Faith, madam, had you but shown me
+your face when first I came to the door of your carriage, I would
+never have let M. de Strasbourg run away until I had offered you his
+smoking heart on the point of my sword.'
+
+Her ladyship gave the Parson to understand that she had gone to the
+ball on the King's service. Had his brain been of its customary
+sobriety the adventure would doubtless have surprised him more than it
+did. He might have questioned the nature of the service which took her
+ladyship to the masquerade. But she had sufficient art to tell him
+nothing and persuade him that she told all. Moreover, he had other
+matters to engage him.
+
+There is no need to extend more particularly the old story of a young
+man's folly with a woman of Lady Oxford's kind. She had sought to hide
+who she was, she said, because she dared not trust herself; and the
+fact that she was not living in her own house, which was being
+repaired, but in one that she had borrowed, with the servants, from a
+friend who had gone to the Bath, seemed to make her intention
+possible. But Heaven had been against her. Mr. Kelly was readily
+beguiled into the sincere opinion that she had fought against her
+passion, but that her weakness and his transcendent bravery, of which
+she would by no means allow him to make light, had proved her ruin. It
+was all in a word set down to gratitude, which was a great virtue, she
+suggested. Love, indeed, was just the charge of powder which would
+have never flashed--no never--had not gratitude served as a flint and
+thrown off the spark.
+
+Well, Mr. Kelly walked home in the dawning of a new day and painted
+his thoughts with the colours of the sky. For weeks thereafter he
+seemed in his folly to tread on air; and no doubt he had more than
+ordinary warrant for his folly. He had a fortune safely lodged with
+Mr. Child, the goldsmith; his mistress was no less fair than she
+showed fond; and so fond she was that she could not bring herself to
+chide the coachman who was discovered the next morning drunk with
+drugged wine at a tavern near the Haymarket, whither one of Scrope's
+hirelings had lured him. Mr. Kelly was prosperous in the three great
+games of life, love, and politics. For he was wholly trusted by the
+Bishop, by Lord Oxford and the rest; he took his place in the world
+and went and came from France with hanging matter in his valise. The
+valise weighed all the lighter for the thought that he was now serving
+Lady Oxford as well as the King. She was at this time always in his
+dreams. His passion indeed was in these days extreme, a devouring fire
+in brain and marrow. He believed her a most loyal conspirator, and, of
+course, all that he knew came to her ladyship's ears. But his bliss in
+the affection of Lady Oxford quite blinded him to danger, and he
+seemed to himself to walk invisible, as though he had the secret of
+fernseed.
+
+For a season, then, Mr. Kelly was the happy fool, and if the season
+was short--why, is it ever long? Mr. Wogan is not indeed sure that the
+Parson has got altogether out of her ladyship's debt, in spite of what
+happened afterwards. For when the real morning broke and the true love
+came to him, troubles followed apace upon its coming. It is something
+to have been a happy fool, if only for a season and though the
+happiness ended with the folly.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER X
+
+ WHAT CAME OF MR. KELLY'S WINNINGS FROM THE
+ SOUTH SEA
+
+
+Luck is a chameleon, and in November of that same year 1720, thought
+fit to change its complexion. The date, to be precise, was the 17th of
+the month. Mr. Wogan can determine on the particular day, for the
+reason that Mrs. Barnes carried out her threat, and sent him a
+laborious long letter concerning the Parson's moral iniquities. The
+letter reached Mr. Wogan in October, who was then cleaning his ship at
+Morlaix in Brittany, and what with his fifteen months of purposeless
+cruises, felt himself as encrusted with idleness as his ship's bottom
+with barnacles. It was just this eternal inactivity which no doubt
+induced him to take the serious view of Mrs. Barnes's epistle. 'It is
+a most cruel affair,' said he to Mr. Talbot, who was with him, 'and of
+the last importance that I should hurry to London and set it
+straight.'
+
+'But you are fixed here,' said the Crow, for so Talbot was commonly
+called from the blackness of his complexion. 'Can I undertake the
+business for you?'
+
+'No,' says Nick, shaking his head very solemn; though maybe his eye
+twinkled. Mr. Wogan forgets what point the plot was at then, for since
+the black year, 1688, there had been but one plot, though it had
+changed and shifted shape like the faces you see in the dark before
+you sleep. But he could not hear that anything immediate was intended;
+and it would be, therefore, the most convenient occasion to refit his
+ketch _Fortune_. He gave orders to that effect, travelled to Paris,
+obtained from General Dillon a month's leave to dispose of his own
+affairs, and went whistling to London like a schoolboy off on his
+holidays. For, to tell the truth, he was not greatly concerned at
+George Kelly's backslidings, but on the contrary was inclined to
+chuckle over them, and trusted completely to his friend's discretion.
+
+He arrived in London on November 20, and drove boldly to Kelly's
+lodging in Bury Street. For the Glenshiel affair had completely blown
+over--there had never been more than a rumour that he was there--and
+as for the Fifteen, why Mr. Wogan had his pardon like the rest. That
+he got for his behaviour to Captain Montagu at Preston; moreover, who
+could know the boy Wogan that ran away from Westminster School, and
+his task of copying Lord Clarendon's history, in Mr. Hilton, the man
+of six feet four in his stockings. He found Kelly's lodgings empty.
+
+'A letter came for him three days ago,' explained Mrs. Barnes, 'and he
+set off almost on the instant in an agitation so great that he did not
+wait to pack his valise, but had it sent after him.'
+
+'Where to?'
+
+'I do not know,' replied Mrs. Barnes with a sniff of the nose and a
+toss of the head, 'and no doubt I am a better woman for not knowing.'
+
+'No doubt, replied Wogan gravely. 'But, Mrs. Barnes, who signed the
+letter? Where did it come from?'
+
+'And how should I know that?' she cried. 'Would I demean myself by
+reading the letters of a nasty trull? For she's no better for all her
+birth, and that's not so high neither.'
+
+'Ah,' says Wogan, 'I see you don't know who signed the letter.'
+
+'And that's truth,' said she, 'but I saw the superscription. As for
+the letter, he hid it in his bosom.'
+
+'Well, that's as good as showing the signature. Who carried his valise
+after him?'
+
+'Francis Vanlear,' she said, 'the porter who plyed in St. James's
+Street and Piccadilly and lodged at the Crown ale-house in Germain
+Street.'
+
+Thither Wogan sent for him, and when he was come asked him whither he
+had carried the valise.
+
+'To Mr. Gunning's at Mussell Hill,' Vanlear answered, where he had
+found a horse ready saddled at the door and 'Mr. Johnson' in a great
+fume to be off.
+
+Wogan gave the porter a crown for his trouble and went forthwith to
+Mr. Gunning's, whom he had not seen since the occasion of his coming
+down from Glenshiel. From Mr. Gunning he learned that Kelly had
+undoubtedly taken the Aberystwith road, since he had left the horse he
+borrowed at Beaconsfield, and thither had Mr. Gunning sent to fetch
+it. Kelly's destination was consequently as clear to Wogan as the
+urgency of his haste, and coming back into London he dropped in at the
+Cocoa Tree, where he found the story of Lady Oxford and Mr. Kelly a
+familiar pleasantry.
+
+He heard of it again that night at Will's coffeehouse in Covent
+Garden, and at Burton's in King Street, where Mr. Kelly was very well
+known. For, besides being close to Kelly's lodging, it was one of the
+houses to which his letters were directed under cover. From Burton's
+Wogan came back to Bury Street, and, while smoking a pipe in the
+parlour before going to bed, he chanced to notice his strongbox. It
+stood on the scrutoire by the side of Mr. Kelly's big Bible, where
+Wogan had left it eighteen months before. It was the brother to Mr.
+Kelly's strong-box, in every particular but one, and that one a
+stouter lock. Wogan remembered that when he had placed the box on the
+scrutoire the key was attached to it by a string. Now, however, he
+noticed that the key was gone. He was sufficiently curious to cross
+the room and try the lock. But the box would not open; it was securely
+locked. There were papers too within it, as he found out by shaking
+it. Kelly, then, was using the box--but for what purpose? His own box
+served for his few political papers. Any other papers that needed the
+shelter of a strong box must be love-letters. Here, then, were
+amorous, not political epistles. Besides, he was in the habit of
+burning all those which had done their work, and the rest which he
+needed he carried about in his own dispatch-box.
+
+'Now, I wonder,' said Wogan, tapping the lid, 'I wonder whether a
+certain letter, signed--shall we say Smilinda?--and summoning my
+friend to Brampton Bryan, is locked up inside you.' Wogan's guess hit
+the truth even to the signature, though he was destined to get little
+satisfaction from this proof of his sagacity. The letter, he later
+learned, lay in box with not a few others in the same handwriting, and
+they all ended in the same manner with a request: 'Burn this.' Mr.
+Kelly would have been honester had he obeyed it, but, like many a man
+when passion gets hold of him, he could not part with them. Faint
+whispers breathed, as it seemed, from Heaven, and caught and written
+loud in my lady's hand, pure diamonds fetched up from the obscure
+mines of a woman's heart, sure he treasured them up beyond all jewels,
+and locked them up in Mr. Wogan's despatch-box to his own undoing.
+
+This letter was, (Wogan learned afterwards) the most laconic of them
+all, and it was the most momentous. It began, 'My own Strephon,' and
+then Strephon was crossed out and again written on the top, and it was
+signed 'Smilinda' in a doubtful hand; as though, at first, Brampton
+Bryan had recalled to her ladyship the beginning of their affections
+with so overpowering a compulsion that she must needs use the names
+which were associated with it, and then the dear woman's modesty
+timidly crossed them out, and in the end love got the upper hand and
+wrote them in again. At least that was a small portion of all the
+great meanings which Kelly read in the hesitation of her ladyship's
+address. Between the Strephon and the Smilinda there was but one
+line--'Come; there is a secret. I have great need of you.' But this
+had been quite enough to send Mr. Kelly spurring out into the November
+night with such speed that he came to Oxford the next day, where he
+found the snow lying very deep. The snow troubled him, no doubt,
+because it delayed him, but he took little account of the cold beyond
+a sharp pang or two lest Smilinda might have caught a chilblain. For
+himself--well, Smilinda had need of him--the great lady turned for
+help to the Irish outlaw. Wasn't it always so? Her Majesty throws her
+glove to the page, my lord the King Cophetua goes clean daft for a
+beggar wench, and the obliging Cupid builds a rickety bridge whereby
+the despairing lovers leap into each other's arms.
+
+Smilinda needed him! There was a tune ravished from Heaven! His whole
+frame moved to it as the waves to the direction of the moon. It sang
+in his blood, his heart beat to it, the hooves of his horse drummed it
+out on the road. Even the boughs of the trees whispered the words with
+a tender secrecy to the wind, much as the reeds whispered that other
+saying, ages ago, which the Queen in the fable had entrusted to them.
+And, 'faith, when you come to think of it, there was little difference
+in meaning between the two remarks. Smilinda needed Mr. Kelly! It was,
+after all, as much as to say 'Mr. Kelly has ass's ears.' He made such
+haste that on the evening of the second day after his departure from
+London he cantered up the drive of the Manor House.
+
+Lady Oxford met him in the hall, and Mr. Kelly's heart gave a great
+jump of pride when he saw her stately figure all softened to an
+attitude of expectation.
+
+'I knew you would come,' she said; and, as Mr. Kelly bent over her
+hand, she whispered, 'My Strephon,' for all the world as if her
+emotion choked her. Then she raised her voice for the servants to
+hear: 'My lord is from home, Mr. Johnson, but he has commissioned me
+at once to pay you his regrets and to act as his deputy in your
+business.'
+
+Mr. Kelly was all impatience to broach his business, but her
+ladyship's solicitude would not allow him to speak until he had
+supped. She came near to waiting upon him herself, and certainly plied
+him with her best wine, vowing that it was ill weather for travellers,
+and that if he kept his glass full beside his elbow it was a sure sign
+he hated her. This, of course, after the servants had been dismissed.
+Mr. Kelly chided her for the thought, and, with a shake of the finger,
+quoted her a text: 'We are bidden not to look upon the wine when it is
+red,' said he.
+
+'And a very good text, too,' says she; 'so, if you please, shut your
+eyes and drink it,' and, coming behind him, she laid her cool hand
+upon his eyes and forehead. So Mr. Kelly drank, and the bumper floated
+his wits into my lady's haven.
+
+'Now,' says my lady; and, leading the way into her boudoir, she sat
+herself down before the fire, and, clasping her hands at the back of
+her head, smiled at Mr. Kelly.
+
+'Strephon,' she murmured on a lilt of her voice, and with all the
+provocation that witchery could devise. Mr. Kelly was on his knees at
+her side in a moment. She laid a white hand upon his breast, and,
+gently holding him off:
+
+'Tell me,' says she, 'why I sent for you.'
+
+'Because my Smilinda needed me,' he answered with a laugh of pride.
+Her hand caressed his shoulder. She nodded, bit her under lip and
+smiled very wisely.
+
+'What is the service Strephon can do?' cried Kelly. 'Is it to lift the
+world? Give me but your love and I'll accomplish that.'
+
+Smilinda clapped her hands with delight, like a child.
+
+'It is nothing so important,' said she. 'It is not in truth any
+service you can do for me, but rather one that I can do for you.'
+
+Kelly's face lost all its light, and dropped to the glummest
+disappointment. He had so nursed that aspiration of doing her some
+great service. Through the night, through the day, it had borne him
+company. Some great service--that was to be the bridge of Cupid's
+building whereby they were to stand firm-footed on equal ground. And
+now it was some service Lady Oxford was to do for him. Lady Oxford
+noticed the change; it may have been to read the thought which it
+expressed, and that the thought touched her to unwonted depths. For
+the smile faded from her lips, her eyes became grave, thoughtful,
+there was a certain suspense in her attitude.
+
+'Must the woman always owe, the man always pay?' she asked, but in a
+broken way, and with almost a repugnance for herself. Indeed, she
+barely finished the question, and then, with an abrupt laugh, crossed
+to the window, drew aside the curtains, and gazed out upon the
+darkness and the glimmering snow.
+
+'A strange, cold world,' she said in an absent voice, 'with a strange
+white carpet.' Mr. Kelly in truth had given her a glimpse into a world
+yet stranger to her ladyship than that which her eyes beheld--a world
+that had an odd white carpet too, though the feet of those who paced
+it as often as not were stained--a world of generous impulses and
+unselfish devotions. Into this world Lady Oxford was peering with an
+uneasy curiosity. Perhaps for a moment she compared it with her own;
+perhaps she was caught by it and admired it; but, if so, it was with a
+great deal of discomfort. For she dropped the curtain petulantly
+across the window, and, coming back to the fire--well, what she would
+have said it is impossible to guess, for a gentle tap on the door was
+followed by a servant's entrance into the room. He carried a letter on
+a salver, and, advancing to Lady Oxford, offered it to her.
+
+Now, Mr. Kelly was standing almost at the centre of the mantelpiece,
+Lady Oxford at one end; and they faced one another. So the man
+inevitably stopped between them, and, when he lifted up the salver, it
+was impossible but that the Parson should observe the superscription.
+He recognised the handwriting of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Lady
+Oxford recognised it too, for she flushed as she picked the letter up.
+But she flushed deeper as she read it through, and then crumpled it up
+and flung it into the fire with an anger which showed very clearly she
+would have done the like for Lady Mary were the writer instead of her
+letter within reach of her vindictive fingers.
+
+'A strange, incomprehensible creature is Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,'
+said Lady Oxford with a laugh and a glance at Mr. Kelly. 'The most
+whimsical contradiction. She offers you a kindness with one hand and
+slaps you in the face with the other. For instance, this letter here.
+'Twas written out of pure kindness. It completes the friendliest
+service, yet it ends with so rough a jest that but for Strephon's sake
+I should be much drawn to reject the service.'
+
+'For my sake? 'asked Kelly.
+
+'Why, to be sure. Lady Mary gave me a piece of news a week ago in
+town. It was that news which made me send for you, and she writes now
+expressly to confirm it. But, let my Strephon answer me,' and she
+asked whether he had yet sent his winnings from the Mississippi to be
+used for the King's service.
+
+Now, Mr. Kelly was, after all, a human being. It was all very well in
+the first flush of prosperity to propose to scatter his few thousands,
+but afterwards he had come to see that they would not go so very far.
+Besides, he had now obvious reasons for desiring to cut as agreeable a
+figure as he could. At all events the money still remained with Mr.
+Child, the goldsmith, and so he told her ladyship, with a little
+remorse.
+
+'Then,' she cried in joy,' that chance has come for which Smilinda has
+been longing. My presents, Strephon, you have always refused,' which
+was true enough; indeed, on the other hand, she had Mr. Kelly's royal
+snuff-box and a few of his jewels. 'But now I can make your fortune,
+and with yours my own. There's the sweetness of it,' she said, and
+clasped her hands on her heart. 'Your fortune, too!'
+
+'My fortune you have made already,' said he, with other compliments
+proper to the occasion. But her ladyship was in a practical mood.
+
+'Listen,' says she. 'I am made acquainted that the tide has turned. I
+mean, you know, in the Straits of Magellan. The South-Sea stock that
+has been falling so long will certainly rise in a week; the Elector is
+buying secretly. Lady Mary has it from Mr. Pope, and he at the first
+and best hands from Mr. Craggs, the secretary. Mr. Craggs will insert
+my name in the next list and your money I shall send to the directors
+with my own. You shall be rich, Strephon, on the level of your
+merits.'
+
+Mr. Kelly was very well content with his one speculation, but the
+evident joy with which Lady Oxford anticipated serving him was worth
+more than his thousands.
+
+'My gold shall be in Smilinda's coffers the morning that I get back to
+town, 'he said.
+
+'You must go at once,' she exclaimed, 'we must lose no time. Stay. I
+will travel with you to-morrow morning if you will favour me with your
+company'; and so a new flow of compliments carried the South Sea out
+of sight. But a minute or two later Mr. Kelly, chancing to look down
+at the hearth, said, quite inconsequently:
+
+'We must not forget to thank Lady Mary.'
+
+Smilinda followed the direction of his eyes, and saw that Lady Mary's
+letter had tumbled out of the fire and now lay, half burnt, but the
+other half only curled up and scorched. She shivered as though she was
+cold, and the better to warm herself knelt down on the hearth-rug.
+Then she took up the letter (which Kelly must not see) and carelessly
+tossed it into the fire.
+
+'You know Lady Mary,' she said. 'Yes, you told me.'
+
+'I do, indeed,' said Kelly, with a smile.
+
+'I could wish you did not,' said her ladyship with a frown. Smilinda
+made it plain that she was jealous. Kelly laughed heartily at the
+assumption, which was in truth ridiculous enough.
+
+'Who am I,' said he, 'that I should attract Lady Mary's fancy,'
+
+'You are--my Strephon,' replied Smilinda, with a sigh of exquisite
+tenderness.
+
+Kelly argued the matter on other grounds. Smilinda listened to them
+all.
+
+'I have no doubt you are right,' she said, with a meek resignation.
+'But I remember you spoke very warmly of the friendship you had for
+her, and ever since--' here she broke off shyly. 'A weak woman's empty
+fears,' she continued,' but they keep her awake at nights. Well, she
+must even make the best of them.'
+
+Smilinda lying awake at nights out of jealousy! There was a notion to
+convict Mr. Kelly of slow murder. He was on his knees in a moment, and
+swore that for the future on earth and in Heaven he would avoid Lady
+Mary's company as though she was the devil in person. It was a
+confused sort of oath and deprived Mr. Kelly for a time of a very good
+friend; but on the other hand it undoubtedly raised a load from Lady
+Oxford's anxieties.
+
+She left Brampton Bryan the next morning and travelled with Mr. Kelly
+up to London, where the coach set them down at the King's Head in the
+Strand. Kelly went straight from the King's Head to the goldsmith and
+his money was carried to Queen's Square that same afternoon. It would
+seem, however, that Mr. Pope had been choused, for the market fell
+from little to nothing. But when the Bubble presently burst into air,
+Smilinda burst into tears, and Mr. Kelly was smitten to the heart for
+her distress.
+
+'I have ruined thee, my Strephon,' she sobbed. She had covered her
+face with her hands and the tears trickled through her fingers.
+
+'Love arms me against such ill-fortunes,' replied Kelly. 'It is only
+Smilinda's tears that hurt. Each one of them falls upon Strephon's
+heart like a drop of molten lead.'
+
+'Ah, Strephon,' she cried. 'Thou art ruined and Smilinda's hapless
+hand hath dealt the blow. The arrow came from her quiver,' she being
+one of Dian's nymphs, you are to suppose.
+
+Then Mr. Kelly fell to comparing himself to Procris in the fable, who
+was shot by her lover, and said that it was sweet to perish by her
+inadvertent shaft. It seems that kind of love-making has now gone out
+of date. But that was the humour of it when Kelly and Wogan were
+young. Men and women, let them but fall in love, and they were all
+swains and nymphs, though they dabbled in the stocks and were as
+hard-headed as before and afterwards.
+
+'That odious Lady Mary,' exclaimed Smilinda. 'She was born to be my
+bane and curse. 'Twas her counsel that ruined my Strephon. My Strephon
+has kept his oath?'
+
+Her Strephon had, but on the other hand, Mr. Wogan had sworn no oath,
+and would not have kept it if he had done so. He paid a visit to Lady
+Mary soon after Kelly's return from Brampton Bryan. She asked him his
+news and gave him a budget of gossip in return.
+
+'And Lady Oxford has sold her diamonds!' she ended.
+
+Wogan asked how that came about, and she answered:
+
+'Lady Oxford was here at the bassette table three weeks since. Her
+stakes were ever inordinately high, and she lost to me all night. She
+drew a queen when she should have chose the knave, the knave was
+Sonica. "There go my diamonds," she said, and vowing she would punt no
+more, went home in her chair. I could not see her or hear of her for a
+little. I guessed that she had run away into the country until she
+could wheedle enough money to pay me out of the dotard husband. So at
+a venture I wrote a polite letter to her, hoping that the country air
+would restore her credit. Well, here she is back in London and her
+losses paid. That means selling her diamonds.'
+
+Wogan laughed over Lady Oxford's straits and came home to the lodging
+in Bury Street. Wogan's time was getting short and he must return to
+Morlaix. But, as has been said, he left Brittany in a hurry with very
+little money in his pocket, and what was left at his journey's end he
+had since spent in London. So he said to the Parson:
+
+'George, my friend, I must dip into your winnings after all. For here
+am I with a couple of crowns,' he took them out and laid them on the
+table. George flushed crimson.
+
+'Nick,' said he, 'you have two crowns more than I have.'
+
+Wogan turned away to the window and looked out into the street,
+bethinking him of what Lady Mary had told him.
+
+'Sure, Nick, it's the truth,' Kelly pleaded, entirely miscomprehending
+Wogan's action. 'I drew the money out of the Mississippi and sunk it
+in the South Sea. It's all gone. I have not two penny pieces to rub
+together until this day week, when my pension is paid. Nick, you'll
+believe that. Why, Nick, you would ha' been welcome to all that I had.
+But you know that. Sure you know it.'
+
+Wogan had no such mean thought as Kelly in his fluster attributed to
+him. He turned back to the table.
+
+'So you are as poor as an Irish church mouse again, are you?' he said
+with a smile. 'Well, here's two crowns--one for me, one for you.'
+
+He pocketed one coin and pushed the other over to the Parson. The
+Parson took it up and turned it over blinking his eyes. For a moment
+there was an awkward sort of silence. Wogan laughed; the Parson blew
+his nose.
+
+'I hear,' said Wogan, 'that Lady Oxford has lost her diamonds.'
+
+Kelly looked up in perplexity.
+
+'Lost her diamonds!' said he. 'Why, she wore them last night!'
+
+'I thought the rumour was untrue,' said Wogan.
+
+Mr. Kelly slipped his crown into his pocket. There was no more said
+about the matter between them, though perhaps they clasped hands at
+parting with a trifle more than their ordinary heartiness.
+
+Mr. Wogan, however, told Lady Mary of the Parson's loss, and she was
+at no pains to discover the explanation. Lady Oxford had paid Lady
+Mary with the Parson's guineas. They had never been in the South Sea
+Bubble.
+
+'I should like to send the money I won back to Mr. Kelly,' said Lady
+Mary.
+
+'That's plainly impossible,' returned Wogan, and to this Lady Mary
+perforce agreed. '_Olet_,' the Latin-learned lady said, and Wogan
+remarked, 'Certainly,' so she put the money aside, thinking that some
+day she might employ it on Mr. Kelly's behalf. That night Wogan
+borrowed his travelling money from Mr. Carte, the historian, whom he
+met at the Cocoa Tree, and so set out the next morning for Brittany.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XI
+
+ THE PARSON DEPARTS FROM SMILINDA AND LEARNS
+ A NUMBER OF UNPALATABLE TRUTHS
+
+
+Mr. Wogan then returned to Morlaix, and, finding his ketch by this
+time cleaned and refitted, and two others (the _Revolution_, a big
+ship of 40 guns, under Morgan, which was afterwards seized by
+Commodore Scot at Genoa, and the _Lady Mary_, a smaller vessel of 14
+guns, commanded by Captain Patrick Campbell) at anchor in the harbour,
+he set sail for the Downs. There they picked up four thousand small
+arms and a couple of hundred kintals of cannon powder, for traffic, it
+was alleged, on the coasts of Brazil and Madagascar. But the arms and
+ammunition travelled no further than Bilboa, where they were stored in
+the country house of Mr. Brown, an Irish merchant of that part,
+against the next expedition to England. At Bilboa the three ships
+parted, and Mr. Wogan, taking in upon freight such goods as he could
+get, sailed to Genoa, and lay there behind the Mole.
+
+Nor was the Parson to tarry long behind him in London; for less than a
+fortnight after Wogan's departure, he was sent to carry to Rome, for
+the Chevalier's approval, a scheme of a lottery for raising a quarter
+of a million pounds, which Mr. Christopher Layer (later hanged) most
+ingeniously imagined. With the scheme he carried some silk stockings
+as a present for the Chevalier and his spouse. This was none of the
+Bishop of Rochester's work, who knew nothing of Mr. Layer, and of what
+was later plotted by bold and impatient spirits. The Parson had sad
+work parting with Smilinda, but made light of the separation to save
+the lady from distress, and she had happily broken a bank at pharo
+that same night, which withheld her from entirely breaking her heart.
+Still, it was as affecting an affair as one could wish for.
+
+The Parson received certain orders of Atterbury's as to business with
+General Dillon, the Chevalier's manager in Paris, just before he was
+to start; and, coming from the Deanery at Westminster where the Bishop
+resided, he walked at once through Petty France to Queen's Square.
+Lady Oxford's house was all in a blaze of light with figures moving to
+and fro upon the blinds of the windows. 'Mr. Johnson' was announced,
+but for some little while could not get a private word with her
+ladyship, and so stood of one side, taking his fill of that perfumed
+world of fans and hoops, of sparkling eyes and patches and false
+hearts wherein Lady Oxford so fitly moved. Many of the faces which
+flitted before his eyes were strange to him, but one he remarked in
+particular--a strong, square sort of face set on the top of an elegant
+figure that wore the uniform of the King's Guards. Mr. Kelly had seen
+that face under the oil-lamp of a portico in Ryder Street on the
+occasion when he and Nicholas Wogan set out on their first journey to
+Brampton Bryan, and the officer who owned the face was now a certain
+Colonel Montague.
+
+Kelly remarked him because he was playing at the same table with her
+ladyship, and losing his money to her with all the grace in the world.
+At last Lady Oxford rose, and, coming towards him:
+
+'Well?' she murmured, 'my Strephon is pale.'
+
+'I leave for Rome to-morrow morning,' he returned in a whisper. At
+that her hand went up to her heart, and she caught her breath.
+
+'Wait,' said she, and went back to her cards. As the guests were
+departing some two hours later, she called to Kelly openly.
+
+'Mr. Johnson leaves for Paris to-morrow morning, and has the great
+kindness to carry over some of my brocades, which indeed need much
+better repairing than they can get in London.'
+
+It made an excuse for Mr. Johnson to stay, but none the less provoked
+a smile here and there; and Colonel Montague, deliberately coming to a
+stop a few paces from Kelly, took careful stock of him. The Colonel
+did not say a word, but just looked him over. Mr. Kelly was tickled by
+the man's impudence, and turned slowly round on his heels to give him
+an opportunity of admiring his back. Then he faced him again. The
+Colonel gravely bowed his thanks for Mr. Kelly's politeness, Mr. Kelly
+as gravely returned the bow, and the Colonel stalked out of the door.
+It was in this way that Mr. Kelly and the Colonel first met.
+
+But the moment Smilinda and Strephon were left alone!
+
+'Oh,' wailed Smilinda, and her arms went round Strephon's neck.
+'_Heureuse en jeu, malheureuse en amour_. O fatal cards, would that I
+had lost this dross!' cries she, with her eyes on the glittering heap
+of guineas and doubloons strewed about the table. 'Oh, Strephon, thou
+wilt forget me in another's arms. I dread the French syrens.'
+
+And then Mr. Kelly to the same tune:
+
+'Never will I forget Smilinda. If I come back with the King, and he
+makes me a Bishop, with a pastoral crook, thy Strephon will still be
+true.'
+
+Whereat the lady laughed, though Kelly was jesting with a heavy heart,
+and vowed that Lady Mary would write a ballad on 'Strephon, or the
+Faithful Bishop.' Then she fell into a story of lovely Mrs. Tusher,
+the Bishop of Ealing's wife, who was certainly more fair than
+faithful. Next she wept again, and so yawned, and gave him her
+portrait in miniature.
+
+'You will not part with it--never--never,' she implored.
+
+The portrait was beautifully set with diamonds.
+
+'It shall be buried with me,' said Kelly, and so Lady Oxford let him
+go, but called him back again when he was through the door to make him
+promise again that he would not part with her portrait. Mr. Kelly
+wondered a little at her insistence, but set it down to the strength
+of her affection. So he departed from the cave of the enchantress with
+many vows of mutual constancy and went to Rome, and from Rome he came
+back to Genoa, where he fell in with Nicholas Wogan.
+
+Mr. Wogan remembers very well one night on which the pair of them,
+after cracking a bottle in Grimble's tavern, came down to the
+water-gate and were rowed on board of Wogan's ketch. This was in the
+spring of the year 1721, some four or five months since the Parson had
+left England, and Wogan thought it altogether a very suitable occasion
+for what he had to say. He took the Parson down into his cabin, and
+there, while the lamp flecked the mahogany panels with light and
+shade, and the water tinkled against the ship's planks as it swung
+with the tide, he told him all that he had surmised of Lady Oxford's
+character, and how Lady Mary had corroborated his surmises. At the
+first Mr. Kelly would hear nothing of his arguments.
+
+'It is pure treason,' said he. 'From any other man but you, Nick, I
+would not have listened to more than a word, and that word I would
+have made him eat. But I take it ill even from you. Why do you tell me
+this now? Why did you not tell it me in London, when I could have
+given her ladyship a chance of answering the slander?'
+
+'Why,' replied Wogan, 'because I know very well the answer she would
+have made to you--a few words of no account whatever, and her soft
+arms about your neck, and you'd have been convinced. But now, when you
+have not seen her for so long, there's a chance you may come to your
+senses. Did you never wonder what brought Scrope to Brampton Bryan?'
+
+'No need for wonder since she told me.'
+
+'She told you, did she? Well, I'm telling you now, and do you sit
+there until I have told you, for Mr. Scrope's history you are going to
+hear. Bah, leave that bodkin of a sword alone. If you draw it, upon my
+soul I'll knock you down and kneel on your chest. Mr. Scrope went
+before you in her ladyship's affections.'
+
+Here Mr. Kelly flinched as though he had been struck, and thereafter
+sat with a white stern face as though he would not condescend to
+answer the insinuation. 'Sure he was a gentleman--out of
+Leicestershire, and of some fortune, which fortune Lady Oxford spent
+for him. He was besides a sad, pertinacious fellow, and nothing would
+content him but she must elope with him from her old husband, and make
+for themselves a Paradise on the Rhine. It appears that he talked all
+the old nonsense--they were man and wife in the sight of God, and the
+rest of it. Her ladyship was put to it for shifts and excuses, and at
+the last, what with his money being almost spent, and his suit more
+pressing, she fled into the country where we met her. Scrope was no
+better than a kitten before its eyes are opened, and, getting together
+what was left of his fortune, followed her with a chaise, meaning to
+carry her off there and then. However, he found us there, and I take
+it that opened his eyes. And I would have you beware of Mr. Scrope,
+George. A kitten becomes a cat, and a cat has claws. It is Lady Mary's
+thought that you have not heard the last of him, for his conscience
+hath made him a kind of gentleman spy on the honest party.'
+
+George, who in spite of himself could not but see how exactly Wogan's
+account fitted in with and explained Scrope's attempt after the
+masquerade, caught at Lady Mary's name with an eager relief.
+
+'Ah, it was she gave you this flimsy story,' he cried, leaning forward
+over the table. 'There's more malice in it than truth, Nick. The pair
+of them have been at loggerheads this long while. Lady Mary never
+could suffer a woman who can hold her own against her. Why, Nick, you
+have been gulled,' and he lit his pipe, which he had let go out.
+
+'Oh, and have I? Well, at all events, I have not stripped myself of
+every penny in order to pay Lady Oxford's losses at cards. Scrope is
+not the only man whom her ladyship has sucked dry.'
+
+'What do you mean?' cried Kelly, letting his pipe slip out of his
+fingers and break on the floor. Wogan told him of his visit to Lady
+Mary, and the story was so circumstantial, the dates of the loss at
+cards and the payment so fitted with Lady Oxford's message to Kelly
+and her proposal as to the placing of his fortune, that it could not
+but give him pause.
+
+'It is not true,' was all he could find to say, and 'I'll not believe
+it,' and so fell to silence.
+
+'You'll be wanting another pipe,' said Wogan. He fetched one from a
+cupboard and filled it. The two men smoked for a while in silence.
+Then Kelly burst out of a sudden:
+
+'Nick, the fool that I was ever to preach that sermon in Dublin,' and
+stopped. Wogan knew well enough what the Parson meant. His thoughts
+had gone back to the little parsonage, and the rambling cure of half a
+dozen parishes, and the quiet library, and evenings by the inn-fire,
+where he would tell his little trivial stories of the day's doings. It
+was always that dream he would play with and fondle when the world
+went wrong with him, though to be sure, could the dream have come
+true, he would have been the unhappiest man that ever breathed Irish
+air.
+
+'Shall we go on deck?' Wogan proposed.
+
+It was a fine clear night, but there was no moon. The riding-lights of
+ships at anchor were dotted about the harbour, the stars blazed in a
+rich sky; the water rippled black and seemed to flash sparks where the
+lights struck it; outside the harbour the Mediterranean stretched away
+smooth as a slab of marble. Kelly stood in the chains while Wogan
+paced up and down the deck. The Parson was in for his black hour, and
+silent companionship is the only alleviation for the trouble. After a
+time he came towards Wogan and caught him by the arm, but so tight
+that Wogan could feel his friend's finger-nails through the thick
+sleeves of his coat.
+
+'I'll not believe it,' Kelly argued; but it was against himself he was
+arguing now, as Wogan perceived, and had the discretion to hold his
+tongue. ''Faith,' he continued, 'she came into my life like a glint of
+the sun into a musty dark room,' and then he suddenly put his hand
+into his bosom and drew out something at which he looked for a moment.
+He laughed bitterly and swung his arm back. Before, however, he could
+throw that something into the sea Wogan caught his hand.
+
+'Sure,' said he, 'I saw a sparkle of diamonds.'
+
+Kelly opened his hand and showed a miniature.
+
+'Lady Oxford's diamonds,' he answered bitterly, 'which she did not
+sell, but gave out of a loving, generous heart.'
+
+'George, you're moon-struck,' said Wogan. 'Diamonds, after all, are
+always diamonds.'
+
+'True,' said Kelly, 'and I promised never to part with them,' he
+sneered. He put the miniature back in his pocket, and then dropping
+his arm to his side said,
+
+'Put me ashore, Nick. I will see you to-morrow. I am very tired.'
+
+But in the morning he was gone, and a few days later Nick, who was not
+spared certain prickings of conscience for the hand he had taken in
+bringing about the Parson's misfortunes (he had just now, by hindering
+him from throwing away the miniature, taken more of a hand than he
+guessed), sailed out from Genoa.
+
+The rest of that year '21 was a busy time for all engaged in
+forwarding the Great Affair. England itself seemed ripe for the
+attempt, and it was finally determined to hazard it in the spring of
+the next year, when the Elector would be in Hanover. The new plan was
+that the exiled Duke of Ormond, whom the soldiers were thought to
+love, should sail from Spain with the Earl Marischal, Morgan, and
+Halstead, commanding some ragged regiments of Mr. Wogan's countrymen.
+The Duke was to land in the west, the King was to be at Antwerp ready
+to come over, and the young Prince Charles of Wales, who would then be
+not quite two years old, was to be carried to the Highlands. A mob was
+to be in readiness in town, with arms secretly buried; the soldiers
+were expected to declare for High Church and Ormond; and in a word the
+'honest party' was to secure its interest on its own bottom, without
+foreign help, which the English people has never loved. The rich
+lords, but not Bishop Atterbury, knew of the beginning of this scheme,
+but abandoned it. They did not know, or only Lords North and Grey
+knew, that the scheme lived on without them.
+
+Mr. Kelly therefore had his hands full, and it was very well for him
+that it was so. There were things at stake of more moment than his
+love-affairs, as he was the first to recognise. Yet, even so, he had
+time enough, in the saddle and on the sea, to plumb the black depths
+of his chagrin and to toss to and fro that shuttlecock of a question,
+whether he should accuse her ladyship for her trickeries or himself
+for misdoubting her. However, he got a complete answer to that
+question before the year was out. It was his habit now, whenever he
+was in London, to skulk out of sight and knowledge of Lady Oxford, to
+avoid theatres, routs, drums, and all places where she might be met,
+and Mr. Carte the historian took his place when it was necessary to
+visit Lord Oxford in the country. Mr. Carte had a ready pretence, for
+Lord Oxford kept a great store of old manuscripts concerning the
+history of the country, and these beauties, it is to be feared, came
+somewhat between Mr. Carte and his business, just as her ladyship's
+eyes had come between Mr. Kelly's and his. Accordingly the Parson saw
+little of her ladyship and heard less, since his friends avoided all
+mention of her and he himself asked no questions.
+
+'Saw little,' and the phrase is intended. For often enough of an
+evening his misery would fetch him out of the coffee houses and lead
+him like a man blindfold to where her ladyship was accustomed to
+visit. There he would stand in the darkness of the street until the
+door opened and Lady Oxford, all smiles and hooped petticoats, would
+trip gaily out to her chair. But very likely habit--the habit of her
+conversation and appearance--had as much to do with this particular
+folly as any despairing passion. How many lovers the wide world over
+fancy they are bemoaning their broken hearts, when they are only
+deploring their broken habits! Well, Mr. Kelly, at all events, took
+the matter _au grand serieux_, and so one night saw her ladyship come
+out from the porch of Drury Lane theatre in company with Colonel
+Montague.
+
+There is one unprofitable piece of knowledge which a man acquires who
+has ever had a woman make love to him; he knows when that woman is
+making love to someone else. Lady Oxford's modest droop of the head
+when the Colonel spoke, her shy sidelong smile at him, her red lips a
+trifle parted as though his mere presence held her in a pleased
+suspense--all these tokens were familiar to Mr. Kelly as his daily
+bread, and he went home eating his own heart, and nursing a quite
+unjustifiable resentment against Nicholas Wogan for that he ever saved
+the Colonel's life. It did not take Kelly long to discover that his
+suspicions were correct. A few questions to his friends, who for his
+sake had kept silence, and the truth was out. Lady Oxford's constancy
+had lasted precisely seven weeks before the Whig colonel had stepped
+into the Jacobite parson's shoes. Mr. Kelly put his heart beneath his
+heel and now stamped her image out of it. Then he went upon his way,
+and the King's business took him to Avignon.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XII
+
+ THE PARSON MEETS SCROPE FOR THE THIRD TIME,
+ AND WHAT CAME OF THE MEETING
+
+
+It was early in the year 1722 when Mr. Kelly came to _la ville
+sonnante_, and took a lodging at L'Auberge des Papes in the Rue des
+Trois Faucons. He brought with him a sum of 5,000_l_. collected in
+England, and this sum he was to hand over to a messenger from the Duke
+of Ormond, who was then at Corunna in Spain, and, what with his
+disbursements in the purchase of arms, and the support of Irish
+troops, was hard put to it for money.
+
+It was therefore of the last importance that this sum should come safe
+to Corunna, and so extraordinary precautions were taken to ensure that
+result. The Parson, since he did not know who the messenger might be,
+was to wait every morning between the hours of nine and ten on the
+first bench to the left of the Porte du Rhone in the boulevard outside
+the city walls, until a man should ask him if he had any comfortable
+greeting for Aunt Anne, that being the cant name for the Duke. This
+man was thereafter to prove to Mr. Kelly's satisfaction that he was
+indeed the messenger expected.
+
+Now, the messenger was delayed in his journey, and so for a week
+George Kelly, having deposited his money with Mr. Philabe, the banker,
+sat every morning on his bench with what patience he might. He came in
+consequence to take particular notice of an oldish man and a rosebud
+of a girl who walked along the boulevard every morning at the time
+that he was waiting. They were accompanied by a French poodle dog, and
+indeed it was the poodle dog which first attracted Mr. Kelly's
+attention to the couple. It has already been said that Mr. Kelly had a
+trick of catching a woman's eyes, though this quality implies no great
+merit. On the other hand he drew dogs and children to him, and that
+implies a very great merit, as you may observe from this, that there
+is never a human being betwixt here and Cathay will admit that dogs
+and children have a dislike for him.
+
+The poodle dog, then, comes to a halt opposite Mr. Kelly's bench on
+the very first morning that he sat there, cocks his ears, lifts a
+forefoot from the ground, and, looking after the old man and the young
+girl, says plain as print, 'Here, wait a bit! There's something on
+this bench very well worth looking into.' However, his master and
+mistress were in a close conversation and so the poodle puts his foot
+on the ground and trots after them. But the next morning he came up to
+the bench, puts his head of one side to display the fine blue riband
+round his neck, squats on his haunches, and flops a paw on to the
+Parson's knee.
+
+'How d'ye do?' says the Parson politely.
+
+'I think I'll stretch myself, thank you,' says the poodle, and
+promptly proceeds to do so, using Mr. Kelly's knee as a purchase for
+his paws. He was still engaged upon this exercise when his young
+mistress missed him. She whistled; the poodle looked at the Parson
+with the clearest invitation.
+
+'Won't you come too?'
+
+'I have not been presented,' replied the Parson.
+
+Thereupon the girl turned round.
+
+'Harlequin,' she called to the dog, and showed Mr. Kelly as sweet a
+face as a young man ever deserved to see. It was fresh and clear as
+the morning dew, with frank eyes and a scarlet bow of a mouth ready
+for a laugh. 'Harlequin!' said Mr. Kelly to himself with a start, as
+he looked towards the girl. Harlequin trotted off to his mistress, and
+got prettily chided for his forwardness, of which chiding he made
+little or no account, and very properly. It is not every dog that
+achieves immortality by stretching itself against a stranger's knee.
+But Harlequin did. For had Harlequin not made Mr. Kelly's
+acquaintance, he would never have found a niche in Mr. Swift's verses.
+
+
+ Now let me tell you plainly, Sir,
+ Our witness is a real cur,
+ A dog of spirit for his years,
+ Has twice two legs, two hanging ears,
+ His name is _Harlequin_, I wot,
+ And that's a name in every plot:
+
+ * * * * * * *
+
+ His answers were extremely witty
+ Before the secret wise Committee;
+ Confest as plain as he could bark,
+ Then with his fore-foot left his mark:
+
+
+wrote the Dean of St. Patrick's concerning this very poodle dog of
+Miss Rose Townley.
+
+For Rose Townley was the girl's name, as the Parson now knew, and the
+old gentleman was her father, who had tended Mr. Nicholas Wogan after
+his wounds in the year '15 at Preston. Mr. Wogan had more than once
+spoken to Kelly of Dr. Townley and his daughter Rose, who had retired
+to Avignon, after the Rising, and he had made mention of their poodle
+Harlequin, of which poodle the present or reigning dog, Harlequin II.,
+was the son and heir. So that, hearing the name called out by Rose,
+Kelly was aware who the two people were. Dr. Townley had been
+suspected in the Rising, and therefore had settled at Avignon as
+physician to the Duke of Ormond, and when the nobleman left the town,
+remained because he was grown old, and had lost his taste for politics
+and warrings. He had, moreover, received his pardon for his share in
+the struggle, and was indeed at this very time preparing to return
+into England. But of this Kelly was not aware.
+
+The next morning Kelly was again on his bench, and again Dr. Townley
+and his daughter passed him. Harlequin came forward at once to wish
+the Parson good-morning. Rose spoke to her father, plainly telling him
+of Harlequin's new friendship, for the Doctor looked up towards Mr.
+Kelly and the girl looked away. In consequence there sprang up a queer
+sort of acquaintance between the Doctor and his daughter on the one
+hand, and Parson Kelly on the other. Every morning they looked for him
+on his bench; every morning he had a few words with Harlequin.
+
+Doubtless he would have pursued the acquaintance further, but for
+Rose. She it was who kept the Parson from approaching Dr. Townley. For
+he was still sore with Lady Oxford's treacheries, and feminine beauty
+was _vanitas vanitatum_ to him. Moreover, though he had snatched her
+ladyship's image out of his heart, some of her sayings had stuck in
+his mind, and amongst her sayings not a few were aimed at girls.
+Smilinda was a woman, and saw a rival in each youthful beauty. 'Girls
+of our time,' she would say with a sneer, 'were very kind, at all
+events, whatever one might think of their looks. And to hear them
+speak of marriage, why one would fancy oneself in the company of rakes
+dressed up like the other sex for a masquerade.' She would gloat over
+the misadventures of poor Mistress Dolly Walpole, the Minister's
+sister, by the hour, she had even written a ballad thereon, 'The
+Dolliad,' and since Mr. Kelly had never had been much in the society
+of young unmarried women, he had insensibly imbibed a deal of
+Smilinda's philosophy upon this head. And so he waited for the
+messenger in silence.
+
+Now, upon the fourth day Mr. Philabe the banker sent round for the
+Parson to L'Auberge des Papes, and, when he was come, told him that on
+that morning a man called at the bank with a letter which he gave to a
+clerk. The clerk carried the letter to Mr. Philabe, who opened it. It
+enclosed a second letter superscribed to Mr. George Kelly, and prayed
+the banker to add to the superscription Mr. Kelly's address. This Mr.
+Philabe would not do, but sent out word that he would take care the
+letter came into Kelly's hands. The man, however, who had brought it
+immediately replied that it was of the last importance the letter
+should be delivered at once: otherwise there was no use in delivering
+it at all. If Mr. Philabe would send a messenger at once, well and
+good; if not, would he kindly return the letter forthwith.
+
+This request roused Mr. Philabe's suspicions. For if he sent a
+messenger, as he was prayed to do, the man could follow him, and as
+easily discover the address as if Philabe had written it on the note.
+He replied consequently that neither could he accede to this request,
+but that Mr. Kelly should most certainly have the letter that day.
+
+Upon this the man insisted that the letter should be returned to him,
+but the more strenuously he insisted, the stronger became Mr.
+Philabe's suspicions, until he determined not to part with the letter
+at all, and the man finally went away very ill-pleased.
+
+Mr. Philabe, as he told this story, handed the letter to Mr. Kelly,
+who broke open the seal, and found nothing but a clean sheet of paper.
+
+'Little doubt,' said he, 'why the fellow wanted his letter back. It is
+a pure trick to know where I lodge. What was he like?'
+
+'He wore a travelling-dress,' said Mr. Philabe, 'and a cocked hat.'
+
+'And very likely a pair of boots,' added Kelly. 'But this tells me
+very little of his looks.'
+
+Mr. Philabe was a poor hand at a description, and beyond that the man
+had a nose, two eyes, a mouth, two legs, and a pair of arms, Kelly
+learned nothing whatever of his appearance.
+
+That very day, however, the mystery was to be made clear. Between
+daylight and dark Mr. Kelly chanced to walk up the narrow Rue St.
+Agricole, and had just come abreast of the broad flight of steps which
+leads upwards to the church, when a man leaped down in front of him.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' said the Parson politely stepping aside.
+
+'That is not enough,' said the other, and, turning on his heel, he
+faced Kelly and barred the way.
+
+Kelly recognised the voice, recognised the face.
+
+'Ah,' cried he, 'Mr. Scrope.' His first feeling was one almost of
+exultation. In the face of his enemy he forgot altogether that there
+was no longer any amorous reason for his enmity. He almost forgot,
+too, what he had heard from Wogan about Mr. Scrope's supposed quality
+as a gentleman spy. 'The third time,' he said with a laugh. 'I
+promised myself the third time.'
+
+Scrope nodded his head.
+
+'We are of one mind, then.' He looked up and down the street. It was
+empty from end to end. 'There is a little square terrace at the top of
+these steps, with blank walls upon the two sides, and the church door
+upon the third. The terrace will be very suitable and quiet.'
+
+He turned as he spoke and set a foot upon the lowest step.
+
+'One moment,' said Kelly. During Scrope's words he had reflected.
+Scrope and himself, politics apart, were really in the like case. For
+if he had followed Scrope in her ladyship's caprices, Montague had
+followed him, 'as Amurath to Amurath succeeds.' His enmity quite died
+away, and gave place to something very like a fellow-feeling.
+Moreover, he had to consider the messenger from the Duke of Ormond and
+the 5,000_l_. in Mr. Philabe's keeping.
+
+'One moment,' he said. Scrope stopped with a sneer.
+
+'If you can remain a few days at Avignon,' he continued, 'I shall be
+happy to oblige you in whatever you will. For the moment I have
+duties.'
+
+'Of course,' interrupted Scrope. 'Duties are wonderful convenient
+things when one's bones are in danger. The pious AEneas knew that very
+well, Mr. Kelly; but then the worthy army-chaplain had not a Scrope
+upon his heels for the best part of a twelvemonth.'
+
+'Oh,' cried Kelly, 'then it is you who have followed me.' More than
+once he had heard that his steps were dogged.
+
+'Over a wearisome stretch of Europe,' agreed Scrope.
+
+'It was you who came to Philabe this morning?'
+
+'Who else? So, you see, I have been at some pains to come up with you,
+and those duties must wait.'
+
+'Those duties,' replied Kelly, 'are so urgent that I am in two minds
+whether to take to my heels.'
+
+To any man who was acquainted with the Parson this statement would
+have been proof enough that there was all the necessity in the world
+for delay. But then Scrope knew very little of his opponent, and:
+
+'I am not at all surprised to hear that,' he replied contemptuously.
+
+Mr. Kelly reddened at the sneer, but kept a tight hold upon his
+patience.
+
+'Understand me,' said he quietly. 'If I ran away now, I should most
+certainly follow you afterwards, as you have followed me, and when I
+came up with you I should kill you.'
+
+'And understand me,' broke in Scrope. His cold, sneering face suddenly
+lighted up with a fierce passion. 'Neither you will follow me, nor I
+you. We stand face to face, as I have hoped we should until I have
+dreamed the hope true. You have robbed me of what I held most
+precious. You have done worse. You have proved to me that what I held
+most precious was never worth so much as a cracked farthing. That
+morning I came to Brampton Bryan, I came at Lady Oxford's bidding. We
+were to have done with pretences for good and all. Oh, she had
+forgotten, if you will, but if she had forgotten, who made her forget?
+You, Mr. Kelly, the sneaking cuckoo! I would have worn her proudly,
+for all the world to see--the star upon my coat, the scarf across my
+breast. I would have faced my fellows with one arm for her waist, and
+the other for a naked sword to silence their slanders with. Well,
+there's no waist, but there's still the naked sword.' As he spoke,
+with his left hand he jerked his sword out of the scabbard, and caught
+it by the hilt with his right. 'There's still the naked sword,' he
+laughed, with a sort of thrill in the laugh, and made the blade
+whistle through the air. There's still the sword and a vile cuckoo of
+a parson--'
+
+'That's enough,' cried Kelly, marching to the steps in an anger now
+not a whit less than Scrope's, for there was a certain sting of truth
+in Scrope's abuse which put him to shame; 'more than enough.'
+
+'No, not more than enough,' said Scrope quietly, and he followed.
+
+'You want a little more?' said Kelly, who had reflected. 'Very well;
+your heroics may be candid enough, but it is less Mr. Scrope the lover
+and rival than Mr. Scrope, the spy, that I regard with a certain
+misliking.'
+
+'_Assez_, you die!' said Scrope, with a hiss in his voice.
+
+The space at the top of the steps was a pretty enough spot for their
+purpose. It was open only on the side towards the street, which was
+quite deserted, and raised so high above the pathway that a passer-by
+would see nothing of what was doing. On the other hand, however, the
+light was failing. Scrope was for bringing the encounter to a speedy
+end, and drove at the Parson in an impetuous fury. His sword glittered
+and darted very chill and cold in that grey twilight. He thrust swift
+as a serpent.
+
+The blood of the Parson was also up. He had at first regarded Scrope's
+challenge as a pure piece of irony. Why should two men fight for a
+hilding who had equally jilted and cheated the pair? That had been
+George's first thought; but now his rapier was drawn for the Cause,
+and to rid it of a dangerous enemy. Scrope was probably on the track
+of Ormond and the gold, as well as on that of his rival.
+
+The Parson was as brave as steel, but (though he never knew it) was no
+true master of the play. The men rushed at each other; their swords
+were locked, they were breast to breast; George wrenched his blade
+free, leaped back to get his distance, struck his heel against a
+cobble, and the next moment he felt Scrope's blade burn into his side.
+Kelly clasped his hand over the wound, and sank on to the ground. The
+blood came through between his fingers; he snatched the cravat from
+his neck, and made a poor shift to bandage it about his body. The one
+thought in his mind was of the Duke of Ormond's messenger. Perhaps the
+very next morning he might come to Avignon and find no one on the
+bench.
+
+'A surgeon,' he whispered to Scrope, saving his breath. Scrope was
+quietly wiping his sword, and made no reply.
+
+'A surgeon,' repeated Kelly. 'I must live.'
+
+'Or die,' said Scrope carelessly. He pulled on his coat, and came
+close to Kelly. Then he suddenly felt in his pockets.
+
+'No,' he said, with an air of disappointment. 'I was hoping that I had
+a copy of Virgil wherewith to soothe your last moments. Shall I take a
+message to her ladyship?' He picked up his hat. 'Or shall I ask Mr.
+Nicholas Wogan to write a ballad--"Strephon's Farewell to his
+Smilinda"? Mr. Wogan would, I think, be extremely amusing with so
+pathetical a subject for his Muse. Well, it grows late. You will, no
+doubt, excuse me.'
+
+He made a bow to the Parson, clapped his hat on his head, and walked,
+whistling to the steps. He stopped when he had descended a couple of
+them, and, turning, shook his head thoughtfully at Kelly.
+
+'But I am grieved I have no Virgil,' he said, and so disappeared below
+the level of the terrace.
+
+Kelly listened till the sound of his feet died slowly down the street.
+Then he began to drag himself painfully upon his knees towards the
+steps. He did not dare to get to his feet, lest his blood should flow
+faster from his wound. He did not dare to shout. He crawled forward
+over the flags for miles, it seemed; then the knot of the bandage got
+loose, and a great faintness came over him. With fumbling fingers he
+re-tied the knot; the flags began to heave before his eyes like waves
+of the sea, the silence roared in his ears. He looked upwards, and a
+spinning procession of houses and churches turned him giddy. He sank
+down on his side, and then he was aware of something wet that rasped
+along his hand. He looked down. There was a joyous little bark, and
+the something wet rasped along his check.
+
+'Harlequin!' he thought, with a pang of hope. He summoned all his
+strength, all his will; the houses ceased to spin. He let himself down
+to his full length, with great care drew a scrap from one pocket, a
+pencil from the other, and laboriously wrote. Then he poked the paper
+underneath the ribbon round the poodle's neck. 'Home!' he cried,
+clapping his hands; and fainted.
+
+But ten minutes afterwards Miss Rose Townley unfolded a slip of paper,
+with here and there the mark of a bloody thumb, and written on it
+these words, 'Help Harlequin's friend'; and at her feet a bright-eyed
+poodle dog stood, wagging his tail, ready to conduct her to the spot
+where Harlequin's friend lay in sore need.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIII
+
+ OF THE ROSE AND THE ROSE-GARDEN IN AVIGNON.
+
+
+Life is not wholly the lopsided business that some would have you
+esteem it. Here was the Parson paying, with a sword-thrust of the
+first quality, for a love-affair that was dead already; over and
+ended. That was bad, but, to balance his accounts, the Parson waked up
+from his swoon in Dr. Townley's house, with the Doctor's beautiful
+daughter, Rose, to be his nurse-tender. Lady Oxford had caused his
+duel with Scrope, to be sure, but she had thereby, as it were, cast
+him straight into the girl's arms, and in that very condition which
+was likely to make her most tender to him. Carry the conceit a little
+farther, and you'll see that here was Mr. Kelly, through her
+ladyship's behaviours, imprisoned in the hands of one of those very
+creatures which she was ever persuading him to avoid: namely, that
+terrible monster a girl, and she very young, frank, and beautiful.
+When the Parson came to his senses, he called Dr. Townley to his side,
+and telling him who he was, and how that, being a friend of Mr.
+Wogan's, he knew the doctor from hearing his daughter call the dog
+Harlequin, he continued:
+
+'You were at Preston with my friend, and I therefore have the less
+reluctance in asking a service of you beyond those you have already
+done me;' and he began to tell the Doctor of the expected messenger
+from Spain whom he was to meet on the boulevard.
+
+But the Doctor interrupted him.
+
+'Mr. Wogan is indeed my friend, though I have seen nothing of him
+these past six years; and his name is a passport into our friendship,
+as my daughter will assure you. So, Mr. Kelly, such kindness and
+hospitality as we can show you you may count upon; but--well, I had my
+surfeit of politics at Preston. I have no longer any faith in your
+cause, in your King. I do not think that he will come before the
+coming of the Coquecigrues. I am, indeed, leaving Avignon in a few
+months, and hope for nothing better than a peaceful life in some
+village of my own country under the King who now sits on the throne.
+
+This he said very kindly, but with a certain solemnity which quite
+closed Mr. Kelly's lips; and so, giving him a sleeping potion, the
+Doctor left the room. In spite of the potion, however, the Parson
+made but a restless night of it, and more than once from under his
+half-closed lids he saw the doctor come to his bedside; but towards
+morning he fell into something of a sleep and woke up in the broad
+daylight with a start, as a man will who has something on his mind. In
+a minute or two Mr. Kelly remembered what that something was. He got
+out of his bed, and, holding the door open, listened. There was no
+sound audible at all except the ticking of a clock in the parlour
+below. Mr. Kelly drew on his clothes carefully, so as not to disarrange
+the bandages of his wound, and, taking his shoes in his hand, crept
+down the stairs. It was a slow, painful business, and more than once he
+had to sit down on the steps and rest. He glanced into the parlour as
+he passed, and saw, to his great relief, that it was only half past
+eight in the morning. What with fomentations and bandages Mr. Kelly
+had kept the tiny household out of bed to a late hour, and so no one
+was astir. He drew back the bolt and slipped out of the house.
+
+Half an hour later, Dr. Townley came into the bedroom and found it
+empty. He scratched his head to ease his perplexity, and then wisely
+took counsel with his daughter.
+
+'There was a man he expected to come for him,' he said. 'He was very
+urgent last night that I should see to it. But I cut him short, and so
+do not know where they were to meet with each other.'
+
+At that moment the clock in the parlour struck nine.
+
+'I know!' cried Rose on a sudden, and dragged her father off to the
+boulevard outside the Porte du Rhone, where they discovered Mr. Kelly
+sitting bolt upright on his bench, with a flushed red face and
+extraordinarily bright eyes, chattering to himself like a monkey.
+
+The Parson lay for a week after that at death's door, and it needed
+all Dr. Townley's skill and Rose's nursing to keep him out of the
+grave. Meanwhile the Duke of Ormond's messenger arrived from Corunna,
+and kicked his heels on the boulevard until Mr. Kelly recovered his
+senses and summoned Mr. Philabe to his aid. Mr. Philabe the next
+morning took Kelly's place on the bench, and that day the money
+changed hands and the messenger started back post-haste to Corunna. At
+Corunna he told the story of the Parson's misfortune in more than one
+cafe, and so it came shortly to Wogan's ears, who put in with his ship
+at that port in order to give up his command.
+
+The reason for this change in Wogan's condition was simple enough.
+Sufficient arms and ammunition had now been collected at Bilboa, and
+it was become urgent that the plans for the rising of the soldiers in
+England, and the capture of the Tower of London, should be taken
+earnestly in hand. The Duke of Ormond, who was to land in the West,
+was supposed a great favourite with the English troops, but it was
+none the less necessary that their favour should be properly directed.
+To that end Mr. Talbot, Tyrell, and Nicholas Wogan, amongst others,
+were deputed to travel into England, ready for the moment of striking.
+Nick was to have the rank of a colonel, and was bidden to repair to
+Paris by a certain date, where he was to take his instructions from
+General Dillon and the Earl of Mar. Now that date gave him half a week
+or so of leisure, and he knew of no better use to which he could put
+it than in stopping at Avignon, which lay directly in his path to
+Paris.
+
+But before he reached the olives of Provence Mr. Kelly was
+convalescent and much had happened. How it had happened Mr. Wogan only
+discovered by hints which the Parson let slip unconsciously. For
+George had a complete distaste for the sensibilities, and, after all,
+a true man, even in the company of his closest friend, never does more
+than touch lightly upon the fringe of what he holds most sacred. He
+said that he was recovered of two fevers at one and the same time, and
+by the same ministering hands, and so was come forth into a sweet,
+cool life and a quiet air. His affairs, whether of stocks in the
+Mississippi scheme or of the Great Business, went clean out of his
+mind. His heart was swept and garnished like the man's in the Parable,
+and almost unawares a woman opened the door and stepped in, bringing
+with her train seven virtues, as of modesty, innocence, faith,
+cheerfulness, youth, courage, and love--qualities no better nor no
+fairer than herself.
+
+How did it begin? Why, at the first there would be a smiling face at
+the doorway to wish him a good morning, or if he had slept ill a sweet
+look of anxious fear which would make up for a dozen sleepless nights.
+When he could get up from his bed and come into the parlour, the dog
+Harlequin, and Rose, and he became children and playfellows together,
+for the brute had been taught a hundred pretty tricks that would make
+a dying man laugh; until at length the girl grew familiar, and was
+seated at the very hearth and centre of his affections, where her
+memory remains enshrined.
+
+Mr. Kelly spoke frankly of the matter only once in Mr. Wogan's
+hearing, and that was many years afterwards, and then he was not
+speaking of the matter at all. It was Lady Mary Wortley who set him on
+to it one night.
+
+For she quoted a saying of some sage or another. 'In a man,' said she,
+'desire begets love, and in a woman love begets desire.'
+
+'And that is true,' said Kelly. 'I do think the steadfast and
+honourable passions between our sex and women are apt to have their
+beginnings on the woman's side, and then, being perceived and most
+gratefully welcomed, light up as pure a flame in the heart of a man.
+For otherwise, if a man sees a woman that she is fair, as King David
+saw Bathsheba, and so covets her, his appetite may in the end turn to
+love or may not. But if his eyes are first opened to an innocent
+woman's love, he being at best a sinful creature, he is then stirred
+with a wonderful amazement of grateful tenderness which never can pass
+away, but must endure, as I hold, even after death.' Which was all
+very modish and philosophical, and meant--well, just what anyone who
+had visited Avignon in February of the year '22 might have seen with
+half an eye. Rose was in love with the Parson and the Parson knew it,
+and so fell in love with Rose.
+
+Mr. Wogan reached Avignon in the afternoon. The Doctor's house stood a
+stone's throw from the Palace of the Emperor Constantine, with a
+little garden at the back which ran down to the city wall. The top of
+the wall was laid out as a walk with a chair or two, and there Wogan
+found the Parson and Rose Townley. It was five years and more since
+Wogan had seen Rose Townley, and she was grown from a child to a
+woman. He paid her a foolish compliment, and then the three of them
+fell into an awkward silence. Mr. Wogan asked Kelly for a history of
+his wound, and then:
+
+'So 'twas Scrope. Lady Mary was right when she warned me we had not
+seen the last of him. 'Faith, George, it was my fault. For, d'ye see,
+if I had not been so fond of my poetry I should have made my account
+with the gentleman at the gates of Brampton Bryan Manor, and you would
+never have been troubled with him at all.'
+
+"Brampton Bryan?" asked Rose. "Where is that?"
+
+Mr. Kelly made no answer, and perhaps Wogan's remark was not the
+discreetest in the world. Miss Rose would not forget that name,
+Brampton Bryan. At all events, the three of them fell to silence once
+more, and Mr. Wogan knew that he was trespassing and that he would
+have done better to have journeyed straight to Paris. Rose, however,
+came to the rescue and made him tell over again, as he had told her
+often before, his stories of the march to Preston. But, whereas before
+she had listened to them with a great enthusiasm and an eagerness for
+more, now her colour came and went as though they frightened her, and
+she would glance with a quick apprehension towards the Parson.
+
+'And the battles are to be fought all over again,' she said, clasping
+her hands on her knees, and then plied Wogan for more details. She
+shivered at the thought of wounds and cannon-balls and swords, yet she
+must know to the very last word all that was to be described of them.
+So, until the sun sank behind the low green hills of the Cevennes, and
+the Rhone at their feet, in that land of olives, took on a pure olive
+tint. Then she rose and went into the house to prepare the supper,
+leaving the two friends together; and it presently appeared that Rose
+Townley was not the only one who was frightened.
+
+The Parson watched her as she went down the garden, brushing the pink
+blossoms from the boughs of a peach tree or two that grew on the lawn.
+There was an old moss-grown stone sundial close to the house; she
+paused for a moment beside it to pick up a scarf which was laid on the
+top and so passed through the window, whence in a moment or two a
+lamp-light shone. The Parson seemed sunk in a reverie.
+
+'I am afraid, Nick,' he said slowly. 'I am afraid.'
+
+'What! You too?' exclaimed Wogan. 'Afraid of the wars?'
+
+'The wars--no, no,' replied Kelly scornfully dismissing the
+interpretation of his fears, and then following out his own train of
+thoughts, 'you have known her a long time, Nick?'
+
+'Six years.'
+
+'I would that I too had known her six years ago,' said the Parson with
+a remorseful sigh.
+
+'She has changed in those six years.'
+
+'How?'
+
+'Why, she has grown a foot, and grown a trifle shy.'
+
+'Ah, but that's only since--' began the Parson with a nod, and came to
+a sudden stop. Rose's shyness was the outcome of her pride. She was
+shy just because she knew that she loved a man who had breathed no
+word of love to her. Mr. Kelly sat for a little longer in silence.
+Then,
+
+'But I am afraid, Nick,' he repeated, and so went down into the house
+leaving Nick in some doubt as to what he was afraid of.
+
+The Parson repeated his remark the next morning after breakfast. Mr.
+Wogan was smoking a pipe upon the wall; the Parson was walking
+restlessly about as he spoke.
+
+'I am afraid,' said he, and looks towards the house. As soon as he
+looked, he started. So Wogan looked too. Rose Townley had just come
+from the window and was walking across the lawn more or less towards
+them with an infinite interest and attention for everything except the
+two figures on the city wall.
+
+'She comes slowly,' said Kelly in a great trepidation, as though he
+had screwed up his courage till it snapped like a fiddle-string. 'She
+is lost in thought. No doubt she would not be disturbed,' and he
+glanced around him for means of escape. There was, however, only one
+flight of narrow steps from the wall down to the garden; and if he
+descended that he would be going to meet her.
+
+Wogan laughed. 'She comes very slowly,' said he. 'No doubt she saw you
+from the window.'
+
+'It is plain she did not,' replied the Parson, 'for, as you say, she
+comes very slowly.'
+
+'The vanity of the creature!' cried Wogan. 'D'ye think if she saw you
+she would run at you and butt you in the chest with her head?'
+
+'No,' says Kelly quickly. 'I do not. But--well, if she saw us here she
+would at the least look this way.'
+
+'Would she?' asked Wogan. ''Faith, my friend, you'll have to go to
+school again. Your ignorance of the ways of women is purely
+miraculous. She does not look this way, therefore she does not know
+you are here! She looks to every other quarter; observe, she stops and
+gazes at nothing with the keenest absorption, but she will not look
+this way. Oh, indeed, indeed, my simple logician, she does not know
+you are here. Again she comes on--in this direction, you'll observe,
+but how carelessly, as though her pretty feet knew nothing of the path
+they take. See, she stops at the dial. Mark how earnestly she bends
+over it. There's a great deal to observe in a dial. One might think it
+was a clock and, like herself, had stopped. There's a peach tree she's
+coming to. A peach tree in blossom. I'll wager you she'll find
+something very strange in those blossoms to delay her. There, she
+lifts them, smells them--there's a fine perfume in peach blossoms--she
+peers into them, holds them away, holds them near. One might fancy
+they are the first peach blossoms that ever blossomed in the world.
+Now she comes on again just as carelessly, but perhaps the
+carelessness is a thought too careful, eh? However, she does not look
+this way. Watch for her surprise, my friend, when she can't but see
+you. She will be startled, positively startled. Oh, she does not know
+you are here.'
+
+The girl walked to the steps, mounted them, her face rose above the
+level of the wall.
+
+'Oh,' she cried, 'Mr. Kelly!' in an extremity of astonishment. Wogan
+burst out into a laugh.
+
+'What is it?' asked Rose.
+
+'Sure, Mr. Kelly will tell you,' said Wogan, and he strolled to the
+end of the walk, turned, walked down the steps and so left them
+together.
+
+'What was it amused Mr. Wogan?' asked Rose of Kelly as soon as Wogan
+had vanished. The Parson left the question unanswered. He balanced
+himself on one foot for a bit then on the other, and he began at the
+end, as many a man has done before.
+
+'I can bring you nothing but myself,' said he, 'and to be sure myself
+has battered about the world until it's not worth sweeping out of your
+window.'
+
+'Then I won't,' said she with a laugh. The laugh trembled a little,
+and she looked out over the river and the fields of Provence with eyes
+which matched the morning.
+
+'You won't!' he repeated, and then blundered on in a voice of intense
+commiseration. 'My dear, I know you love me.'
+
+It was not precisely what Rose expected to hear, and she turned
+towards the Parson with a look of pride. 'And of course I love you
+too,' he said lamely.
+
+'You might almost have begun with that,' said she with a smile.
+
+'Was there need?' he asked. 'Since I thought every blade of grass in
+your garden was aware of it.' Then he stood for a second silent.
+'Rose,' said he, savouring the name, and again 'Rose,' with a happy
+sort of laugh. But he moved no nearer to her.
+
+Rose began to smile.
+
+'I am glad,' said she demurely, 'that you find the name to your
+liking.'
+
+'It is the prettiest name in the world,' cried he with enthusiasm.
+
+'I am much beholden to my parents,' said she.
+
+'But, my dear,' he continued, 'you put it to shame.'
+
+The girl uttered a sigh which meant 'At last!' but Mr. Kelly was in
+that perturbation that he altogether misunderstood it.
+
+'But you mustn't believe, my dear, it's for your looks I love you,' he
+said earnestly. 'No, it's for your self; it's for the shining
+perfections of your nature. Sure I have seen good-looking women before
+to-day.'
+
+'I have no doubt of that,' she said, tapping with her foot on the
+pavement.
+
+'Yes, I have,' said he. 'But when I looked at them 'twas to note the
+colour of their eyes or some such triviality, whereas when I look at
+your eyes, it's as though a smiling heart leaned out of them as from a
+window and said, "How d'ye do?" Sure, my dear, I should love you no
+less if you had another guess nose, and green eyes.' (He reflectively
+deformed her features.) 'It's your shining perfections that I am on my
+knees to.'
+
+'Are you?' she interrupted with a touch of plaintiveness. He was
+standing like a wooden post and there was at the least a couple of
+yards between them.
+
+'Just your shining perfections. 'Faith, you have the most
+extraordinary charm without any perversity whatever, which is a pure
+miracle. I am not denying,' he continued thoughtfully, 'that there's
+something taking in perversity when it is altogether natural, but, to
+be sure, most women practise it as though it were one of the fine
+arts, and then it's nothing short of damnable--I beg your pardon,' he
+exclaimed waking up of a sudden. 'Indeed, but I don't know what I am
+saying at all. Rose,' and he stepped over to her, 'I have no prospects
+whatever in the world, but will you take them?'
+
+Well, she did. Mr. Kelly had come to his meaning in a roundabout
+fashion enough, as he acknowledged that same day to Nicholas Wogan.
+
+'Upon my conscience, but I made a blundering ass of myself,' said he.
+
+'You would,' said Wogan. 'My dear man, why didn't you tell me of your
+intention and I would have written you out a fine sort of speech that
+you could have got by heart?'
+
+'Sure I should have stammered over the first sentence and forgot the
+rest,' said Kelly with a shake of the head. 'To tell the truth, the
+little girl has sunk me to such a depth of humility and diffidence
+that I find it wonderful I said anything at all.' Then he grew silent
+for a minute or so. 'Nick,' said he secretly, drawing his chair a
+trifle closer. 'There's a question troubles me. D'ye think I should
+tell her of My Lady Oxford?'
+
+'It would be entirely superfluous,' replied Wogan with decision,
+'since the thing's done with.'
+
+'But is it?' asked Kelly. 'Is it, Nick? Look you here. We thought it
+was done with a year ago, and up springs Mr. Scrope at Avignon. Mr.
+Scrope does his work and there's not the end of it. For I am carried
+here and so my very betrothal is another consequence. It is as though
+her ladyship had presented me to Rose. Well, how are we to know it's
+done with now? If it ends here it is very well. But, d'ye see, Nick,
+it was after all not the most honourable business in the world, and am
+I to make this great profit out of it? Well, perhaps my fears confuse
+my judgment. I am all fears to-day, Nick,' and he stopped for a moment
+and clapped his hand into his pocket.
+
+'I'll confess to you a very childish thing,' said he. 'Look!' and out
+of his pocket he drew a pistol.
+
+'What's that for?' asked Nick.
+
+'It's loaded,' replied Kelly. 'I went up to my room, after the little
+girl had taken me, and loaded it and slipped it into my pocket,' and
+he began to laugh, perhaps something awkwardly. 'For, you see, since
+she prizes me, why I am grown altogether valuable.' He put back the
+pistol in his pocket. 'But don't misunderstand me, Nick. The new fears
+are quite overbalanced by a new confidence. Sure, it's not the future
+I am afraid of.'
+
+'I understand,' said Wogan gravely. 'It's what's to come.'
+
+'Yes, that's it,' said Kelly.
+
+Being afraid, and being a man of honour, Kelly did nothing, said
+nothing on the head of his old love affair, and trembled with
+apprehension of he knew not very well what. A path of flowers
+stretched before him, but a shadow walked on it, a tall, handsome
+shadow, yet unfriendly. It is Mr. Wogan's firm belief, based on
+experience, that a woman always finds everything out. The only
+questions are, when, and how will she take it? Sometimes it is a
+letter in the pocket of an old coat which the dear charitable creature
+is giving to a poor devil of a chairman. Sometimes it is a glance at a
+rout, which she shoots flying. Now it is a trinket, or a dead flower
+in a book, or a line marked in a poem, but there is always a trail of
+the past, and woman never misses it.
+
+George's wooing seemed as flowery as the meadows about Avignon, white
+with fragrant narcissus, or as the gardens purple with Judas trees in
+spring. Rose was all _parfait amour_, and, in her eyes, Mr. Kelly was
+a hero, a clerical Montrose, or a Dundee of singular piety. Wogan has
+known women more zealous for the Cause, such as her Grace of
+Buckingham, or Madame de Mezieres, who had ever a private plot of her
+own running through the legs of our schemes, like a little dog at a
+rout, and tripping us up. To Miss Townley George was the Cause, and
+the Cause was George, so that, in truth, she was less of a Jacobite
+than a Georgite.
+
+There never had been such a George as hers for dragons. Why did he
+fight Mr. Scrope? She was certain it was all for the Cause! Indeed,
+that _casus belli_, as the lawyers say, proved a puzzle. Why, in fact,
+did the Parson come to be lying on the flags, in receipt of a
+sword-thrust of the first quality? George was the last man to brag of
+his services, but he was merely obliged to put the sword-thrust down
+to his credit with the Cause. His enemy had been a Whig, a dangerous
+spy, which was true, but not exactly all the truth, about as much of
+it as a man finds good for a woman.
+
+Rose clasped her hands, raised her eyes to Heaven, and wondered that
+it did not better protect the Right. What other deeds of arms had her
+warrior done? She hung on George imploring him to speak of deadly
+'scapes, and of everything that it terrified her to hear. Mr. Kelly,
+in fact, had never drawn sword in anger before; he was, by profession,
+a man of peace and of the pen. If ever he indulged a personal
+ambition, it would have been for a snug Irish deanery, and he
+communicated to Miss Townley a part of his favourite scheme, for
+leisure, a rose-hung parsonage, and Tully, his Roman friend.
+
+But the girl put this down to his inveterate modesty, remarked by all
+Europe in his countrymen.
+
+'Nay, I _know_ you have done more,' she said one day alone with him in
+a bower of the garden. 'You have done something very brave and very
+great, beyond others. You helped to free the Queen from the Emperor's
+prison at Innspruck!'
+
+'I!' exclaimed Mr. Kelly in amazement. 'What put that notion into the
+prettiest head in the world? Why, it was Nicholas's brother Charles,
+with other Irish gentlemen, Gaydon, Misset, and O'Toole, who did that
+feat; the world rings of it. I was in Paris at that time.'
+
+'Then you did something greater and braver yet, that is a secret for
+State reasons, or else, why does the King give you such rich
+presents?'
+
+Mr. Kelly blushed as red as the flower after which his lady was named.
+
+'Now,' he thought, 'how, in the name of the devil, did she hear of the
+box the King gave me, and I gave to Lady Oxford?'
+
+That trinket was lying on Lady Oxford's table, but the face behind the
+mirror was now that of a handsomer man than either his Majesty, or Mr.
+Kelly, or Colonel Montague. Kelly knew nothing about that, but he
+blushed beautifully when Miss Townley spoke of a rich royal present.
+
+'You blush,' cried the girl, before he could find an answer. 'I know
+you are hiding something, now.' (And here she added to his pleasure
+without taking anything from his confusion), 'Tell me why you blush to
+find it fame?'
+
+'Troth, isn't my face a mirror, and reflects your rosy one, my Rose?'
+answered Mr. Kelly, putting on a great deal of the brogue, to make her
+laugh. For, if a woman laughs, she is apt to lose sight of her idea.
+
+'I must be told; I cannot trust you to show me how brave you are.'
+
+Mr. Kelly was upon dangerous ground. If he was expected to talk about
+the box given by the King, and if Rose wished to see, or to know what
+had become of it, Kelly had not a fable ready, and the truth he could
+not tell. He made a lame explanation:
+
+'Well, then, I blushed, if I did, for shame that the King has to
+borrow money to help better men than me.'
+
+'I don't care if he borrowed the money or not, for he could not have
+borrowed for a better purpose than to give you--what I have seen.'
+
+Mr. Kelly was pale enough now. What in the wide world had she seen?
+Certainly not the snuffbox.
+
+'Seen in a dream, my dear; sure the King never gave me anything but my
+little pension.'
+
+'Then you know other kings, for who else give diamonds? Ah, you are
+caught! You have the Queen's portrait set with diamonds.'
+
+'The Queen's portrait?' cried Kelly in perplexity. He was comforted as
+well as perplexed. 'Twas plain that Rose knew nothing of the royal
+snuffbox, now the spoil of Lady Oxford's spear and bow.
+
+'Yes,' cried Rose. 'Whose portrait but the Queen's should it be that
+lies on your table? So beautiful a lady and such diamonds!'
+
+Mr. Kelly groaned in spirit. The snuff-box was not near so dangerous
+as this new trail that Rose had hit. She had seen, in his possession,
+the miniature of Smilinda, and had guessed that it was a royal gift;
+the likeness of the Princess Clementina Sobieska, who had but lately
+married the King.
+
+'I saw it lying on your table the day we brought you home from the
+seat on the boulevard, when we thought'(here Miss Rose hid her face on
+her lover's shoulder, and her voice broke) 'that--you--would--die.'
+
+Now was this rose wet with a shower, and when Kelly, like the glorious
+sun in heaven, had dried these pretty petals, what (Mr. Wogan puts it
+to the casuists) was the dear man to say? What he thought was to curse
+Nick for holding his hand when he was about throwing Smilinda's
+picture into the sea.
+
+What he said was that, under Heaven, but without great personal
+danger, he had been the blessed means of detecting and defeating a
+wicked Hanoverian plot to kidnap and carry off from Rome the dear
+little Prince of Wales, and Mrs. Hughes, his Welsh nurse. This
+prodigious fable George based on one of the many flying stories of the
+time. It satisfied Miss Townley's curiosity (as, indeed, it was very
+apt to do) and George gave her the strictest orders never to breathe a
+word of the circumstance, which must be reckoned a sacred mystery of
+the royal family. He also remarked that the portrait flattered her
+Majesty (as painters will do), and that, though extremely pretty and
+gay, she had not that air of dignity and command, nor was so dark a
+beauty. 'In fact, my dear,' said George, 'you might wear that portrait
+at the Elector's Birth Night rout (if you could fall so low) and few
+people would be much the wiser. These Roman painters are satisfied
+with making a sitter pretty enough to please her, or him.'
+
+George was driven to this flagrant incorrectness because, though Miss
+Townley had not yet seen the Queen's portrait (her father having
+changed sides) she might see one any day, and find Mr. Kelly out.
+
+The girl was satisfied, and the thing went by, for the time. But, on
+later occasions, his conscience gnawing him, the good George very
+unwisely dropped out general hints of the unworthiness of his sex, and
+of himself in particular, as many an honest fellow has done. In Mr.
+Wogan's opinion, bygones ought to be bygones, but it takes two to that
+bargain. Meanwhile Miss Rose might make as much or as little of her
+lover's penitences as she chose, and, indeed, being a lass of gold,
+with a sense of honour not universal in her sex, and perfectly sure of
+him, she made nothing whatever, nor thought at all of the matter.
+
+But there was another dragon in the course that never yet ran smooth.
+The excellent surgeon, who had not recovered the fright of Preston,
+was obdurate. He had no dislike for Mr. Kelly, but a very great
+distaste for Mr. Kelly's Cause. Rose might coax, the Parson might
+argue, Wogan might use all his blandishments--the good man was iron.
+In brief, Kelly must cease to serve the King, or cease to hope for
+Rose. This was a hard choice, for indeed Mr. Kelly could not in honour
+leave hold of the threads of the plot which were then in his hands.
+
+So much Dr. Townley was at last brought to acknowledge, and thereupon
+a compromise was come to. Mr. Kelly was to go over to England once
+again, on the last chance. The blow was to be struck in this spring of
+the year 1722. If it failed, or could not be struck, Mr. Kelly was to
+withdraw from the King's affairs and earn his living by writing for
+the booksellers, and instructing youth.
+
+The Parson was the more ready to agree to this delay, because of a
+circumstance with which he was now acquainted. The Doctor and his
+daughter were themselves on the point of returning to England. Mr.
+Kelly and Rose had no great difficulty in persuading the surgeon that
+he would find it more convenient to live in London than in the
+country, of the miseries of which they drew a very pathetic and
+convincing picture; and so, being assured that the delay would not
+mean a complete separation, they accepted the plan and fell to mapping
+out their lives.
+
+They chose the sort of house they would live in and where, whether in
+Paris or in England: they furnished it from roof to cellar.
+
+'There must be a room for Nick,' said the Parson, 'so that he can come
+in and out as if to his own house.'
+
+Mr. Wogan had borne his part in persuading Dr. Townley, without a
+thought of the great change which the Parson's marriage meant for him.
+But these words, and the girl's assent, and above all a certain
+unconscious patronage in their voices, struck the truth into him with
+something of a shock.
+
+Mr. Wogan escaped from the room, and walked about in the garden. These
+two men, you are to understand, had been boys together, George being
+by some years the older, and had quarrelled and fought and made
+friends again twenty times in a day. Mr. Kelly bore, and would bear
+till his dying day, a little scar on his cheek close to his ear, where
+he was hit by a mallet which Wogan heaved at him one day that he was
+vexed. Wogan never noticed that scar but a certain pleasurable
+tenderness came over him. His friendship with the Parson had been, as
+it were, the heart of his boyhood. And in after years it had waxed
+rather than diminished. The pair of them could sit one on each side of
+a fire in perfect silence for an hour together, and yet converse
+intelligibly to each other all the while. Well, here was Mr. Wogan
+alone in the darkness of the little garden at Avignon now. The Rhone
+looked very cold beneath the stars, and the fields entirely desolate
+and cheerless. Yet he gazed that way persistently, for if he turned
+his head toward the house he saw a bright window across which the
+curtains were not drawn, and a girl's fair hair shining gold against a
+man's black periwig. Mr. Wogan had enough sense to strangle his
+jealousy that night, and was heartily ashamed of it the next morning
+when he bade the couple good-bye and set out for Paris.
+
+Mr. Kelly took his leave a few days later, being now sufficiently
+recovered to travel. The precise date was the eighth of April. To part
+from Rose you may well believe was a totally different matter from his
+adieus to Smilinda. Nothing would serve the poor girl, who had no
+miniature and diamonds to give, but to sacrifice what she prized most
+in the world after her father and her lover.
+
+'You cannot take me,' she said with a tearful little laugh, 'but you
+shall take Harlequin, who made us acquainted. That way you will not be
+altogether alone.'
+
+Harlequin wagged his tail, and sat up on his hind legs as though he
+thoroughly approved of the proposal, and Mr. Kelly, to whom the poodle
+could not but be an inconvenience, had not the heart to refuse the
+gift.
+
+George had to give as well as to take, and felt even less blessed in
+giving than in receiving. For Miss Rose must have a souvenir of him,
+too, and what should it be but that inestimable testimony to her
+lover's loyalty and courage, the Portrait of the Queen! There was no
+way of escape, and thus, as a memorial of Mr. Kelly's singular
+attachment to the best of Causes and of Queens, Miss Townley was
+treasuring the likeness of the incomparable Smilinda. The ladies, in
+the nature of things, could never meet, George reckoned, for the
+daughter of the exiled country physician would not appear among the
+London fashionables.
+
+In Paris, on his road to London, Mr. Kelly visited the Duke of Mar,
+who most unfortunately took notice of the dog, and asked him what he
+purposed to do with it.
+
+'My Lord,' replied Kelly, 'when I am on my jaunts Harlequin will find
+a home with the Bishop of Rochester, whose wife has a great liking for
+dogs. The poor lady is ill, and, alas, near to her death; the Bishop
+is fretting under the gout, and his wife's sickness, and the
+jealousies among the King's friends. Moreover, he is much occupied
+with building his tomb in the Abbey, so that, altogether, their house
+is of the gloomiest, and Harlequin may do something to lighten it.'
+
+For the poodle had more accomplishments than any dog that ever the
+Parson had met with, and this he demonstrated to the Duke of Mar by
+putting him through his tricks. The Duke laughed heartily, and
+commended the Parson's kindliness towards his patron. But in truth the
+Parson never did a worse day's work in the whole of his life.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIV
+
+ OF THE GREAT CONFUSION PRODUCED BY A BALLAD
+ AND A DRUNKEN CROW
+
+
+From this time until Saturday, May 19, the world seemed to go very
+well for those concerned in the Bishop of Rochester's plot, which was
+a waiting plot; and in the other scheme, the scheme for an immediate
+rising, which was a hurrying scheme, and not at all known to the good
+Bishop. There was a comforting air of discontent abroad; the losses
+from the South Sea made minds heavy and purses light. Mr. Walpole had
+smoked nothing of what was forward, so far as a man could see; and
+within a month the country was to rise. Mr. Wogan from Paris travelled
+to Havre-de-Grace, whence James Roche, an Irishman, settled in that
+port, and a noted smuggler upon the English coast, set him across the
+Channel, and put him ashore at the Three Sheds and Torbay near
+Elephant Stairs in Rotherhithe. Mr. Wogan took his old name of Hilton,
+and went about his business, paying a visit now and again to the Cocoa
+Tree, where amongst other gossip he heard that Lady Oxford was still
+on the worst of friendly terms with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and the
+best of loving terms with Colonel Montague. There was more than one
+jest aimed at Mr. Kelly on this last account, since a man who has been
+fooled by a woman is ever a fair mark for ridicule; and when James
+Talbot began to talk of the Parson with a mock pity, Wogan could no
+longer endure it.
+
+'Sure your compassion is all pure waste, Crow,' said he. 'I could tell
+you a very pretty tale about the Parson were I so minded.'
+
+Of course he _was_ minded, and he told the story of the Parson's
+betrothal with a good many embellishments. He drew so tender a picture
+of Rose, that he became near to weeping over it himself; he clothed
+her in high qualities as in a shining garment, and you may be sure he
+did not spare Lady Oxford in the comparison. On the contrary, he came
+very near to hinting that it was the Parson jilted Lady Oxford, who
+therefore fell back upon Colonel Montague to cover her discomfiture.
+At all events that was the story which soon got about, and Mr. Wogan
+never said a word to correct it, and in due time, of course, and in a
+way not very agreeable, it came to her Ladyship's ears.
+
+The Parson arrived in London on a Wednesday, the 13th of April. The
+weather had been terrible on the sea, and the unhappy dog Harlequin
+had contrived to slip his leg by a fall on deck. However, he soon
+recovered of his injury, thanks to the care of Mrs. Barnes, and Mr.
+Kelly carried him to the Bishop's house at Bromley, where his lady lay
+a-dying. There, too, as he had good cause afterwards to remember, he
+wrote certain letters for the Bishop, to the King, the Duke of Mar,
+and General Dillon, and put them in the common post. They did but
+carry common news, and excuses for delay. The Bishop's lady died on
+the 26th of April, and on that very day Harlequin's hurt broke out
+again, and the poor creature went whining lugubriously about the
+gloomy house, as though it was mourning for its mistress. This fact
+should be mentioned, because the Duke of Mar had made an inquiry in a
+letter as to how Harlequin fared, and whether _Mr. Illington_, as the
+Bishop was called, had as yet received the dog. Kelly replied that
+'_Illington_ is in great tribulation for poor Harlequin, who is in a
+bad way, having slipped his leg again,' which was true, for since the
+dog by his tricks greatly lightened his lady's sickness, the Bishop
+grew very fond of him, though at the Bishop's trial, when these things
+were brought up to prove that Illington and he were the same man, it
+was said 'he never loved a dog.' So much for Mr. Kelly.
+
+Rose and her father reached London a fortnight or more after the
+Parson. Wogan had no knowledge of her arrival, for since he left
+Avignon he had not so much as clapped his eyes upon the Parson, who,
+what with the Bishop's grief for his wife, and what with the Bishop's
+gout, was much occupied at Bromley. It was not until that calamitous
+day, the 19th of May, that the two friends met again. Events moved
+very quickly upon that same day. It seemed they had been hatching this
+long while out of sight, like thunderclouds gathering on a clear day
+under the rim of the sea. Seven breathless hours saw the beginning and
+the end. For it was not until six o'clock of the afternoon that Mr.
+Wogan chanced upon the ballad, that was our ruin, and by three of the
+morning all was over.
+
+Now, on the 19th of May, in the morning, Mr. Wogan found himself far
+enough from London, at the seat of Sir Harry Goring, a gentleman of
+Sussex, and a very loud friend of the Cause.
+
+This noisy Sir Harry drove Mr. Wogan back to town, in very great state
+and splendour, and drew up before Burton's coffee-house, at an hour
+when the streets had lost the high sun of the day. Mr. Wogan alighted,
+thinking to seek his letters at Burton's, and the baronet's carriage
+rolled off to his town house. Wogan entered the coffee-house; the
+great room was extraordinary full, and there was an eager buzz of
+talkers, who dropped their voices, and looked oddly at Mr. Wogan as he
+passed through, and so upstairs to a little chamber kept private for
+himself and his friends.
+
+As he went he heard roars of laughter, and a voice chanting in the
+deplorable, lamenting tone of the street ballad-singer. Mr. Wogan
+caught a name he knew in this ditty, and knocking hastily in the
+manner usual and arranged, was admitted. The room was thick with
+tobacco smoke, and half-a dozen empty bottles made mantraps on the
+floor. Through the Virginia haze Wogan saw two men; one was Tyrell, a
+friend of the Cause, the other was a tall man, very black, in whom he
+recognised his friend Talbot, of his own country and politics,
+nicknamed the Crow from his appearance. The Crow was swaying on his
+legs as he steadied himself by the table, and he sang:--
+
+
+ Let Weapons yield them to the Gown,
+ The Latin Singers say:
+ Ye Squires and Ladies of renown,
+ The tune is changed to-day!
+ A Lady loved a Parson good,
+ And vowed she'd still be true,
+ Alas, the Sword goes o'er the Hood,
+ The Sword of Montague!
+
+
+'What ribaldry have you got now?' said Wogan, but the Crow hastily
+embraced him in the French manner, holding the paper of the ballad
+over his shoulder, and still chanting.
+
+'The little Parson is made immortal,' quoth he. 'Here is the newest
+ballad, all the story of his late amorous misfortune. Why do you look
+so glum?'
+
+For Wogan had gently disengaged himself from Mr. Talbot's embrace, who
+exhaled a perfume of wine and strong waters.
+
+'Crow, you fool, be quiet,' said Wogan; 'this is miching mallecho! Who
+wrote that rant?'
+
+'We think it is Lady Mary Montagu, from the Latin tags; it is headed
+_Cedat Armis Toga_.'
+
+But Lady Mary was not the writer, though she got the credit of the
+mischievous nonsense, as was intended, and 'hence these tears,' as the
+Parson said.
+
+Mr. Wogan had snatched the ballad into his hands by this time, where
+he intended to keep it.
+
+'Gentlemen,' he asked, 'are you entirely sober?'
+
+'Does my speech betray me? 'said Tyrell, who, to do him justice, was
+wholly in his right mind.
+
+'That is no answer; but, if it were, and if you don't care for a
+lady's name--'
+
+'She jilted the Parson!' cried the Crow.
+
+'Have you no thought of the reputation of--Mr. Farmer?'
+
+'Mr. Farmer?' exclaimed Tyrell. Mr. Farmer was the cant name for the
+Chevalier, and Tyrell scratched his head, wondering what on earth the
+Chevalier had to do in the same galley with the Parson's love affairs.
+
+'Mr. Farmer!' replied the Crow, blinking his eyes reproachfully.
+'Indeed, it is yourself has been drinking, Nick. What has the ballad
+of poor George's misfortune to do with Mr. Farmer, a gentleman of
+unbleb--upblem--I repeat, sir,' said the Crow with solemnity, 'a
+gentleman of unblemished reputation?'
+
+'Mark how a long word trips you up, and the evening so young!'
+
+'Mr. Farmer's health! I buzz the bottle!' cried the Crow, putting out
+his hand to the bottle, that was nearly empty.
+
+Mr. Wogan stopped his hand.
+
+'I tell you, Crow, the Affair hangs on your nonsense. We may all hang
+for it,' he said in a certain tone of voice, which made Tyrell open
+his mouth.
+
+Wogan read through the ballad, which was full of insults enough to
+drive any woman mad, let alone Lady Oxford. He knew what a woman wild
+with anger can do, and blessed his stars that for so many months her
+Ladyship had not met Kelly, and could know nothing of the inner plot
+for an immediate rising. Still, she knew enough to do a power of
+mischief. The ballad was written in a feigned hand, which Wogan did
+not know.
+
+'James,' he said to Talbot,' where did you get this thing? You are not
+haunting the fine ladies who pass these wares about? Where did you get
+it?' he said, shaking the Crow, who had fallen half asleep, as he
+spoke.
+
+'Got it from my friend Mr. Pope,' answered the Crow drowsily.
+
+'You got it from Mr. Pope! _You!_ Where did you meet Mr. Pope?'
+
+'At the Little Fox under the Hill, down by the water.'
+
+This tavern was precisely the shyest meeting-place of the party, where
+the smugglers came to arrange crossings and receive letters.
+
+'Mr. Alexander Pope at the Fox under the Hill! Crow, you are raving!
+What kind of man is your friend Mr. Pope?'
+
+'Who's Mr. Pope? Don't know the gentleman. Hear he's poet.'
+
+'The gentleman who gave you the ballad.'
+
+'Didn't say Pope, said Scrotton,' answered the Crow. 'Very honest man,
+my friend Mr. Scrotton. Met him often. Exshlent judge of wine, Mr.
+Scrotton. Exshlent judge of plots. Mr. Scrotton applauded our scheme.'
+
+'You told him about it? What plot did you tell him of? Not of the
+rising? Not of this immediate Blow? Crow, you should be shot!'
+
+'I told him! You inshult me, sir. Very good plot, very good wine. Mr.
+Scrotton told me about plot. Often talked it over a bottle. I'm a most
+cautious man. I don't drink except with very honest men. Dangerous!'
+murmured the Crow.
+
+'You are sure his name is Scrotton?'
+
+'Quite certain. Said "Pope" because of poetry. Soshiation of ideas.
+Mr. Pope's poet. You'd know that, but you are drunk, Mr. Wogan.'
+
+There was nothing more to be got out of the Crow. Invited to give a
+personal description of Mr. Scrotton, he fell back on his moral
+character as 'a very honest man.' He might be, or, again, he might be
+a spy. In any case, here was the ballad, and there was the furious
+woman ready for any revenge.
+
+'Go home; go to bed! Tyrell and I will walk with you to your rooms,'
+said Mr. Wogan, who, stepping to the letter-rack, picked up an epistle
+for Mr. Hilton. The handwriting of the superscription made him look so
+blank that the others noticed his face and were silent. The letter was
+in Lady Oxford's hand. He put it in his pocket.
+
+They led the Crow to his door in Germain Street. He behaved pretty
+well on the whole, only insisting that his fortune would be made if
+Wogan would but give him the ballad and let him sing it at the corner
+of St. James's.
+
+'Affluence would be mine,' he said, and dropped a tear. 'Oh,
+Wilton--Hogan, I would say--'tis a golden opportunity!'
+
+But if the opportunity was golden, Wogan was of iron, and they did not
+leave the debased Crow till he slept in the sheets, which on the night
+before it was probable that his limbs had never pressed.
+
+When the Crow was slumbering like a babe, Mr. Wogan and Tyrell stepped
+out, turning the key of his chamber on the outside and entrusting it
+to his landlady.
+
+'Mr. Talbot has a fever,' Wogan told her, 'and will see nobody. He
+must on no account see anyone except Mr. Tyrell, nor must he be
+disturbed before his physician calls.'
+
+Accompanied by the gift of a crown, the key was pocketed by the woman
+of the house, who expressed anxiety for the health and repose of so
+quiet a gentleman as Mr. Talbot.
+
+'And now, what is all this pother about?' Tyrell asked when they were
+got into the street.
+
+'Come towards the Park and I will instruct you. I need quiet for
+thought, and sylvan repose. What have you been doing all day?'
+
+'Watching the Crow play the fool at Burton's.'
+
+'You have no news?'
+
+'I have seen nobody.'
+
+They walked for a hundred yards or so in silence, Wogan frowning, and
+Tyrell much perturbed with Wogan's perturbation.
+
+'The new ballad is a true ballad,' said Wogan after a pause.
+
+'Devil a doubt of it; but what then?'
+
+'The greater the truth, the greater the libel.'
+
+'_Et apres?_'
+
+'And the greater is the rage of the libelled. This ballad must have
+run through all the boudoirs before it reached the Crow.'
+
+'And yet I do not smoke you. Where does this touch the affair?'
+
+'The lady that's libelled knew George very well.'
+
+Tyrell nodded his head.
+
+'George knew everything,' continued Wogan.
+
+Tyrell stopped and caught Wogan by the elbow.
+
+'Then, what George knew the lady knows?'
+
+'No. Thank God, she knows nothing of what is immediately intended. It
+is a year and more since George and she have spoken. She knows nothing
+of the Blow. But she knows the men who are directing it.'
+
+'May be she's staunch,' said Tyrell.
+
+Wogan quoted Lady Mary:
+
+'Politics are nothing more to her than pawns in the game of love.'
+
+The two men stood looking at each other for a moment. The matter was
+too serious for them even to swear. Then they walked on again.
+
+'Do you think,' asked Nick, 'she will be in the best of tempers when
+she hears she is sung about in coffee-houses? Do you think she will
+blame anybody but Kelly for blabbing? She will give the ballad to Lady
+Mary Wortley Montagu, and isn't Kelly of Lady Mary's friends? No, he
+did not blab, but never mind. She will think he did. And do you know
+that she is a kinswoman of the minister, Mr. Walpole? Let her say a
+word, and she _will_ say it, and where is Mr. Farmer's affair?'
+
+'Where the Elector's hat and wig often are--in the fire,' answered
+Tyrell, looking serious enough.
+
+'That letter which I took up was from her; I know her hand. She is
+stirring.'
+
+Wogan opened the scented letter as he walked. It was but to say that
+Lady Oxford had heard that Mr. Hilton was in town, and begged the
+favour of his company at her rout that night.
+
+He told Tyrell what there was to tell, both of them looking very
+unlike a May sunset as they walked under the trees. Since he left
+Brampton Bryan, Mr. Wogan had not been favoured with any compliments
+from Lady Oxford. Why did she begin her favours to-day?
+
+'She is stirring,' he said again.
+
+By this time they were got within the Park.
+
+There much was stirring. Carts were streaming in and out with soldiers
+driving, soldiers lounging among the burdens of planks, tents, picks,
+and spades. Beside the Walnut Walk soldiers in their shirt sleeves
+were digging, trenching, measuring; a child could see what was
+toward--they were meting out a camp.
+
+Mr. Wogan looked at Mr. Tyrell, Mr. Tyrell looked at Mr. Wogan.
+
+'The lady _has_ stirred,' said Tyrell in dismay. 'And what is more she
+knows of the Blow.'
+
+'Or Mr. Scrotton is not a very honest man,' said Wogan, and whistled
+"Lilliburlero." He was disposed on the whole to agree with Tyrell.
+Somehow Lady Oxford had got news of the inner plot; perhaps through
+this mysterious Mr. Scrotton.
+
+The Walnut Walk was all astir and agape with evening loungers; it
+hummed with gossip. The two gentlemen went to the Cake House, sat
+down, and called for glasses of ratafia. Studying the face of Mr.
+Tyrell, of which his own was no doubt the very likeness, Mr. Wogan
+inferred that they needed this refreshment.
+
+They listened, with conscious grins of innocence, to the talk at the
+tables, being a little comforted to hear many questions, but no
+certain answers. The soldiers, it seems, being asked, could or would
+give no answer but that they had orders to make a camp. Fair ladies,
+smiling on private men, could get no other reply. It might be only for
+practice. It might be that the French were expected. Mr. Wogan
+heartily wished that they were, but nobody was expected, so far as he
+knew, save these same ragged regiments of his countrymen with the
+Duke. And, lo! a welcome was being got ready for them. As for the
+regiment that had been tampered with in the Tower, they were pitching
+tents in the Park. The two gentlemen, who had been conversing on faro
+and Newmarket, and laying each other fantastic odds, arose and walked
+eastwards.
+
+'I think the air of the waterside would be wholesome,' remarked Mr.
+Tyrell.
+
+'I have to see a friend,' said Mr. Wogan, and they shook hands and
+parted.
+
+'You will warn the Crow to be on the wing?' said Wogan over his
+shoulder, and the other nodded. Mr. Wogan could not but smile to think
+of the Crow winging an unsteady flight across the Channel. He managed
+to steer across, after all, thanks to Tyrell. Then Wogan read Lady
+Oxford's _billet_ again, and he walked to Bury Street.
+
+He knocked, and the door was opened by Mrs. Barnes.
+
+'Mr. Johnson at home?'
+
+'It would appear, Mr. Hilton, that I did not give satisfaction,' said
+Mrs. Barnes, whose aspect was of a severity.
+
+'Give satisfaction?'
+
+'Mr. Kelly has thought to better himself, and if he prefers
+bed-fellows such as shall be nameless, and the coals disappearing, and
+his letters pryed into, and if he thinks that I ever mention my
+gentlemen's affairs...!'
+
+Here Mrs. Barnes threw her apron over her head, but gulps of
+lamentation escaped aloud, though her emotion was veiled like that of
+the Greek gentleman in the picture.
+
+Mr. Wogan was not unpractised in the art of consoling Mrs. Barnes. He
+led her within, she was slowly induced to unshroud her pleasing
+features, and, at last, revealed the strange circumstance that Kelly
+had left her rooms two days before without giving in any sound
+justifying plea for this treason. Mr. Wogan, who was well aware of
+Mrs. Barnes's curiosity and the fluency of her tongue, was in no doubt
+as to the cause which had led the Parson to leave her, and thought the
+step in this posture of their affairs altogether prudent.
+
+'But he will return,' he reassured her. 'What!--you know Mr. Johnson,
+he will never desert you.'
+
+'So he said. He would come back in a month, and paid in advance to
+reserve the rooms, but it would seem that I do not give satisfaction.
+And here's all his letters to all manner of names. Look at them! Look
+at them! And how many of them are signed Ugus? Oh, I know what that
+will end in, and I'm just going to send the girl round with them--'
+
+'I'll carry them myself, Mrs. Barnes,' said Wogan, interrupting her.
+He picked up the letters from the table, and glanced about the room,
+if by chance Mr. Kelly had left anything inconvenient behind him. But,
+except the letters, there was not so much as a scrap of paper about to
+show that ever he had lodged there. Wogan looked at the scrutoire on
+which the strong-box he had given to his friend at Paris was used to
+rest. It had held Lady Oxford's letters in the old days, but of late
+it had lain unused, and the dust had gathered thick upon the lid, so
+that in his haste the Parson might well have forgotten it. But he had
+carried it away, and with it his big Bible, which had stood beside it
+in such an incongruous juxtaposition.
+
+'I'll carry them myself,' said Wogan, and putting the letters in his
+pocket he went down the steps. He marched some twenty yards down the
+street and then came to a stop. He looked round. Mrs. Barnes was
+watching him from the doorway with as grim a smile as her cheery face
+could compass.
+
+'But, my dear woman, where will I carry them to? 'asks Wogan, coming
+back.
+
+'That's it,' cried she with a triumphant toss of her head. 'One minute
+Mrs. Barnes is a tattling, troublesome woman, and, if you please,
+we'll not take so much trouble as to say good-bye to her, and the next
+it's Mrs. Barnes that must help us, and tell us where we are to go.
+Mr. Johnson lodges at Mrs. Kilburne's in Ryder Street.'
+
+'Mrs. Kilburne's! Why, she's your bosom friend, Mrs. Barnes.'
+
+Mr. Wogan was a trifle surprised that the Parson should leave Mrs.
+Barnes because of her curiosity and take a lodging with Mrs. Barnes's
+bosom friend, who, to tell the truth, was no less of a gossip.
+
+'Well,' said Mrs. Barnes, firing up. 'D'ye think I would let him go to
+those I know nothing of, who would rob him and starve him of his last
+crust of bread. No, for all that he scorns and despises me! No, he
+asked me where he should go and I told him to Mrs. Kilburne.'
+
+'Oh, he asked you,' said Wogan. 'Well, it is a very Irish proceeding.
+I'll go to Mrs. Kilburne's and find him.'
+
+'You may go to Mrs. Kilburne,' said she as Wogan turned away, 'but as
+to finding him,' and she shrugged her shoulders.
+
+'Why, what do you mean?'
+
+'A man in that moppet's livery, for moppet she is, my Lady or not my
+Lady, brought a note yesterday and he that had been hiding from her,
+like the honest man he used to be before she came trapesing after
+him.'
+
+'A note? Was it anything like this?' asked Wogan, pulling from his
+pocket his own invitation to Lady Oxford's rout.
+
+'It was very like that,' said Mrs. Barnes. 'I sent the fellow on with
+the scented thing.'
+
+A note from Lady Oxford to George, an heroic epistle from Ariadne to
+Theseus! An invitation too! Ariadne invites Theseus to her rout, and
+for something more, conjectured Wogan, than the pleasure of winning
+his money at cards. Wogan's anxiety concerning Lady Oxford's attitude
+was much increased. There was the ballad, the camp in Hyde Park, there
+were the letters of invitation. Mr. Wogan thought it high time to see
+Theseus, and leaving Mrs. Barnes with a becoming blush on her features
+that laughed through their tears, he walked to Ryder Street.
+
+Mr. Wogan knocked at the door in the deepening dusk. The landlady
+opened. She knew Wogan, who, indeed, had occupied her chambers at one
+time. She smiled all over her jolly face:
+
+'Mr. Hilton! Taller than ever, and welcome as ever.'
+
+'Thank you, Mrs. Kilburne, I shall soon rival the Monument, but I can
+still get under your lintel by stooping. Where is Mr. Johnson?'
+
+'Mr. Johnson? Oh, sir, what a life that poor gentleman lives. Out all
+night, home in the morning with mud or dust on him to the shoulder,
+and so to bed all day.'
+
+'Then Mr. Johnson must be wakened. I can do it, were he one of the
+seven sleepers. George!' cried Mr. Wogan, lifting up his voice.
+
+'Oh, sir, be quiet! A very dainty gentleman has my first floor, and he
+will be complaining of the noise. You always were that noisy, Mr.
+Hilton!' She walked down the passage as she spoke and threw open a
+door upon the right. 'Mr. Johnson, he has my ground floor, but you
+can't waken him, loud as you are, nor any man, so be quiet, Mr.
+Hilton.'
+
+'Have I to weep for my poor friend's decease?' asked Wogan, as he
+entered the room.
+
+'No, sir, or I would not be laughing at your nonsense.'
+
+There was no doubt this was the Parson's lodging. For as Wogan stood
+just within the door, he saw by the window Mr. Kelly's scrutoire. It
+was the first thing indeed on which his eyes fell. He stepped across
+the room and threw open the lid. He saw a dispatch-box, and from the
+lock he knew it to be that in which Kelly kept safe the papers of the
+Bishop's plot.
+
+'So there's another lodger in the house,' said Nick thoughtfully. He
+took up the box and tried the lid. It was locked. But Mr. Wogan would
+have preferred that the Parson should have kept the papers in the box
+which he had given him at Paris, of which the lock was stouter. That
+box he saw further back in the scrutoire, half hidden in news-sheets.
+But that too he found to be locked, and shaking it in his hand, was
+aware that, like the other, it held papers. The lid of the box was
+covered with dust, as though it had not been touched for months. Lady
+Oxford's letters had been locked up there. No doubt they were there
+still. Mr. Wogan wondered for a little at the strange sentiment which
+makes a man keep such dead tokens of a dead passion. He put the box
+back amongst the news-sheets, and turning to Mrs. Kilburne,
+
+'But where is the man?' he cried. 'George!' and he rapped on the table
+with his cane.
+
+'You can't waken Mr. Johnson,' said Mrs. Kilburne 'because he awoke an
+hour ago, and dressed in a hurry, but braver than common, with his
+silver-hilted sword, Alencon ruffles, black coat and satin lining,
+silver shoulder-knots, and best buckles, and out he goes. He was
+summoned by a man in the livery of my Lord, the good Bishop of
+Rochester.'
+
+'Will you tell him, when he returns, that Mr. Hilton waited on him,
+and greatly desires to see him in his best before he goes to bed?'
+Wogan pulled the letters from his pocket and laid them on the table
+which stood in the centre of the room.
+
+'I will, sir, but, if you call again, pray, sir, be very quiet. My
+first floor gentleman is such a dainty gentleman.'
+
+'A mouse shall be noisy in comparison. I have a great tenderness, Mrs.
+Kilburne, for the nerves of fine gentlemen.'
+
+Mrs. Kilburne grinned in a sceptical sort.
+
+'But,' Wogan added suddenly, 'it is very like I shall fall in with Mr.
+Johnson before then.' He took some half-a-dozen of the letters again
+into his hand and looked them over. They were inscribed to such cant
+names as Illington, Hatfield, Johnson, Andrews, and were evidently
+dangerous merchandise. Mr. Wogan thought they would be safer in his
+pocket than on Mr. Kelly's table. He picked up the rest, but as he put
+them back into his pocket, one fell on to the floor. Wogan caught
+sight of the handwriting as it fell. Then it stared up at him from the
+floor. The letter was written in a woman's hand, which Mr. Wogan was
+well enough acquainted with, although it was neither Lady Oxford's nor
+the hand of Rose. It was in the handwriting of Lady Mary Wortley
+Montagu. Wogan stooped down and picked it up. For a letter, it was
+extraordinary light. Wogan weighed it in his hand for a second,
+wondering what it might be. However, there was no answer to be got
+that way, and Mr. Wogan had weightier matter to engage his thoughts.
+He put it into his pocket and marched to his own lodgings, which were
+hard by in the same street.
+
+Several problems, a swarm of skirmishing doubts, trooped through his
+mind.
+
+'What did my Lady Oxford mean by writing to Kelly?'
+
+To this Wogan answered that she meant the same thing by Kelly as by
+himself, and for some reason had bidden him to her rout. As to her
+motive for that act of unexpected hospitality, Wogan had his own
+thoughts, which he afterwards confided to his friend. 'But who,' he
+pondered, 'can answer for a woman's motives when the devil of
+perversity sits at her elbow?'
+
+Next, why had Kelly made himself such a beau? It could not be merely
+to do honour to a mourning prelate who would never glance at his
+secretary's satin and point d'Alencon.
+
+Mr. Wogan inferred that his first guess was right, that Lady Oxford
+had bidden Kelly to her rout, and that, by the token of his raiment,
+Mr. Kelly meant to accept the invitation.
+
+Kelly knew nothing of the camp, and the discovery which it seemed to
+speak of, when he left the lodgings where he had slept all day. Of the
+ballad, too, it was like that Kelly knew nothing, and, in Wogan's
+opinion, the ballad was the cause of the military stir. Lady Oxford,
+inflamed with anger, blaming Lady Mary for the ballad, and blaming
+Kelly for blabbing her fault to her enemy, Lady Mary; had doubtless
+visited Mr. Walpole. The innocent Kelly, innocent of all these things,
+would be going to Lady Oxford's to fathom the causes of her renewed
+friendship.
+
+Mr. Wogan puzzled his brains over these matters while he supped in
+solitude at his lodgings. His friends have hinted that his mental
+furnishing is not in a concatenation with his bodily stature. He has
+answered that, if it were so, he would be Shakespeare and the Duke of
+Marlborough rolled into one. Though refreshed with Burgundy, his head
+felt weary enough when he turned to the question, 'What was he, Wogan,
+to do next?' In his opinion, the boldest plan is ever the best;
+moreover, he had a notion that there was no safer place in London for
+him, that night, and perhaps for Mr. Kelly, than Queen's Square in
+Westminster which Lady Oxford had taken for a permanence. For
+if Lady Oxford had blabbed, the last place in London where the
+Messengers would be like to look for the Parson was her ladyship's
+withdrawing-room. Unless of course she was laying a trap, which did
+not seem likely. In the face of this new ballad, Lady Oxford would not
+dare to have the Parson arrested within, or even near her house. It
+would provoke too great a scandal. He decided, therefore, first to go
+to the Dean's house, at Westminster, where the Bishop of Rochester
+stayed, see Mr. Kelly, if he could, and unfold his parcel of black
+news. Next, he would take Kelly to Lady Oxford's, if Kelly would come,
+for Wogan not only deemed this step the safest of his dangers, but
+expected to enjoy a certain novelty of the emotions, in which he was
+not disappointed. He therefore, imitating the clerical example, began
+to decorate himself in his most seductive shoulder knots to do honour
+to Lady Oxford.
+
+It may be that Wogan's mind, already crowded by a number of
+occurrences and dubitations, had exhausted its logical powers, for
+there was one idea which should have occurred to him earliest, and
+which only visited him while he was shaving. Who was the first person
+he was likely to encounter at Lady Oxford's? Why, the very last person
+whom at this juncture it was convenient for him to meet--namely,
+Colonel Montague. Wogan heartily wished he had left the Colonel
+between two fires at Preston barricade. But now there was no help for
+it, go he must. The Colonel, like other people, might not remember the
+boy in the man and under a new name, or, if he did--and then a fresh
+idea occurred to Wogan which made him smile.
+
+'I was born,' he said, 'to be a lightning conductor!'
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XV
+
+ AT THE DEANERY OF WESTMINSTER
+
+
+Wogan finished the work of adorning his person, and stepped into the
+street. The night was serene, with a full moon, the air still, the
+pavements were clean as the deck of his ketch. He thought that he
+would walk from his rooms to the Dean's by way of St. James's Park,
+and consequently he passed through Ryder St. and in front of Mr.
+Kelly's new lodgings. Just as he came to Mr. Kelly's lodgings, the
+door opened. A gentleman came forth; the moonlight was full on his
+face. Mr. Wogan muffled his face in his cloak, and stepped stealthily
+back.
+
+The gentleman was Colonel Montague. He bade the chairmen carry him to
+Queen's Square; Mr. Wogan heard the word of command with an
+inexpressible confusion of dismay. He had hardened his heart to
+encounter the enemy whose life, in a youthful indiscretion, he had
+saved at the risk of his own, but what was the Colonel doing in
+Kelly's lodgings?
+
+By this time the warrior and his chair had turned the corner, and Mr.
+Wogan abandoned himself to meditation. Up and down Ryder Street he
+paced, puzzling over the Colonel's visit to Kelly, whom, at all
+events, he could not have found at home. Was he Was he carrying a
+cartel to his predecessor in Lady Oxford's heart? In that case it was
+all the more necessary to meet him and play the part of Dr. Franklin's
+kite, which had not at that time been flown, but is now making talk
+enough for the learned. On this point Mr. Wogan's mind was constant.
+Should he question Mrs. Kilburne, he asked himself? Mr. Wogan crossed
+the road. But the Colonel was little likely to have told her a word of
+his business. Mr. Wogan stopped.
+
+There was another point: for whatever reason the Colonel had called at
+George's lodgings, George must be told of the visit. Here was
+something which pressed, without question. Mr. Wogan marched towards
+the Dean's house in Westminster, where the Bishop of Rochester lay. He
+knew the road very well, being himself an old Westminster boy. It was
+but seven years since he had run away to join his brother Charles and
+raise the North for King James. He could not tell, at this moment,
+whether he had deserted his studies for King James's sake, or to
+escape his dull task of writing out my Lord Clarendon's weary history
+in a fair hand.
+
+As he entered the precincts, Wogan felt much like a truant boy, and it
+was as if Time had stood still while _he_ ran. Nothing was changed,
+except that the new dormitory, which Bishop Atterbury had just built,
+shone white among the black old stones. There were lights in the
+windows that suddenly went out: the lads were abed. Wogan looked up at
+the blank windows, and thought of seven years agone, and of his life
+since then, an unprofitable contemplation, which his mind gladly
+deserted. He marched up under the arch, through the darkling cloister,
+and tapped, gently but firmly, at the Dean's door. He must see Mr.
+Kelly. As it chanced, and by the merest accident in the world, Wogan
+timed his taps thus: 1--2, 3, 4, 5, 6--7.
+
+There were stealthy steps within, with a movement of yellow light, and
+then a voice that Mr. Wogan knew very well came through a judas.
+
+'Is it my father's knock?'
+
+'Is it your granny's knock, Sam?' asked Wogan through the judas. The
+voice was that of Sam Wesley, a young usher in Wogan's time, one whom
+he had always liked and tormented.
+
+The steps moved away, and the light.
+
+'Sam!' whispered Mr. Wogan, very loud for a whisper, through the
+judas. 'Sam, you remember me. Nick Wogan.'
+
+The steps were silent.
+
+'Sam, remember Lord Clarendon! Remember Nick, who kicked the bully for
+beating your little brother Jack.'
+
+The steps shuffled back to the door.
+
+'You have not the password,' said the voice through the judas.
+
+'Damn the password,' whispered Wogan. 'I want George Kelly. I must see
+him in the name of the Blackbird. Hawks are abroad.'
+
+'It is clean against all rules,' came the voice from within.
+
+'Open, in the name of the cobbler's wax I once put on your chair, or
+I'll break the windows. You know me, Sam!'
+
+Mr. Wesley knew Mr. Wogan. He undid the lock, Mr. Wogan smuggled
+himself within, and nearly choked Mr. Wesley in his embrace.
+
+'It is a giant!' said Mr. Wesley, putting up his candle to Wogan's
+face. The wind blew on the light that flickered in the absolute
+darkness, all the house being hung with black for Mrs. Atterbury's
+death.
+
+'A son of Anak, Sam, who would have battered down your old door in a
+minute.'
+
+'I verily believe you would, Nick,' said Sam, leading the way up the
+black stairs to a den of his own, where he was within call of the
+Bishop. On tiptoe he marched, placing his finger on his lips.
+
+When they were got among Sam's books and papers of the boys'
+exercises, the usher said, 'It is a very extraordinary thing, purely a
+Providence.'
+
+'I deserve one; the purity of my life deserves one,' said Mr. Wogan.
+'But wherein do you see the marvel?'
+
+'You did not know it, but you gave my father's knock,' said Sam
+in a voice of awe. 'It is Old Jeffrey's doing--directed, of
+course--directed.'
+
+'Old Jeffrey? Is it a cant name for an honest man?'
+
+'For a very honest spirit,' said the usher, and explained to Mr. Wogan
+that the particular knock and the passwords to follow (which Mr. Wogan
+did not know) were his own invention. His father's house at Epworth,
+in the year 1716, had been troubled, it seems, by an honest goblin
+that always thumped and routed with a particular malevolence when the
+Elector was prayed for as 'the King.' Old Mr. Wesley's pet knock,
+though, the sprite could not deliver. Mr. Wesley had a conceit that
+the goblin might be the ghost of some good fellow who died at Preston.
+
+'He keeps his politics in the next world,' said Mr. Wogan.
+
+'Wit might say much on that head, wisdom little,' whispered the usher,
+wagging his kind head. 'You have special business with Mr. Johnson?'
+he asked. 'He is with my Lord, hard by. The Bishop's voice was raised
+when Mr. Johnson entered. I caught angry words, but now for long they
+have been quiet.'
+
+'Mr. Johnson has a way with him,' said Wogan, who had learned from
+Goring that the reverend Father in God was of a hasty temper. 'How
+doth his Lordship?'
+
+'Very badly. I never saw him in a less apostolic humour. I know not
+what ill news he has had from France, or elsewhere, but he has been
+much troubled about Mr. Johnson's dog, Harlequin. The poodle has been
+conveyed out of town as craftily as if he were the Chevalier, I know
+not why, and is now skulking in the country, I know not where.'
+
+It was, indeed, Mr. Wesley's part to know nothing. He was the Bishop's
+man, and as honest as the day, but had no more enterprise than another
+usher.
+
+Wogan, he has said, knew Harlequin, second of that name, and had seen
+him coddled by Mrs. Barnes. He was cudgelling his brains for
+Harlequin's part in the Great Affair, when a silver whistle sounded,
+thin and clear.
+
+Mr. Wesley beckoned to Wogan to be still, crept out of the room, and
+returned on tiptoe with Kelly. The Parson's elegant dress was a trifle
+disarranged; his face and hands were somewhat stained and blackened as
+with smoke, but the careful man had tucked up his Alencon ruffles
+beneath his sleeves. On seeing Wogan George opened his eyes and his
+mouth, but spoke never a word. He carried a soft bundle wrapped in a
+tablecloth, and when the door was shut he handed this to Mr. Wesley.
+
+'You have the key of the Dean's garden?' he whispered.
+
+'Yes; but wherefore?' answered Sam.
+
+'His Lordship bids me ask you to have the kindness to bury the
+contents of this--'
+
+'I know not what is in the bundle,' said Mr. Wesley, with an air of
+alarm.
+
+'And you need not be told,' said George. 'But can you let me and my
+friend Mr. Hilton--'
+
+'Mr. Hilton?' gasped Sam, as Kelly put his hand out to Wogan.
+
+'I must present you to Mr. Hilton,' George said, and Wogan bowed and
+grinned.
+
+'I was about to entreat you, Mr. Wesley, while you are playing the
+sexton, to permit me and Mr. Hilton the convenience of a few moments
+of privacy in your chamber.'
+
+'With all my heart,' said the puzzled Sam, hospitably opening a
+cupboard in his bookcase, whence he lugged out glasses and a bottle of
+Florence. Then he put list shoes over his own, and stole forth on his
+errand like a clerical cat.
+
+All this while Wogan had said not one word to Kelly, nor Kelly to
+Wogan.
+
+Mr. Wogan had sat down to sample the bottle, and Kelly stared at him.
+
+'How did you make your way in here?' he asked at length.
+
+'Old Jeffrey,' said Wogan airily. 'I drink Old Jeffrey's health,
+wherever he is.'
+
+'I believe you are the devil himself. That password is known to no
+mortal but Mr. Wesley and me. The Bishop does not know it. His
+servants never see me come or go--only Sam. Whence got you the word?'
+
+Mr. Wogan very gently tapped 1--2, 3, 4, 5, 6--7 on the table.
+
+'I know many things,' he said. 'But, George, what do _you_ know?'
+
+'I know you should be aboard, Nick, and down to the waterside you step
+from this house.'
+
+'I am already promised,' said Mr. Wogan with an air of fashion. 'I sup
+with Lady Oxford.'
+
+'You are mad.'
+
+'Nay, _you_ are mad. I know many things. When you were carried hither
+in your chair, you knew nothing. George, what did the Bishop tell you?
+Why was he wroth with you? In brief, George, what do you know?'
+
+'The Bishop angry with me! Nick, you know too much. You are the
+devil.'
+
+'I want to know a great deal more. Come, unpack, and then it is my
+turn. But first step into Mr. Wesley's bedchamber and wash these
+hands, which go very ill with silver shoulder-knots; and pour the
+blackened water out of window. Any man or messenger could see that you
+have been burning a mort of papers.'
+
+Mr. Kelly hastily adopted Mr. Wogan's precautions. When he entered the
+room again the conspirator had vanished, the clerical beau remained.
+
+'Now,' said Wogan, 'you are fit to carry out your worldly design of
+pleasure, and I shall not be ashamed to sup in your company at Lady
+Oxford's.'
+
+'I have changed my mind; I shall not go. But, Nick, how did you know
+my mind? 'Twas the last of minds you expected to take me in.'
+
+'I am the devil. Have you not guessed it yourself?' replied Mr. Wogan,
+who was enjoying himself hugely. Perhaps it was the Florence, coming
+a-top of the Burgundy. He was quite easy about the discovery. 'But
+unpack,' he said. 'What befell you with the Bishop?'
+
+'He received me oddly. The room was as dark as a wolf's mouth, being
+hung with black bombazine. There was a low fire in a brazier, that
+shone red on his Lordship's polished poll, for he wore no perruque.
+His eyes blazed, his teeth grinned white. I was put in mind of a
+fierce old black panther in the French King's gardens.'
+
+'Remote from the apostolic,' said Mr. Wogan.
+
+'So were his first words,' said Kelly:
+
+'"You Irish dog, come here!" quoth the Bishop.
+
+'I offered a conjecture that, in the mournful light, his Lordship did
+not precisely see whom he was addressing. On that the little old man
+sprang out at me, seized me by the collar, and then fell back on his
+couch with a groan that was a curse. I put a cordial that stood by him
+to his lips, and was about to call Mr. Wesley, when he forbade me with
+his eyebrows, and cried:
+
+'"Answer me this question before we part for ever. Did you despatch my
+letters of April 20 to the King and the others?"
+
+'"My Lord," I said, "my duty to you ended with that episcopal laying
+on of hands, and with that expression which you were pleased to use
+when I entered."
+
+'He groaned, and said:
+
+'"I apologise. I am mad with pain" (which was plainly true), "and
+grief, and treachery. I beg your pardon, Mr. Kelly, as a Christian and
+a sick old man."
+
+'"My Lord, you honour me. I enclosed the letters, as you directed, in
+a packet addressed to Mr. Gordon, the banker in Boulogne, and I sent
+them by the common post, your Lordship not having forbidden the
+ordinary course."
+
+'"Then, damn it, sir, you have ruined us!" said the sick old
+Christian. "Did I not bid you write to Dillon that nothing of
+importance should go by the post?"
+
+'"But your Lordship did not seem to reckon these letters of
+importance, for you did not discharge me from sending them in the
+common course."
+
+'The Bishop groaned again more than once, and there was a whole
+Commination Service in the sounds. You know Harlequin, Wogan?'
+
+Mr. Wogan nodded and wondered.
+
+''Tis Harlequin has ruined us,' said Kelly; 'Harlequin and the Duke of
+Mar.'
+
+'I am devilish glad to hear it,' said Mr. Wogan.
+
+'Glad to hear it!' exclaimed Kelly, rising from his chair. 'You are
+told of the discovery of the Great Affair, and the probable ruin of
+the Cause, and the danger of your friends and yourself, and you are
+glad to hear it!'
+
+'Faith, I am,' replied Wogan easily, 'for I knew of the discovery
+before you told me, but I put it down to a lady of your acquaintance.'
+
+The Parson very slowly sat himself down again on his chair.
+
+'In Heaven's name, why?' he asked, with a certain suspense.
+
+'Tell your tale first, then I'll tell mine. This is very excellent
+Florence.'
+
+'The tale is too long, but the short of it is this: The Bishop had by
+him a letter of Mar's, dated May 11, in which Mar, addressing the
+Bishop as Illington, denounced him as plainly to anyone who read the
+piece as if he had used the Bishop's own style and title. He condoled
+on Mrs. Illington's recent death, he referred to Mr. Illington's high
+place in the Church, and to his gout. The three circumstances combined
+left no doubt as to who Illington is. There was no need such a letter
+of pure compliment should be written at all, except for the purpose of
+being opened in the post, and fixing the Bishop as Illington. Then,'
+Kelly went on, 'I remembered a letter of Mar to myself, of last week,
+in which he spoke of the dog Harlequin as Mrs. Illington's. If these
+letters were opened in the post,--and the Bishop knows for certain
+that they were opened,--a blind man could see that Rochester and
+Illington are the same man, and own the same dog. The beast saved my
+life, but he has lost the Cause,' said Kelly with a sigh. 'Mar has
+sold us. It is known he holds a pension from the Elector. The Bishop
+knows it in a roundabout way, through Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and
+so the Bishop and I have burned his papers in the brazier. Sam is
+interring their ashes in the garden.'
+
+Mr. Wogan poured out another glass of Florence.
+
+'Was there anything very pressing in these same letters of April 20,
+George? Was there anything to put fear on the Elector's Ministers? Did
+they say, for instance, that the Blow was to be dealt, you and I know
+when?'
+
+'Not a word of that,' replied Kelly, and his face lightened. On the
+other hand, Wogan's fell, which Kelly no doubt remarked, for he
+continued eagerly, 'D'ye see, there is a chance still, for the Cause,
+for us, if the Blow be struck quickly. We must strike quickly. So may
+we retrieve Mar's treachery. The Bishop in his letter made excuses to
+the King for the delay of any blow. He is not in favour of anything
+immediate, and in the letters he made his disposition plain. The
+letters only compromised his Lordship in general, they did not
+reveal--the Blow.'
+
+Mr. Wogan, however, only shook his head.
+
+''Faith, now, I'm sorry to hear that,' said he.
+
+'You are glad and sorry on very strange occasions,' said Kelly,
+sourly. 'First you are pleased that Mar sold us, and then you are
+displeased that he did not sell the last secret.'
+
+Mr. Wogan leaned his elbows on the table, and bent across towards his
+friend.
+
+'I am sorry because the last secret has been sold, and it was not Mar
+that sold it. Therefore somebody else sold it; therefore I am at the
+pain of being obliged to suspect a lady who probably knows her late
+lover's cypher.'
+
+Mr. Kelly blanched.
+
+'And how do you know that the last secret is sold?'
+
+'As any man would know who had not lain abed all the day. George, the
+Park is full of soldiers. The Tower regiment that we thought Layer had
+bought is there with the rest under canvas. Ministers would not make
+an encampment in the Park because they knew that the Bishop had
+advised the King that nothing was to be done. Therefore Mar is not the
+only traitor.'
+
+'And why should my Lady Oxford be the Judas?'
+
+'Mainly to punish a certain nonjuring clergyman, for whose sake she is
+the burden of a ballad, and sung of in coffee-houses.'
+
+'A ballad? Of what sort?'
+
+'Of the sort that makes a good whipping-post for a fine lady. Ridicule
+is the whip, and, by the Lord, it is laid on unsparingly. Perhaps you
+would like to hear it,' and Mr. Wogan recited, in a whisper, so much
+of the poem as he judged proper. It closed thus:--
+
+
+ 'Oh, happy ending to my rhymes,
+ Consoled for all his woes,
+ The Parson flies to foreign climes,
+ And dwells--beneath the Rose!'
+
+
+Mr. Kelly swore an oath and took a turn across the room. He came to a
+stop in front of Sam's bookcase. 'Rose,' said he, in a voice of
+tenderness, 'sure they might have left the little girl out of it.'
+
+'The barb was venomed, you see,' said Mr. Wogan. 'It was not enough to
+make a scoff of the lady. She must be stripped of that last
+consolation, the belief that the discarded Parson wastes in despair.
+Now she knows that the Parson is consoled. There was spark to powder.
+The Parson may be putting on flesh. There's an insult to her beauty.
+Faith, but she must feel it in her marrow, since she risks her Lord's
+neck for the pleasure of requiting it.'
+
+'No,' said Kelly, 'she could do what she would, for her Lord's neck is
+not in this noose. Oxford had withdrawn before.'
+
+This was news to Mr. Wogan, who had been concerned only with the
+actual plan of attack, and sufficiently concerned to have no mind for
+other matters.
+
+'Oxford withdrawn,' he cried rising and coming across to the Parson.
+'Damn him, 'twas pure folly to trust him. Do you remember what Law
+said that night in Paris? He would trust him no further than he would
+trust a Norfolk attorney.'
+
+Kelly was silent for a moment, thoughtfully drawing a finger to and
+fro across the backs of Sam's books.
+
+'I have good reason to remember that night,' he said very sadly. 'Have
+you forgotten what I said? "May nothing come between the Cause and
+me!" Why, it seems the Cause goes down because of me, and with the
+Cause my friends, and with my friends, Rose.'
+
+Mr. Wogan had no word to say. Whatever excuses rose to his tongue
+seemed too trivial for utterance.
+
+Kelly's finger stopped on one particular book, travelled away and came
+back to it. Wogan saw that the book was a Bible. The Parson took it
+from the shelf and turning over the leaves read a line here and there.
+Wogan knew very well what was passing through his mind. His thoughts
+had gone back to the little country parsonage and the quiet life with
+no weightier matter to disturb it than the trifling squabbles of his
+parish.
+
+'You warned me, Nick,' he said, 'you warned me. But I was a fool and
+would not heed. Read that!' and with a bitter sort of laugh he handed
+the open Bible to Mr. Wogan, pointing to a verse. 'There's a text for
+the preacher.'
+
+The Bible was open at the Book of Proverbs, and Mr. Wogan read. 'The
+lips of a strange woman drop as a honey-comb and her mouth is smoother
+than oil. But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged
+sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps take hold on hell.'
+
+Mr. Wogan read the text aloud.
+
+'The strange woman, Nick,' said Kelly, 'the strange woman,' and then
+in a fierce outburst, 'If I live the man who wrote that ballad shall
+rue it.'
+
+'They give it to Lady Mary.'
+
+'She never wrote it. Nick, who wrote the ballad? How did you get hold
+of it?'
+
+'I found the Crow, quite tipsy, singing it to Tyrell, at Burton's, in
+the little room upstairs.'
+
+'And where did the Crow get the ballad?'
+
+'That is another uncomfortable circumstance. You know Talbot?'
+
+'An honest man, and a good officer, at Preston or in Spain, but a
+sponge for drink. A pity he was ever let into the plot!'
+
+'Well, he got the ballad from someone with whom he had been drinking
+at the Little Fox under the Hill, not a fashionable resort.'
+
+'Did he name his friend?'
+
+'He was drunk enough to begin by calling him Mr. Pope.'
+
+'Mr. Pope, the poet?'
+
+'He took that back; and said the poetry put Mr. Pope into his head.
+The man's real name, he remembered, was Scrotton. I can't guess who he
+was, friend or spy, but we may take it that he knows what the Crow
+knows.'
+
+'Thank God for that!' cried Kelly.
+
+'You rejoice on very singular occasions, and are grateful for very
+small mercies,' said Mr. Wogan, who found it his turn to be surprised.
+'What are you so thankful for?'
+
+'Thankful that a woman need not have done this thing, and that
+my folly may not be the cause of this disaster. Another knew
+everything--Pope--Scrotton--the ballad! Who wrote the ballad? Who of
+our enemies knew a word about Rose? Are you blind? Who was at Avignon,
+spying on me, when I first met Rose? Who hates Lady Oxford no less
+than he hates me? Whose name was the unhappy tippler trying to
+remember? Scrotton? Pope?'
+
+'Scrope!' cried Wogan, cursing his own stupidity. 'Scrope it must have
+been, and the Crow swore that the man told him about the plot, and
+often talked it over.'
+
+'That means, of course, that Scrope made him talk. The old curse of
+the Cause, that lost us Edinburgh Castle in the Fifteen, when the
+Scots stopped at the tavern to powder their hair. Our curse, Nicholas.
+Wine!'
+
+'And Woman,' Mr. Wogan thought, but George ran on,
+
+'Scrope it was who wrote the ballad, for no enemy but Scrope knew what
+the writer knew. Lady Mary is a friend. Lady Oxford is innocent, thank
+God--I say it with a humble heart--and I am not the cause of the
+ruin.'
+
+George's eyes shone like those of a man reprieved. Wogan shook his
+friend's hand; his own eyes were opened.
+
+''Tis you are the devil,' he said. 'Scrope has hit everyone he hates,
+and blown up the plot.'
+
+'His time will come,' said Kelly; 'but I hear Sam on the stair.'
+
+Mr. Wesley, tapping lightly, entered his room.
+
+'Gentlemen,' he said, 'the outer door is open.'
+
+Mr. Wesley's anxiety was plainly to be read in his face.
+
+The two gentlemen bade him farewell, with many thanks for his
+hospitality. He accompanied them to the door, and they heard the bolt
+shot behind them as they stood in the cloister.
+
+'Whither should they go?' both men reflected, silent.
+
+Mr. Wogan has remarked on a certain gaiety and easiness of mind caused
+on this occasion, he considers, by Mr. Wesley's Florence coming after
+his own Burgundy at supper. He was also elated by George's elation,
+for to find innocence in one whom he had suspected elevated Mr.
+Kelly's disposition. They were betrayed, true, but the bitterness of a
+betrayal by the woman he had loved left him the lighter when the
+apprehension of it had passed.
+
+One little point rankled in Mr. Wogan's mind in spite of all. Why had
+Lady Oxford bidden both of them to her rout?
+
+He came at an answer by a roundabout road.
+
+'I must hurry home and burn my papers,' said Kelly, as soon as they
+were out in the cloister, with the door of the Dean's house shut
+behind them.
+
+Mr. Wogan, who had other notions, gripped his arm.
+
+'By the way, did you burn my lady's invitation to her rout to-night?
+What did she say, George? Why did she invite you? And did you burn the
+note?'
+
+Mr. Kelly smote his hand on his brow. 'My wits were wool-gathering.'
+
+'On Cupid's hedges,' said Wogan.
+
+'But I locked the note up.'
+
+'With the rest of the lady's letters in my dispatch box?'
+
+''Faith, Nick, you are the devil. How did you know that?'
+
+'Oh, I have divined your amorous use of my box.'
+
+'But you are wrong. I had the box with the dangerous papers of the
+plot open on the table when I was reading the letter. Mrs. Kilburne
+knocked at the door. I did not know who it might be. I slipped the
+letter in on the top of the papers of the Plot, and locked the box
+before I opened the door.'
+
+'There it remains then? Well, her Ladyship's note is in the better
+company. But what did she say? Did she give a reason for your
+meeting?'
+
+'The chief thing, after the usual compliments, was that she had most
+important news, that might not be written, to give me about Mr.
+Farmer's affairs. Probably she may have had an inkling of the
+discovery and wished to warn me.'
+
+'We must see her,' said Wogan, whose curiosity was on edge from the
+first about this party of pleasure.
+
+'But my papers--I must burn my papers.'
+
+'George, you are set, or you are not set. If you had been set the
+messengers would have been at your lodgings before I went thither; in
+fact, before you were out of bed. Therefore, either you have the whole
+night safe or, going home now, you go into a mousetrap, as the French
+say, and your papers are the cheese to lure you there. Now, they
+cannot know of my lady's invitations, and if they by any accident did
+know, a Minister would hardly take a man at a lady's house. That were
+an ill use for the hostess.'
+
+'That's true,' said Mr. Kelly, after reflecting. 'Nicholas, I knew not
+that you had so much of the syllogism in your composition.'
+
+'Another thing, and an odd thing enough,' added Wogan. 'Perhaps
+nothing is laid against _you_ at all. Did Scrope lay information when
+he found us at Brampton Bryan?'
+
+'No!' cried Kelly. 'And at Avignon, when a proper spy would have
+stopped the Duke's gold, he was content with the sword in his own
+hand.'
+
+'Precisely,' said Wogan; 'Scrope has blown the plot, that's business;
+but he deals with you himself, that's pleasure. He tried to meet you
+at Brampton Bryan--he did not have us laid by the heels. He nearly did
+for you at Avignon, while he let the Duke's business alone, quite
+content. Now you are alive and he wants a meeting, 'tis clear he did
+not inform on you, otherwise the messengers would have been with you
+when the soldiers began the camp in the morning. 'Faith, you may meet
+Mr. Scrope tonight in St. James's Park. He is a kind of gentleman, Mr.
+Scrope! But we must see her ladyship first; sure, nothing's safer.'
+
+'Nicholas, thou reasonest well,' said the Parson.
+
+Mr. Wogan towed off his prize, and the pair moved out of the dark,
+musty cloister into the moonlight.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVI
+
+ MR. WOGAN ACTS AS LIGHTNING-CONDUCTOR
+ AT LADY OXFORD'S ROUT
+
+
+Mr. Wogan steered his captive through Petty France. It was about ten
+of the clock, a night of moonlight and young spring, a night for poets
+to praise and lovers to enjoy. Mr. Wogan was not, at the moment, a
+lover, and poetry was out of his mind.
+
+'One trifle I forgot to mention,' he said. 'I saw Montague come out of
+your new lodgings this evening. He bade his chairmen go to Queen's
+Square.'
+
+'Montague? How could he know where to look for me? What can he want
+with me?'
+
+'I misdoubt he was not very well pleased with the ballad, and would
+have you explain it.'
+
+'Montague,' sneered Mr. Kelly, with a touch of temper; 'I am grieved I
+missed him.'
+
+'You need not grieve, for you will see him to-night. So there's balm
+for your grief, and another reason why you should sup with Lady
+Oxford.'
+
+The Parson stepped out more briskly after that, and Wogan could not
+refrain from remarking upon his new alacrity.
+
+'It is after all a very human sort of a world, as worlds go,' said he.
+'Here's a man with all his hopes crumbling to grave-dust about him,
+and the mere prospect of a quarrel with another man whom he has never
+spoken to, on account of a woman he has a great contempt for, will
+make all his blood flow quicker.' For it was evident that, though the
+Parson no longer cared a straw for Smilinda's favours, he had not
+forgiven the man who had supplanted him in them.
+
+At the further end of the street along which they walked, one house
+threw out into the night a great blaze of light, and a noise of many
+voices. As Wogan perceived it, a certain improvement upon his plan
+came into his head.
+
+'George,' said he, as he directed his captive towards the house, 'will
+you resolve me a theological quandary? Do the doctors of your sect
+consider as binding a promise given to a person of a different faith?'
+
+'Assuredly they do,' cried Kelly. 'Dr. Hooker plainly writes--'
+
+'I shall take your word for it, without Hooker's bond. Next, does your
+Reverence reckon it immoral to shake an elbow on occasion?'
+
+'Even the very Puritans, at the height of their power, doubted if they
+could proceed against dicers by way of the greater excommunication. We
+read that the Chosen People themselves cast lots--whence I argue for a
+permitted latitude.'
+
+'Well, then, we are opposite the doors of Le Queux's Temple of Hazard;
+you may hear through the windows how the devout are calling the main.
+Now I must take your promise, as you say it is binding, to wait here
+in obedience to your commanding officer. A wise leader will ever send
+out scouts to inspect a dangerous pass. I shall reconnoitre at Lady
+Oxford's: proper precautions should never be neglected, even in a
+friendly country. If I do not return, or send, in forty minutes by
+your watch, you must follow. All will seem safe.'
+
+'But, Nick, what if they take you? Sure we had best go together.'
+
+'They will not arrest me alone. You don't loose your gun at a rabbit
+when you are stalking a deer. I am not the keeper of secrets, but the
+King's mere servant, to give knocks and to take them. I write no
+letters, and none write them to me. It is Mr. Johnson they will be
+stalking, if anyone at all, never fear, and they will not shoot at the
+rabbit whilst Mr. Johnson is out of gunshot. In the meantime, have you
+any money?'
+
+'Just enough to pay my chairmen.'
+
+Mr. Wogan turned his pockets inside out.
+
+'Then here are ten guineas. In my belief our luck must be somewhere,
+if a man would look for it, and it may very well be lurking in the
+cavern of a dice-box. Lose or win, if you hear nothing of me, you
+march forwards and occupy Queen's Square in forty minutes. It is ten
+o'clock now. And if you do not join me in forty minutes I walk
+straight to your lodgings and take my chance.'
+
+'So be it,' said Kelly, pocketing Mr. Wogan's gold, and stepping
+reluctantly into the house of Le Queux. Mr. Wogan waited until the
+door closed upon him, and then went on his way alone to Queen's
+Square.
+
+He had not displayed the whole face of his purpose to the Parson. It
+was not merely to reconnoitre that he pushed forward. The Parson might
+desire an occasion with the Colonel, but Wogan, for Miss Townley's
+sake, meant to meet the Colonel first. Betrothed men should not be
+brawlers, and George was hardly a match for the Colonel.
+
+The Colonel was not, in the nature of things, likely to feel
+well-disposed towards the Parson. The ballad would have turned that
+ill-disposition into a genuine hostility. So here was one of the
+reasons, besides the wish to reconnoitre, why Wogan left his
+friend behind him in Le Queux's gaming-rooms. He would be the
+lightning-conductor; he would pick a quarrel with the Colonel before
+Mr. Kelly arrived, if by any means that could be brought about.
+
+Mr. Wogan stopped in the shadow a few yards from Lady Oxford's house,
+and watched. It was a night of triumph for Lady Oxford. A score or so
+of link-boys yelled and flashed their torches about the portico;
+carriages and chairs pressed towards the door. Gentlemen with stars
+upon their velvet coats, and ladies altogether swaddled in lace and
+hoops thronged up the steps. But of the possible messengers for whom
+Mr. Wogan looked, not one was to be seen in any corner. Timidity
+itself might have slept secure. Only a few ragged loiterers stood
+about in the roadway on the look-out for a lace handkerchief or a
+convenient pocket. Wogan crossed the road and joined the throng upon
+the stairs.
+
+He had carried it off boldly enough at the Deanery, and in the street
+with Kelly, but, as he walked on alone, the fumes of the Florence wine
+escaped from the seat of his reasoning faculties. His logic did not
+seem so conclusive, and he felt an ugly double-edge on some of his
+arguments. Thus, the plot had certainly been discovered, yet Kelly had
+not been pounced upon. This might be a generosity of Mr. Scrope's (who
+had behaved as handsomely before), but again, what if Mr. Kelly's
+first suspicions were true? What if Lady Oxford had learned something?
+What if this rout were intended to enable her to savour her revenge
+for the ballad? The thing was not beyond Wogan's power of belief, and
+the more he gazed on this perspective, the less he enjoyed it. Under
+her roof, however, for the sake of her own credit, Kelly and he must
+be safe from arrest. Besides it might be that her Ladyship was
+ignorant of the ballad. Reflecting on these doubts, and thankful for
+this tender mercy, Wogan's heart was ill at ease, though he put on a
+face of brass. The chatter which buzzed at his inattentive ears seemed
+the most impertinent thing in the world. At each step a flowered
+petticoat swung against his legs, or a fan, held by a hand in a
+perfumed glove, knocked against his elbow, and somehow the fine
+gentlemen and ladies in their fine clothes seemed to him at that
+moment as incongruous as a nightmare. Scraps of gossip of which he
+took no note at the time, for no reason whatever stuck in his mind,
+and he remembered them quite clearly afterwards; how that Lady
+Holderness was sunk in all the joys of love, notwithstanding she
+wanted the use of her two hands by a rheumatism; and Mrs. Hervey,
+_revenue_ from such bagatelles as honour and reputation, had taken to
+herself two most fascinating lovers, and all the envy of her sex. A
+shrill lady behind Mr. Wogan's shoulder was proposing a general act
+for divorcing all the people of England, so that those who pleased
+might marry again, whereby many reputations which stood in dire peril
+would be saved from exposure. Mr. Wogan had much ado not to shout
+'Hold your tongues, will you? Here, maybe, is life and death in the
+balance.'
+
+He had got about half-way up the stairs when the shrill voice changed
+its tune, and now Mr. Wogan pricked up his ears.
+
+'You have heard the new ballad? Oh, the sweetest, most malicious
+thing. You must certainly hear it. Smilinda, the Parson, and the
+Colonel. You know who Smilinda is? The Parson and the Colonel make a
+guess easy.' She quoted a line or two. 'It appears that the Parson has
+consoled himself with Rose, and snaps his fingers at Smilinda. Who
+wrote it? No one but Smilinda's dear friend, Lady Mary Wortley
+Montagu, that I will wager. 'Tis the most ingenious thing; and most
+ingeniously given to the town just at the time when it will sting
+most. Poor Smilinda.' The voice went off into a giggle, in the midst
+of which Mr. Wogan distinguished a name--Lord Sidney Beauclerk's. Mr.
+Wogan would hardly have heeded the name had he not heard it again
+twice before he reached the stairhead, and each time in that same
+conjunction with the Parson and the Colonel, and the malicious aptness
+of the ballad. Even then he gave but scanty heed to Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk, for the knowledge that the ballad was indeed become the
+common talk occupied his thoughts, and so thoroughly, that it was the
+nearest thing imaginable but he gave his name as Mr. Wogan to the
+lackey who announced him.
+
+Mr. Hilton, however, was announced, and Mr. Hilton stepped through the
+great doorway into the room, and made his bow. At the first he was
+sensible only of a great blaze of light spotted here and there with
+the flames of candles; of a floor polished like a mirror, of a throng
+of misty faces, a hubbub of voices, and a gorgeous motley of colours
+like the Turkish bazaars Lady Mary was used to describe. Then the
+faces grew distinct. Mr. Wogan noticed one or two of the _honest_
+party, who, knowing his incognito, threw a startled glance at him, and
+like the rats from the sinking ship, scuttled away as soon as his eyes
+met theirs.
+
+He looked around him for Lady Oxford. He could not see her in the
+crowd which ebbed and flowed about the floor. There were card tables
+set against the walls; doubtless she would be seated at one of them.
+He glanced down the line of tables to his left. He did not see Lady
+Oxford, but his attention was seized by one particular table. It stood
+empty; a few packs of cards waited upon it for the players to handle,
+but by some strange chance it stood empty. It was the one vacant table
+in the room.
+
+Mr. Wogan was an Irishman, and now and again had his visionary
+moments, though he said little about them. As he looked at that one
+empty table a queer sort of fancy crept into his head, and, to be
+frank, struck something of a chill into his veins. It came upon him
+slowly that the table was not in truth empty at all; that in the midst
+of this velvet company, all jewels and compliments, there sat at this
+table a grey shrouded figure which silently awaited its player.
+
+Mr. Wogan was roused by a touch on his elbow.
+
+'Mr. Hilton?'
+
+Mr. Hilton saw a dapper, young gentleman at his side who looked like
+nothing so much as a tangle of ribbons swept up from a milliner's
+shop.
+
+'To be sure,' said Wogan.
+
+'Her ladyship sits yonder.'
+
+Mr. Wogan looked. Her ladyship sat with her back towards him at the
+table nearest to that which stood empty. She had been screened from
+his sight by the young gentleman now at his elbow. As Wogan looked,
+Lady Oxford turned with an anxious smile and a glance beyond his
+shoulder. The smile, the glance braced Mr. Wogan. For doubtless her
+ladyship looked to discover whether the Parson followed in his steps.
+
+He approached Lady Oxford. By her side sat Colonel Montague, black as
+thunder, and with a certain uneasy air of humiliation, like a man that
+finds himself ridiculously placed, and yet has not the courage to
+move. Mr. Wogan was encouraged; he could have wished the Colonel in no
+other mood. Mr. Wogan suddenly understood that it was himself who was
+cast to play with the shrouded figure, and the stake was the privilege
+of crossing swords with Montague.
+
+From the Colonel his eye strayed to a youth who stood by Lady Oxford's
+chair, and the sight of him clean took Wogan's breath away. It was not
+merely his face, though even in that bright company he shone a planet
+among stars. Nature, indeed, thought Wogan, must have robbed a good
+many women of their due share of looks before she compounded so much
+beauty in the making of one man. But even more remarkable than his
+beauty was his extraordinary likeness to Wogan's King. At the first
+glance Wogan would have sworn that this youth was the King, grown
+younger, but that he knew his Majesty was at Antwerp waiting for the
+Blow to fall. At the second, however, he remarked a difference. The
+youth had the haunting eyes of the Stuarts, only they were lit with
+gaiety and sparkled with success; he had the clear delicate features
+of the Stuarts, only they were rounded out of their rueful length, and
+in place of a sad gravity, were bright with a sunny contentment.
+Misfortune had cast no shadows upon the face, had dug no hollows about
+the eyes.
+
+Lady Oxford spoke to this paragon, smiled at him, drooped towards him.
+The Colonel shifted a foot, set his lips tight and frowned.
+
+Wogan placed a hand upon his guide's sleeve.
+
+'Will you tell me, if you please, the name of her ladyship's new
+friend?'
+
+The young gentleman stared at Wogan.
+
+'Let me perish, Mr. Hilton, but you are strangely out of the fashion.
+Or is it wit thus to affect an ignorance of our new conqueror, for
+whom women pine with love and men grow sour with envy? But indeed it
+is wit--the most engaging pleasantry. 'Twill make your reputation, Mr.
+Hilton.'
+
+'It is pure ignorance,' interrupted Wogan curtly.
+
+'Indeed? But I cannot bring myself to believe it.' He stared at Wogan
+as though he was gazing at one of Dr. Swift's Yahoos. 'Slit my weazand
+if I can. Sir, he is the gold leaf upon the pill of the world. For his
+sake dowagers mince in white and silver, and at times he has to take
+to his bed to protect himself from their assiduities.'
+
+'He has a dangerous face for these times,' again Mr. Wogan broke in.
+
+'Blame his grandmother for that, Mr. Hilton; he is of the royal blood.
+Nell Gwynn of pious memory gave his father birth. Our last Charles was
+his grandsire; he hath Queen Mary's eyes. It is Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk.'
+
+'I thought as much. He is a very intimate friend of her ladyship's?'
+
+'Mr. Hilton, the world is very _grossier_,' remarked his guide, with a
+smirk.
+
+Mr. Wogan could have laughed. He understood why the Colonel looked so
+black, why the ballad was so maliciously apt, why my Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk was coupled with the Parson and the Colonel in the common
+talk. Her ladyship was taking a new lover. Colonel Montague was the
+crumpled ribbon that has done good service but is tossed into the
+cupboard to make way for fresher colours. The ballad was apt indeed.
+Mr. Wogan's spirits rose with a bound. Sure here was an occasion for
+picking a quarrel with the Colonel ready to his hand. He bowed very
+low to her ladyship. Her ladyship went on punting.
+
+Colonel Montague looked at him, and then looked at him again with the
+same perplexity which Mr. Wogan had found so distasteful one evening
+in St. James's Street three years before; but he said nothing. Her
+ladyship laid down a card and gave Mr. Wogan a hand, which he kissed
+with proper ceremony.
+
+'You have come late, Mr. Hilton,' she said; 'and you have come, it
+seems--alone?'
+
+'Madam,' replied Wogan, with a glance of great sympathy towards the
+Colonel, and in his softest brogue, 'men are born to loneliness as the
+sparks fly upward.'
+
+The Colonel took his meaning, and his face flushed. Wogan's spirits
+rose higher. If only Montague was strung to the same pitch of
+exasperation and injury as the Parson had been in the like
+circumstances! The supposition seemed probable. Mr. Wogan could have
+rubbed his hands in sheer content. The Colonel, however, made no
+rejoinder, and Mr. Wogan had to amuse himself by watching the play.
+
+It was little amusement, however, that Mr. Wogan got; on the contrary,
+as he watched, his fears returned to him. Her ladyship was evidently
+in something of a flutter. She did not show her usual severe attention
+to the game. Now she called her black boy Sambo to bring her fan; now
+she would pat her spaniel; now she would gaze through the crowd of
+perruques and laces towards the door. Her smile was fixed even when
+she paid her losses, and that was not her way, she being a bad loser.
+She was watching for someone, and that someone without a doubt was Mr.
+Kelly. Wogan could not but ask himself with what intention she
+watched. Her ladyship was taking a new lover, and for that reason the
+ballad struck her hard--if she knew of it. Smilinda was not the
+woman to forgive the blow. She would assuredly blame Kelly for the
+ballad--if she knew of it. Had she lured him here to strike back? She
+turned once more to Mr. Wogan, as though she would put some question
+to him; but, before she could open her lips, a name was bawled up the
+stairs, and a sudden hush fell upon the room. The throng in the
+doorway dissolved as if by magic, and between the doorway and Lady
+Oxford's chair a clear path was drawn. The name was Lady Mary Wortley
+Montagu's. Everyone then knew of the ballad and laid it at Lady Mary's
+door. Everyone? Mr. Wogan asked himself. Did Lady Oxford know?
+
+Montague frowned and drummed with his knuckles on the table; it was
+the only sound heard in the room. Then Lord Sidney noisily thrust back
+his chair, and, stepping past Lady Oxford, stood in the open space
+between her and the door with a frank boyish championship for which
+Mr. Wogan at once pitied and liked him.
+
+The name was passed up the stairs from lackey to lackey, growing
+louder with each repetition. The silence was followed by a quick
+movement which ran through the room like a ripple across a pool, as
+each head was turned towards Lady Oxford to note how she would bear
+herself. She rose, the radiant goddess of hospitality.
+
+'There is no striving, Colonel Montague, against this run of luck,'
+she said, with the most natural ease; 'but my dear Lady Mary is come
+to save me from ruin. Mrs. Hewett,' she turned to her opposite, 'will
+you be tallier to our table? The bank is open to a bidder. No? Ah!'
+and she took a step forwards to where her champion was standing apart,
+his hand on his hip, his face raised, ready to encounter even so
+dangerous an antagonist as Lady Mary, 'my Lord Sidney Beauclerk, you
+are not afraid?' He looked at her, from her to the door. 'I am your
+servant,' said she, with her eyelids half-closed over her eyes, 'your
+grateful servant,' and she motioned him to the table; 'for, being a
+woman, I positively die to hear what new scandal dear Lady Mary has
+set on foot.'
+
+She spoke with an affectionate compassion for Lady Mary's foible and
+an air of innocence which quite took aback the most part of her
+guests. Mr. Wogan, however, was better acquainted with her ladyship's
+resources, and, wishing to know for certain whether Lady Oxford knew
+of the ballad;
+
+'I can satisfy your ladyship's curiosity,' he said bluntly; and with
+that the noise of the room sank to silence again. He was still
+standing by the card-table. Lady Oxford turned about to him something
+quickly. It may be she was disconcerted, or that anger got the upper
+hand with her. At all events, for an instant she dropped the mask. She
+gave Wogan one look; he never remembers, in all the strange incidents
+of his life, to have seen eyes so hard, so cold, and so cruel, or a
+face so venomous. In a second the look was gone, and the prettiest
+smile of inquiry was softening about her mouth. 'There is a new poem,
+is there not, from Lady Mary's kind muse?' said Wogan.
+
+'A new poem!' cried she. 'Let us hear it, I pray. It would be the
+worst of ill-breeding had I not knowledge enough to congratulate my
+friend. The happy subject of the poem, Mr. Hilton?'
+
+Lady Oxford took a step towards him. She was all courtesy and
+politeness, but Mr. Wogan, while he recognised her bravery, had her
+look of a second ago very distinct before his eyes, and was in no mood
+for pity. He bowed with no less courtesy.
+
+'It is thought to be an allegory,' he said, 'wherein the arm of flesh
+is preferred before a spiritual--Blade.
+
+The rejoinder, as it seemed, was approved, for the ladies whispered
+behind their fans, and here and there a man checked a laugh. Lady
+Oxford met the thrust with all the appearances of unconcern.
+
+'And tagged with Latin, Mr. Hilton?' she asked. That was enough for
+Mr. Wogan. Lady Oxford knew the ballad, and gave it to Lady Mary.
+Without a doubt she must believe Mr. Kelly supplied Lady Mary with the
+matter of it. 'Of a truth the ballad will' be tagged with Latin. Sure
+Lady Mary has scholars enough among her friends who would not let her
+wit go naked when a scrap of Latin could cover it decently--indeed,
+too decently at times, for, though we always see the Latin, one is
+hard put to it now and then to discover the wit. Do you not think so,
+Mr.--Hilton?' She paused ever so slightly before the name, and ever so
+slightly drawled it, with just a hint of menace in her accent. Mr.
+Hilton, none the less, got a clear enough knowledge of the dangerous
+game he was playing. Lady Oxford had but to say 'Mr. Wogan,' and it
+would not be Mr. Wogan who would have the chance of playing a hand
+with the figure at the empty table.
+
+Lady Mary's name was now called out from the doorway, and Mr. Wogan
+was glad enough to leave the encounter to her worthier hands. Lady
+Mary sailed into the room; Lady Oxford swam forwards to meet her. The
+two ladies dissolved almost in smiles and courtesies.
+
+'We were in despair, dearest Lady Mary; we feared you would baulk us
+of your company. France, they said, was happy in your sunshine.'
+
+'France, madam?' asked Lady Mary.
+
+'It was your dear friend, Mr. Pope, who said you had withdrawn
+thither--la, in the strangest hurry!'
+
+'Indeed, very like! I denied Mr. Pope my door two days ago, and his
+vanity could only conceive I was gone abroad.'
+
+'Your ladyship was wise. A poet's tongue wags most indiscreetly. Not
+that anyone believes those fanciful creatures. A romance of a--a M.
+Remond for whom you should have placed money in the sinking South Sea;
+the Frenchman arriving in London in a hurry; Lady Mary in a hurry
+arriving in France; a kind of country dance figure of partners
+crossing. A story indubitably false, to the knowledge of all your
+ladyship's friends, as I took occasion to say at more than one house
+where the rumour was put about.'
+
+Lady Oxford had scored the first point in the game, as Wogan reckoned
+and marked 'Fifteen--love' with chagrin. However, he took some
+comfort from Lady Mary's face, which was grown dangerously sweet and
+good-natured. Nor was his confidence vain, for Lady Mary did more than
+hold her ground.
+
+'Your ladyship's good will,' said she, 'is my sufficient defence. My
+Lord Oxford is here? It is long since I paid him my respects.'
+
+'Alas, my dear Lord has lain these last six weeks at Brampton Bryan,'
+sighed Lady Oxford, 'with a monstrous big toe all swathed in flannel.
+Your ladyship, I fear, can only greet my husband by proxy.'
+
+There was just a sparkle of triumph in Lady Mary's eyes.
+
+'By proxy!' she said; 'with all the willingness in the world;' and she
+swept a courtesy to Colonel Montague, who was coming forward to join
+them.
+
+Lady Oxford flirted her fan before her face.
+
+A murmur almost of applause ran from group to group of the company.
+
+Mr. Wogan, who loved the game of tennis, marked 'Fifteen--all.'
+
+At that moment a clock upon the mantelshelf chimed the half-hour. In
+fifteen minutes the Parson would arrive, and Mr. Wogan had not played
+his hand. He moved a few yards from the table at which Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk, with his eyes upon Lady Oxford, was dealing the cards, and
+stood apart by the empty table, wondering how he should do. He picked
+up a pack of cards idly, and Lady Mary spoke again to Lady Oxford:
+
+'I interrupted your ladyship's game.'
+
+'Nay, your coming was the most welcome diversion. Colonel Montague,'
+said Lady Oxford, as she was gliding back to her table, 'shared my
+bank, and played with the worst of luck. I declare the Colonel has
+ruined me;' and so retired out of range of Lady Mary's guns.
+
+The Colonel followed Lady Oxford. Lady Mary turned to Mr. Wogan, and
+in a voice loud enough for others than Mr. Wogan to hear:
+
+'What!' said she, 'was Lady Oxford ruined by Colonel Montague? I did
+not think their acquaintance was of so old a standing.'
+
+'Thirty--fifteen,' said Mr. Wogan in an abstraction.
+
+Lady Mary stared.
+
+'I was but marking the game and scoring points to your ladyship,'
+Wogan said.
+
+Colonel Montague had heard Lady Mary's sally, for he stopped. Lord
+Sidney Beauclerk had heard it, for he rose as though to mark his
+disbelief, and handed Lady Oxford to her chair with a sort of air of
+protection very pretty in the boy. It seemed, indeed, as though even
+Lady Oxford was touched, for her face was half turned towards Mr.
+Wogan, and he saw it soften with something like pity and her eyes swam
+for an instant in tears. It was new, no doubt, for the spider to feel
+compassion for the fly, but Mr. Wogan was not altogether surprised,
+for he began to find the fly very much to his own taste. It was a
+clean-limbed, generous lad, that looked mighty handsome in the bravery
+of his pink satin coat, and without one foppish affectation from his
+top-knot to his shoe-buckles.
+
+Mr. Wogan was still holding the pack of cards in his hands.
+
+'You have a mind to play? 'asked Lady Mary.
+
+Wogan looked at the clock. He had only fifteen minutes for his
+business as lightning conductor. In fifteen minutes the Parson would
+be here.
+
+'If you will present me to the player I have a mind to play with,'
+said he, dropping the pack on the table.
+
+'With all my heart,' said she; 'name him.'
+
+'Colonel Montague.'
+
+Her ladyship looked at Wogan doubtfully, and beckoned the Colonel with
+her fan. The Colonel, who had his own feud with Lady Mary over the
+supposed authorship of the ballad, made as though he had not seen her
+summons. Lady Mary repeated it with no better result, and finally took
+a step or two towards him. Montague could no longer affect to
+misunderstand.
+
+'I wish to present you to a friend,' she said, as Colonel Montague
+joined her.
+
+'If your ladyship will excuse me,' said the Colonel coldly, 'I have no
+taste for the acquaintance of Irish adventurers.'
+
+Mr. Wogan was not out of earshot, and laughed gleefully as he caught
+the insult. Here was his opportunity, come in the nick of time.
+
+'Did anyone mention me?' he said pleasantly, as he came round the
+card-table. But before the Colonel could answer, or Lady Mary
+interfere, the servant at the door announced:
+
+'Dr. and Miss Townley!'
+
+Wogan's heart gave a leap. He swore beneath his breath.
+
+'Miss Townley?' asked her ladyship, who had caught his oath.
+
+'Is Rose, _the_ Rose,' replied Wogan.
+
+Lady Mary knew the ballad, knew who Rose was, and looked perplexed as
+to why Lady Oxford had asked the girl. Mr. Wogan, on the other hand,
+was no longer perplexed at all. His doubt was now a certainty. Lady
+Oxford had prepared a scenic revenge, a _coup de theater_. To this
+end, and to prove her ignorance of the ballad, she had invited Kelly,
+Montague, and Rose.
+
+Of the _coup de theater_ her ladyship had got more than she bargained
+for. On her bosom Miss Townley wore diamonds that caught the eye even
+in that Aladdin's treasure house of shining stones, and among the
+diamonds the portrait of Lady Oxford. Her ladyship saw it, and grew
+white as marble. Miss Townley saw Lady Oxford, knew the face of the
+miniature that she had thought was the Queen's, and blushed like the
+dawn. Her hand flew to her neck as she courtesied deep to Lady
+Oxford's courtesy; when she rose, by some miracle of female skill, the
+miniature and the diamonds had vanished. Rising at the same moment,
+Lady Oxford looked herself again. But the women understood each other
+now, and, as they purred forth their _politesses_, Wogan knew that the
+buttons were off the foils.
+
+He had his own game to play, that would brook no waiting, and he
+played it without pause. Lady Mary had moved towards the door. Colonel
+Montague was gliding back to his old position near Lord Sidney. Wogan
+followed Colonel Montague and stopped him.
+
+'Sir,' said he, in a low brogue, 'I fancied that I caught a little
+word of yours that reflected on me counthry and me honour.'
+
+'For your country, sir,' replied the Colonel politely, 'your speech
+bewrayeth you, but the habitation of your honour is less discernible.'
+
+''Faith, Colonel,' said Wogan, who found his plan answering to his
+highest expectations, 'you are so ready with your tongue that you
+might be qualifying for an Irishman. Doubtless you are as ready to
+take a quiet little walk, in which case I shall be most happy to show
+you where my honour inhabits. But, to speak the plain truth, it is
+somewhat too near the point of my sword to make Lady Oxford's
+drawing-room a convenient place for the exhibition.'
+
+Colonel Montague smiled at the pleasantry in an agreeable way which
+quite went to Wogan's heart.
+
+'With all the goodwill imaginable,' said he, 'I will take that walk
+with you to-morrow,' and he made a bow and turned away.
+
+'But Colonel,' said Wogan in some disappointment, 'why not to-night?'
+
+'There are certain formalities. For instance, I was not fortunate
+enough to catch your name.'
+
+''Tis as ancient as any in Ireland,' cried Wogan, in a heat, quite
+forgetting his incognito. 'My forefathers--'
+
+'Ah, sir, they were kings, no doubt,' interrupted Montague with the
+gravest politeness.
+
+'No, sir, viceroys only,' answered Wogan with indifference, 'up to
+Edward I.'
+
+'Your Highness,' said the Colonel, and he bowed to the ground, 'I
+reckon to-morrow a more suitable time.'
+
+Mr. Wogan was tickled out of his ill-humour, and began to warm to the
+man.
+
+'Sure, Colonel, you and I will be the best of good friends after I
+have killed you, and for the love of mercy let that be to-night.
+Look!' and stepping to the window he drew aside the curtain. 'Look,'
+said he, peering out, 'it is the sweetest moonlight that ever kissed a
+sword-blade! Oh, to-night, Colonel!' Then he dropped the curtain
+something suddenly. He had seen a face in the street. 'You prefer
+sunlight? Very well, sir. But you will acknowledge that to-morrow I
+have the _earliest_ claims on your leisure.'
+
+Colonel Montague bowed.
+
+'The word, you will remember, was an Irish adventurer.' Wogan
+impressed it upon him.
+
+'Sir, I am wedded to the phrase. You will send your friend to my
+lodgings at Mrs. Kilburne's, in Ryder Street.'
+
+'Mrs. Kilburne's!' exclaimed Wogan.
+
+Wogan might have guessed as much had he used his brains. It was at the
+corner of Ryder Street that he had plumped upon Montague when he came
+down to London from Glenshiel. It was under a portico in Ryder Street
+that the Parson and he had seen Montague on the night they had driven
+out on the first journey to Brampton Bryan. It was at Mrs. Kilburne's
+door that Wogan had seen Montague that afternoon. The Colonel was her
+fine gentleman upon the first floor. Sure, the Parson had the worst
+luck in the world. At all events, the Colonel was a gentleman. Wogan
+consoled himself with that reflection as he thought of Mr. Kelly's
+despatch box in the scrutoire of his parlour below the Colonel's
+rooms.
+
+That thought led Wogan's eyes again to the clock. It was half an hour
+past ten. The Parson was due in ten minutes.
+
+'Good-bye t'ye, Colonel,' he said hastily to Montague, as he turned
+towards the door. He almost knocked against Rose, who was standing
+close by his elbow. She made an effort to detain him; he breathed a
+word of apology. It did not occur to him then that she might have
+overheard his conversation with the Colonel. He hurried past Lady
+Oxford and Dr. Townley, who was talking of his schooldays, when he
+knew Lord Oxford.
+
+'Mr. Hilton,' cried her ladyship. Mr. Hilton was deaf as a bed-post.
+For when he had looked out of the window at the moonlight he had seen
+a face in the roadway of which the Parson should have knowledge before
+he reached the house. It was that face which had made him drop the
+curtain so quickly and fall in so quickly with the Colonel's
+objections. A link-boy's torch had flashed for a second upon a man on
+the other side of the road, and his face was Scrope's. Scrope was
+watching the house.
+
+Wogan pressed through the throng towards the door, but before he could
+reach it a firm hand closed upon his arm. He looked round. Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk was standing by his side with a flushed, angry face.
+
+'A word with you, Mr. Hilton!'
+
+'A hundred, my lord, in half an hour,' said Wogan, and shook himself
+free. He must warn the Parson and turn him back from the house. But he
+was too late. In the doorway of the house he met Mr. Kelly, whose face
+wore a singular air of content. And on the other side of the road
+stood Scrope with his head turned towards the doorway. Scrope knew
+that the Parson had come.
+
+Mr. Wogan took Kelly's arm, and led him to the shady side of the
+street, out of the noisy crowd of lackeys and link-boys.
+
+'Those divines err,' said Kelly, 'who condemn the occasional casting
+of lots. It is not an ill game.'
+
+'Then you found our lurking luck?'
+
+'Six rouleaux of gold,' said Mr. Kelly, tenderly caressing his pocket.
+
+'The sinews of war, and we are like to need them.'
+
+'Then the coast is not clear?'
+
+'Clear!' said Wogan, 'there is every sign of thunder, wind, and
+earthquake. First, Montague is here!'
+
+'And here is his Capulet!' said Kelly smiling.
+
+Wogan smiled too, having secured his duel with the Colonel.
+
+'Then Miss Townley is here, and, George, she was wearing my lady's
+miniature. The women know each other.'
+
+George's mouth opened, and his utterance was stayed. Then,
+
+'It is a trap. I go home,' he said. Despair spoke in his voice.
+
+'No!' Mr. Wogan's plans had changed.
+
+'Why not? I have no more to lose, and my duty to do.'
+
+'You do not go home, for Scrope is watching the house. He has seen you
+come. He is behind us now.' Mr. Kelly's hand went to his sword, but
+Wogan checked him. 'Don't let him think you know. We must leave the
+house together, and your duty is to be just now where Miss Townley is.
+Be quick!'
+
+The argument had weight with Mr. Kelly. Wogan had his reasons for
+advancing it. If they went away together, later, Wogan could engage
+Mr. Scrope's attentions while the Parson went safely on to Ryder
+Street. The two passed out of the shade, but not before George had
+placed his hand in Wogan's. His hand was cold as ice.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVII
+
+ LADY OXFORD'S 'COUP DE THEATRE.'
+
+
+The Parson, when the two friends had climbed the crowded stairs, began
+making his way towards his fate and Lady Oxford's table, with a smile
+on his face. He did not see Rose, who was a little apart, hidden from
+him by a group of strangers. Wogan was about joining her, when a
+woman's voice whispered in his ear:
+
+'You are mad!'
+
+The voice was Lady Mary's.
+
+'You are mad, both of you! He should be halfway to the coast by now.
+What brings him here? I wrote, or rather I sent to him.'
+
+'True,' said Wogan, remembering the letter which he had picked up in
+the Parson's lodging, and slipped into his pocket. It had been thrust
+clean out of his mind at the Deanery by those more pressing questions
+as to how the Blow had been discovered, and how they were to escape
+from the consequences of the discovery. He drew it out, still sealed
+up.
+
+'He has not opened it?' she asked.
+
+'He has not seen it,' replied Wogan, who began to fear from her
+ladyship's discomposure that the letter held news of an urgent
+importance. She took the letter from his hands, and broke the seal.
+
+'This was my message,' she said. There was no scrap of writing in the
+letter, but a feather from a bird's wing: it meant "Fly!"
+
+'The feather is white,' said Wogan. He could not have mounted it.'
+
+'He loses his life.'
+
+'Perhaps, but he keeps his honour. There is something that he must do
+in London if by any means he can. He must burn the papers at his
+lodgings and the best hope lies in audacity.'
+
+Mr. Wogan tore up the sheet on which her ladyship had written Mr.
+Johnson's name into fragments too minute for anyone to piece them
+together again.
+
+'This proof of your good will,' said he, 'shall not rise in judgment
+against you.'
+
+'But you?' said Lady Mary. 'Why do you stay?'
+
+Wogan laughed.
+
+'For one thing, I have a little business of my own to settle,
+and--well--'
+
+'And,' said she, 'your friend's in danger.'
+
+She spoke with so much kindliness that Mr. Wogan felt a trifle
+awkward, and turned his eyes from her face. He saw that Rose still
+stood alone, though many of the gallants eyed her through their
+quizzing-glasses.
+
+'Lady Mary,' he said, 'you have the kindest heart!'
+
+'Hush! Whisper it,' she replied, 'or you will destroy my reputation.
+What service would you have me do now?'
+
+'You see Miss Rose? You have read a certain ballad which the ignorant
+give to your ladyship? And you know Lady Oxford. It is Miss Rose
+Townley's first visit to this house, and one cannot believe that Lady
+Oxford asked her with any amiable intention.'
+
+'And I am to be Lady Oxford's spoil-sport?'
+
+'It has gone beyond sport. At this moment her ladyship has murder in
+her mind. The girl entered the room wearing our hostess's portrait in
+diamonds,' and he told her shortly how she came to wear it.
+
+Lady Mary looked her horror.
+
+'She has hidden it, but you will not leave the girl?'
+
+Lady Mary nodded, her lips tight closed.
+
+Wogan presented the girl. Lady Mary made room for her at her side, and
+Wogan only heard her say, 'My dear, be brave, you tremble.'
+
+What else passed, Wogan did not desire to hear. Lady Mary had faults,
+they say, as a woman, but she was of a manlike courage, and her's was
+the friendship of a man. Never did woman need it more than Miss
+Townley, and never, sure, was counsel and comfort wiser and kinder
+than that which, Wogan knew later, Lady Mary gave to the angry,
+frightened, and bewildered girl.
+
+Lady Mary's credentials were Wogan's name; the girl could not suspect
+them. How had she come hither? Lady Oxford had invited her father,
+Rose said, as a schoolfellow of my lord's, and had asked, too, for the
+daughter's company. Then the young lady was lured, her new friend
+said, by a wicked woman for a cruel purpose. That purpose, whatever it
+was, and neither Wogan nor Kelly nor Lady Mary could do more than
+guess, must be defeated at any cost--at all costs. Lady Mary glanced
+at the guilt and guilelessness of our sex. Kelly, too, had been
+entrapped, before he knew Rose, but that was ended. Lady Mary
+certainly knew it was ended, however things appeared. According to
+men's notions, he was compelled to lie to Rose about the miniature.
+Now Miss Townley might, if she chose, give Kelly his _conge_
+to-morrow. To-night she must know nothing, see nothing, bear no
+grudge, be staunch; she owed it to her honour, to the honour of her
+sex, to Kelly's very life, and to her revenge, if she craved for one,
+on the false enchantress. That was Lady Mary's sermon. And the lesson
+was needed. She reported it later to Wogan who, at this moment, was
+following the Parson with all his eyes.
+
+Lady Oxford at the card-table was greeting Kelly with a conspicuous
+kindness. Her smile was one wide welcome.
+
+'My dear Mr. Johnson,' she said, 'you are grateful as flowers worked
+on the very finest Alencon. Sure you bring me those laces for which I
+gave you a commission in Paris, and the lutestring from my Lady Mar.'
+
+Mr. Kelly murmured a word that the laces were below, and he hoped her
+ladyship would be satisfied. But his eyes searched the room all the
+time for Rose, whom he could not see.
+
+'You shall show me them!' cried Lady Oxford; 'but first you must bring
+me luck. Mr. Johnson and I were always lucky before he went abroad.'
+She spoke with a provoking smile at Colonel Montague, and then shot a
+quick glance at Lord Sidney Beauclerk, who was now risen from the
+table, and stood in a window watching her.
+
+The glance said plain as writing, 'You understand. I have to face out
+the ballad. I can trust you.' Wogan's blood boiled as he noticed and
+read the look, for it was just that tender appeal to her lover's faith
+which always brought about the lover's undoing. Lord Sidney's young
+face flushed with pride at the trust she reposed in him, and she
+continued to Kelly:
+
+'Look over my hand, Mr. Johnson; you must not leave me. What card
+shall I choose? You, Colonel Montague, I discard you. I appoint you to
+the Commissariat, run and see that Lady Rich does not starve. She is
+leaving her party with the air of a loser, and needs the comforts of
+chicken and champagne. But first let me make you better acquainted
+with the gentleman who supersedes you. Mr. Johnson, the right-hand man
+of my dear Bishop of Rochester.' There she stopped short in a pretty
+confusion, as though the words had slipped from her lips against her
+will.
+
+'Who should be thrown to the lions,' growled the Colonel to himself,
+and added gruffly, 'Mr. Johnson and I have met before.'
+
+The Colonel turned his broad scarlet back with the ghost of a bow, and
+went reluctantly to Lady Rich, a mature matron, dressed to kill, in
+virginal white. Wogan watched them out of the door, and was again
+turning back to the card-table, when again Lord Sidney Beauclerk's
+hand was laid on his sleeve.
+
+'A word with you, Mr. Hilton,' said he in a hard voice.
+
+'When the half-hour is past, my lord,' said Wogan, looking at his
+watch. 'There are still eight minutes and a few seconds.'
+
+'I will set my watch by yours,' said the lad with great dignity; which
+he did, and went back to his corner.
+
+Mr. Johnson's welcome, meanwhile, was as that of the prodigal swain.
+He made more than one effort to slip from her side and go in search of
+Rose, but Lady Oxford would not let him go. She had eyes only for him,
+eyes to caress. Many curious people watched the scene as at a play.
+All the town knew the ballad, and here was Lady Oxford's reply. Mr.
+Johnson and Lady Oxford were to all seeming the best of friends, and
+no more than friends, for was not Miss Townley in the room to testify
+the limits of their friendship?
+
+A shifting of the groups gave Wogan suddenly a view of Rose Townley.
+She was still talking with Lady Mary, or rather she was still
+listening to her, and threw in now and again a short reply. But she
+spoke with an occupied air, and her eyes were drawn ever towards the
+card-table at which Lady Oxford was practising her blandishments on
+the Parson. Then to Wogan's relief a few ladies and gentlemen stepped
+between, and the living screen hid him from her view.
+
+At this moment Lady Oxford lost heavily.
+
+'An ace? Sonica! I am bankrupt!' she cried, and rising from the table
+she addressed the Parson. 'Mr. Johnson, you bring me no better luck
+than did the Colonel. I must console myself with private talk, and
+news of lace and lutestring. What have you brought me? Come, I
+positively die to see,' and so, with her sweetest smile, she carried
+off the Parson.
+
+It was thus she had wrought on that first night when Kelly met the
+Colonel, but there was a mighty difference in Kelly's demeanour. Then
+he had given her his arm with the proudest gallantry. Now her ladyship
+went out of her way to lead him past Rose, where she sat with Lady
+Mary. He threw an imploring glance at the girl, and followed in Lady
+Oxford's wake, the very figure of discomfort.
+
+Fine smiles rippled silently round the company as the pair made their
+way to the door. Rose watched them, her face grown very hard and
+white, but she said no word until they had gone. She stood motionless,
+except that her bosom rose and fell quickly. Then she turned to Lady
+Mary.
+
+'I must bid your ladyship good-night,' she said; 'I have stayed too
+long.'
+
+Pride kept her voice clear, her words steady, but it could not mask
+the pain of her face.
+
+'What ails you, child? You must smile. Smile!' whispered Lady Mary.
+But Rose was struck too hard. She lowered her eyes and fixed them on
+the floor to hide the humiliation they expressed, but she could not
+smile. She tried, but no more came of it than a quiver at the corners
+of her lips, and then she set her mouth firmly, as though she could
+not trust herself.
+
+'I thought I had persuaded you,' whispered Lady Mary. 'It is for
+honour, it is for life, his life. Appearances are nothing. You _must_
+stay.'
+
+'I thank your ladyship, who is most kind. I will stay,' said the girl.
+Her face flushed purely with a delicate, proud anger.
+
+Lady Mary presented her to some of her friends, with whom Rose bore
+herself bravely. Wogan saw that she had taken her part, and blessed
+Lady Mary.
+
+He had followed Lady Oxford and the Parson out of the room, and leaned
+over the balusters while they descended the stairs. It was an ominous
+business, this summons of Lady Oxford. Why must she carry him off
+alone with her? What blow had she to strike? Mr. Wogan was not
+surprised that Kelly had turned pale, and though he held his head
+erect, had none the less the air of one led to the sacrifice. To make
+the matter yet more ominous, Lady Oxford herself seemed in a flutter
+of excitement; her colour was heightened; she sparkled with even more
+than her usual beauty; her tongue rattled with even more than its
+usual liveliness.
+
+Half-way down the stairs she met Lady Rich and Colonel Montague
+mounting. Lady Oxford stopped and spoke to the Colonel. Mr. Wogan
+caught a word or two, such as 'Miss Townley--the poor girl knows no
+one.' Kelly started a little; the Colonel sullenly bowed. Lady Oxford,
+leaning upon Mr. Kelly's arm in order to provoke the Colonel, must
+needs in pity bid the Colonel wait upon Rose in order to provoke Mr.
+Kelly. There Wogan recognised her ladyship's refinements.
+
+The pair passed down to the foot of the stairs. To the right of the
+staircase a door gave on to that little room into which Kelly had led
+Lady Oxford on the night of the Masquerade. Lady Oxford left his arm
+and went towards it.
+
+Kelly remained standing by the stairs, very still. It was in this room
+that Lady Oxford had discovered the Chevalier's likeness in the lid of
+the snuff-box, and had deceived George into the belief that she was,
+heart and soul, as deep in the Cause as he. It was that room which had
+witnessed the beginnings of the history. Now it seemed it was like to
+see the end.
+
+Kelly looked up the stairs and saw Wogan's face. He smiled, in a
+quiet, hopeless way, and then Lady Oxford threw open the door. She
+turned back to Kelly, a languorous smile upon her lips, a tender light
+in her eyes. Neither the smile nor the look had power to beguile the
+two men any longer. Kelly stepped forwards to her like a man that is
+tired. Wogan had again the queer sense of incongruity. Behind him
+voices laughed and chattered, in some room to his left music sounded;
+and here at the foot of the stairs was a woman all smiles and graces
+playing with Life and Death as a child with toys.
+
+The pair passed into the room. The door shut behind them. The click of
+the latch is one of the things Wogan never will forget.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ WHEREIN A NEW FLY DISCOURSES ON THE
+ INNOCENCE OF THE SPIDER'S WEB
+
+
+Wogan was still leaning on the rail of the balustrade when a watch was
+held beneath his nose.
+
+'The half-hour is gone, Mr. Hilton,' said Lord Sidney Beauclerk.
+
+'True,' said Wogan, 'it is now a quarter past eleven.' His eyes moved
+from the watch to the closed door. 'Half an hour, my lord,' he mused,
+'a small trifle of minutes. You may measure it by grains of sand, but,
+if you will, for each grain of sand you may count a life.'
+
+'You hit my sentiments to a nicety.'
+
+Lord Sidney spoke with a grave significance which roused Wogan from
+his reflections. The lad's face was hard; his eyes gloomy and fierce.
+Wogan remembered that, when Lord Sidney had spoken before, he had not
+seemed in the best of good humour.
+
+'My lord,' he said, 'we can hardly talk with comfort here in the
+doorway.' He led the way back into the inner withdrawing-room and
+across the room to the recess of a window.
+
+'Here we shall be private,' he said.
+
+'Mr. Hilton, you spoke a little while ago of a ballad, wherein, to use
+your words, the arm of flesh was preferred to a spiritual Blade. That
+may have been wit, of which I do not profess to be the judge. But you
+aimed an insult at a woman, and any man may claim to be the judge of
+that.'
+
+'My lord,' answered Wogan gently, 'you do not know the woman. I could
+wish you never will.'
+
+Lord Sidney laughed with a sharp scorn which brought the blood into
+Wogan's face. It was plain the remark was counted an evasion.
+
+'At all events I know an insult when I hear it. Let us keep to the
+insult, Mr. Hilton. It reaped its reward, for here and there a coward
+smirked his applause.' Lord Sidney's voice began to tremble with
+passion. 'But it has yet to be paid for. You must pay for it to me,'
+and, since Wogan kept silence, his passion of a sudden got the upper
+hand, and in a low quick voice--there was as much pain as anger in
+it--'It hurts me,' he said, clenching his hands, 'it positively hurts
+me. Here is a woman'--he stopped in full flight, and blushed with a
+youthful sort of shame at his eloquence--'a woman, sir, in a word, and
+you must torture her with your brave sneers and she must wear a
+smiling face while her heart bleeds! Mr. Hilton, are you a man? Why,
+then, so am I, and it humiliates me that we should both be men. The
+humiliation will not pass even after,' and he drew a breath in through
+his shut teeth, 'after I have killed you.'
+
+Mr. Wogan had listened to the outburst with all the respect he thought
+due to a boy's frank faith. A boy--Wogan's years were not many more
+than his, but he had seen mankind, and marvelled how they will trust a
+woman who, they know, has fooled one man, if but a husband. But, at
+Lord Sidney's talk of killing him, Wogan sank the philosopher and
+could not repress a grin.
+
+'Kill me, my young friend; _ne fait ce tour qui veut_,' he said; 'but
+sure you may try if you will. You will not be the first who has
+tried.'
+
+'I have no doubt of that,' said Lord Sidney gravely, 'and you will
+oblige me by using another word. I may be young, Mr. Hilton, but I
+thank God I am not your friend.'
+
+There was a dignity, a sincerity in his manner which to Mr. Wogan's
+ears robbed the speech of all impertinence. Wogan simply bowed and
+said:
+
+'If you will send your friend to Burton's Coffee House in the
+morning----'
+
+'To Burton's Coffee House.'
+
+Lord Sidney turned away. Mr. Wogan drew aside the curtain of the
+window and stared out into the night with an unusual discontent.
+Across the road Mr. Scrope was still lurking in the shadow--a hired
+spy. Very like, he had once been just such another honest lad, with
+just the same chivalry, before my lady cast her covetous eyes on him.
+Downstairs in the little room the Parson was fighting, for the Cause,
+for his sweetheart, for his liberty, and maybe for his life, with
+little prospect of a safe issue. It seemed a pity that Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk should be wasted too.
+
+'My lord,' said Wogan, calling after Lord Sidney. And Lord Sidney came
+back. Wogan was still holding the curtain aside; he had some vague
+thought of relating Scrope's history, but his first glance at Lord
+Sidney's face showed to him it would not avail. Lord Sidney would
+disbelieve it utterly. Wogan dropped the curtain.
+
+'How old is your lordship?' he asked.
+
+Lord Sidney looked surprised, as well he might, and then blushed for
+his youth.
+
+'I am twenty,' he said, 'and some months,' with considerable emphasis
+on the months as though they made a world of difference.
+
+'Ah,' replied Wogan, 'I am of the century's age, twenty-two and some
+more months. You are astonished, my lord. But when I was fifteen I
+fought in battles.'
+
+'Was it to tell me this you called me back?'
+
+'No,' said Wogan solemnly, 'but you meet me tomorrow. I am not sure
+that I could do you better service than by taking care that you meet
+no one afterwards. It was that I had to tell you,' and he added with a
+smile, 'but I do not think I shall bring myself to do you that
+service.'
+
+Lord Sidney's face changed a little from its formal politeness. He
+eyed Mr. Wogan as though for a moment he doubted whether he had not
+mistaken his man. Then he said:
+
+'In a duel, Mr. Hilton, there are two who fight.'
+
+'Not always, my lord. Sometimes there is one who only defends,' and
+with that they parted. Clamorous dames took Lord Sidney captive. Wogan
+looked at his watch. Five minutes had passed since that latch had
+clicked. He strolled out of the room to the stairs. The door was still
+shut. He came back into the room and stood by Lady Mary, who was
+describing to Rose the characters of those who passed by. She looked
+anxiously at Wogan, who had no comforting news and shook his head, but
+she did not cease from her rattle.
+
+'And here comes Colonel Montague with a yellow bundle of bones tied up
+in parchment, 'she cried. Lady Rich was the bundle of bones in
+parchment. 'Colonel Montague--well, my dear, he is a gallant officer
+in the King's guards who fought at Preston, and he owes his life to a
+noisy Irish boy who has since grown out of all recognition.'
+
+Here Rose suddenly looked up at Wogan.
+
+'It was this Colonel Montague you saved!' said she.
+
+'Hush,' whispered Wogan, who had his own reasons for wishing the
+Colonel should discover nothing upon that head. 'Remember, if you
+please, that my name is Hilton.'
+
+Colonel Montague led Lady Rich to the sofa.
+
+'Colonel, has fortune deserted you that you look so glum?' asked Lady
+Mary.
+
+'I am on the losing hand indeed, your ladyship, to-night,' said
+Montague bitterly.
+
+'Well, _malheureux en jeu_,' said her ladyship maliciously, 'you may
+take comfort from the rest of the proverb.'
+
+Lady Rich shook her rose-coloured ribbons, a girlish simpleton of
+forty summers.
+
+'I am vastly ashamed of being so prodigiously ignorant,' said she. 'I
+daresay I ask a mighty silly question, but what is the rest?'
+
+'French, my dear, and it means that fifteen years is the properest age
+for a woman to continue at, but why need one be five?'
+
+Colonel Montague smiled grimly. Mr. Wogan stifled a laugh. Lady Rich
+looked somewhat disconcerted.
+
+'Oh, is that a proverb?' said she with a _minauderie_. 'I shall dote
+on proverbs,' and so she simpered out of range.
+
+Lady Mary lifted up her hands.
+
+'_Regardez cet animal!_' she cried; '_considerez ce neant_. There's a
+pretty soul to be immortal.'
+
+'Your ladyship is cruel,' said Rose in remonstrance.
+
+'Nay, my dear, it is the only way to keep her quiet. My Lady Rich is
+like a top that hums senselessly. You must whip it hard enough and
+then it goes to sleep and makes no noise. Mr. Hilton, are you struck
+dumb?'
+
+Mr. Hilton's ears were on the stretch to catch the sound of a door,
+and making an excuse he moved away. Suspense kept him restless; it
+seemed every muscle in his body clamoured to be doing. He walked again
+to the window. Scrope was still fixed at his post. Wogan sauntered out
+of the room to the stairs, and down the stairs to the hall. The hall
+was empty. The door of the little room where Kelly and Lady Oxford
+were closeted was shut, and no sound came through it, either of word
+or movement. Wogan wished he had been born a housemaid, that he might
+lean his ear against the keyhole without any shame at the
+eavesdropping. He stood at the stair-foot gazing at the door as though
+his eyes would melt the oak by the ardour of their look. Above the
+voices laughed, the smooth music murmured of all soft pleasures. Here,
+in the quiet of the hall, Wogan began to think the door would never
+open; he had a foolish fancy that he was staring at the lid of a
+coffin sealed down until the Judgment Day, and indeed the room might
+prove a coffin. He looked at his watch; only a poor quarter of an hour
+had passed since the door had closed. Wogan could not believe it; he
+shook his watch in the belief that it had stopped, and then a hubbub
+arose in the street. The noise drew nearer and nearer, and Wogan could
+distinguish the shouts of newsboys crying their papers. What they
+cried as yet he could not hear. In the great room at the head of the
+stairs the voices of a sudden ceased; here and there a window was
+thrown open. The ominous din rang through the open windows and floated
+down the stairs, first the vague cries, then the sound of running
+feet, and last of all the words, clear as a knell:
+
+'Bloody Popish Plot! A Plot discovered!'
+
+So Lady Oxford had played her cards. The plot was out; Scrope was in
+the street; the Parson was trapped. Wogan determined to open that
+door. He took his hand from the balustrade, but before he had advanced
+a step, the door was opened from within. Her ladyship sailed forth
+upon Mr. Kelly's arm, radiant with smiles; and, to Wogan's
+astonishment, Kelly in the matter of good humour seemed in no wise
+behind her.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIX
+
+ STROKE AND COUNTER-STROKE
+
+
+Those fifteen minutes had none the less proved a _mauvais quart
+d'heure_ for Mr. Kelly. As he entered the room, the memories of the
+grey morning when first he stood there were heavy upon his thoughts. A
+cheerful fire burnt upon the hearth now as then. There was the settee
+on which her ladyship had lain in her pretended swoon. The text which
+he had read in the Deanery recurred to him: 'Her ways are the ways of
+Death; her feet take hold on Hell.' Through the open door came the
+sound of music and the words jangled through Kelly's mind to the tune.
+
+Lady Oxford closed the door; as the latch caught, Kelly lifted his
+head and faced her. On that first occasion her ladyship had worn a
+mask, and in truth she wore no mask now. A cruel smile played about
+her lips; a cruel light glittered in her eyes. She looked him over
+with triumph, as though he were her captive bound hand and foot. The
+look braced Mr. Kelly. He started from his memories as a man starts up
+from sleep; he lived alert and complete in the moments as they passed.
+Rose, the King's papers, his own liberty--this was his new text. Her
+ladyship could be trusted to give a sufficient exposition of the
+other.
+
+She seated herself, and with her fan beckoned him to a chair.
+
+'We have much to speak of, sir. I hear that I have to make you my
+congratulations, and to pay you my thanks. You may conceive with what
+sincerity.'
+
+Mr. Kelly remained standing by the fireside.
+
+'For what services does your ladyship thank me?'
+
+'You have made me a tavern-jest. I have to thank you for a ballad.'
+
+Mr. Kelly did not deny or argue the point. His pressing business was
+to know what Lady Oxford intended.
+
+'And on what fortunate event does your ladyship congratulate me?'
+
+'Are there so many fortunate events in the life of an Irish runagate
+and traitor? On your happy marriage, sir, with the starving
+apothecary's daughter.'
+
+Mr. Kelly laughed pleasantly.
+
+'Your ladyship is pleased to be facetious. Upon my honour, I know no
+such woman,' he said, thinking thus to provoke her to disclose her
+purposes.
+
+Lady Oxford, to his surprise, rose up with a joyful air. 'I knew it,'
+she cried. 'I knew the story of the girl was the idle talk of the
+Cocoa Tree. And Lady Mary thought to stab me with the cruel news. Ah,
+if the honour of my Strephon be pledged, his Smilinda's anger
+vanishes.'
+
+Here she threw her arms about Kelly's neck, in a very particular
+embrace, as if she would kiss him. But she refrained from such a
+caress. Her arms were clasped tighter and yet more tight till Kelly
+could scarcely breathe, and her cold whispering mouth touched his ear.
+
+'There was, then, no starving apothecary?'
+
+'None, madam. You have been misinformed.'
+
+The embrace grew deadly tight. He could not have thought that a woman
+had such strength in her arms.
+
+'No man named Townley? No daughter Rose? No wound? No nursing? No
+love-vows? No dog Harlequin? No betrothal? Liar!' she whispered in a
+strange voice, 'I see your miss's ring upon your finger. I saw my
+portrait upon her breast. Did she steal it? 'Tis like enough. But 'tis
+likelier that you lie!'
+
+'Your ladyship misunderstands,' said Kelly. 'I denied that there was a
+starving apothecary's daughter. I did not deny that there was a man
+named Townley, who, by the way, is your ladyship's guest. I did not
+deny there was a daughter Rose----'
+
+'Go!' she cried suddenly, releasing Kelly, and pushing him off. 'I
+know everything, everything. Go, traitor to your King and to your
+word! And when you are hanged, but _not till you are dead_, remember
+that you have made a toy and jest of _me_, babbling to your Lady Marys
+and your Wogans.'
+
+She flung herself back on a settee panting and tearing her laced
+handkerchief into shreds. Kelly waited a little for her to recover her
+composure.
+
+'Madam,' he said, 'in the fatal circumstances you mention with such
+relish, it is certainly not of you that I shall think, though in less
+painful moments I shall ever do so with honour and gratitude. As for
+what you say of my babbling, I protest my innocence before Heaven.
+Your ladyship forgets that you have an enemy from whom it was my good
+fortune once to defend you.'
+
+Lady Oxford dropped her handkerchief and sat forward staring
+doubtfully at Kelly, who at once pressed his advantage.
+
+'It was into this room that I then had the honour of escorting your
+ladyship. Upon that occasion, if I may be pardoned for reminding you,
+what appears now to be treachery in me, seemed more akin to loyalty.
+But though the sentiments of your ladyship have suffered a change
+since then, those of Mr. Scrope have not. It was he who had attacked
+you then; it is he who attacks you now, and, believe me, it is my
+regret that I was not again at hand to defend you.'
+
+The Parson should have stopped before those last few words were
+spoken. He spoke them in all sincerity, but they lost him the
+advantage he had gained, for it was not in Lady Oxford's nature to
+believe them. She made her profit out of her lovers' sincerity, yet
+could not comprehend it. It seemed almost as though some instinct led
+her to choose them for that very quality, with which her judgment
+could not credit them.
+
+'A fine story,' she exclaimed with a sneer, 'and no doubt the
+apothecary's daughter would be entirely content with it, but I know
+you lie.'
+
+Kelly bowed in silence.
+
+'Wait,' she said, mistaking the bow, for Mr. Kelly had a certain
+question to ask before he returned to the company; 'we must appear
+together.'
+
+She took in her hand a box of lace which had been placed ready in the
+room.
+
+'Your hand, if you please, Mr. Johnson, for the last time. You are
+going, sir, to your death by rope and knife, or by point of sword.'
+
+Mr. Kelly gave Lady Oxford his hand, and put his question:
+
+'Your Ladyship has no fear that I shall escape?'
+
+Her ladyship had none whatever, as her smile clearly showed.
+
+'Then perhaps your ladyship will inform me how much liberty I have
+still left to me.'
+
+'You have to-night free,' she answered, and as he heard the words
+Kelly's heart gave a great leap within him. 'So much reprieve you
+have. But you must not go till I dismiss you. Enjoy yourself.' She
+took Kelly's hand with a low courtesy.
+
+He had to-night free! At all events, the King's papers would be saved.
+If all else went down, the papers would be saved. So it came about
+that he met Wogan at the stair-foot with a smiling face.
+
+In the withdrawing-room the clatter of tongues had begun again, so
+that neither Lady Oxford nor the Parson distinguished the shouts of
+the newsboys, as they mounted the stairs. To Mr. Wogan, indeed, who
+followed upon their heels, the words no longer rose clear and audible.
+But as they entered the room, it was plain something was stirring. The
+windows stood open, gentlemen leaned out, ladies asked questions;
+about each window there was a restless, noisy group. The candles
+guttered in the wind; the card-tables were deserted; and straight in
+front of him Mr. Wogan saw Rose, her hands clasped in an extremity of
+apprehension. Colonel Montague stood beside her chatting easily and
+making as though he remarked nothing of her uneasiness.
+
+Then the hoarse cries again rang through the room.
+
+'Bloody Popish Plot.' 'A Plot discovered.'
+
+'What, yet another Plot?' said Mr. Wogan smiling to Lady Oxford.
+
+'Mr. Walpole discovers plots by the dozen; he is the most active of
+our guardians, 'said Kelly easily. He dared not look at Rose.
+
+'We must hear more of it,' said Lady Oxford pleasantly, and calling
+her black boy: 'Run, Sambo, bring this late-flying night-bird of ill
+omen.'
+
+The boy grinned, and ran away upon his errand. Lady Oxford came up to
+my Lady Mary Montagu.
+
+'See, madam,' she cried, opening the box of lace with the air of a
+child that has a new toy.
+
+'See what this kind obliger has brought me from the looms of the Fairy
+Queen. All point d'Alencon of the finest. Yes, you may well look
+envious. Here is meat for a Queen.'
+
+The other ladies, deserting the windows when they heard that magical
+word 'lace,' crowded round, and Kelly was, where many a pretty fellow
+would have loved to be, in the centre of a perfumed world of fans and
+hoops, of sparkling eyes and patched faces. Kelly, however, had other
+business on hand, and, slipping through the group while Lady Oxford
+was praising her lace, he drew Wogan aside to a window now deserted.
+There he told him of his conversation with Lady Oxford.
+
+'So you see, Nick, I have to-night free. I mean to run to my lodging,
+burn the papers, and then--why one has a night free. I may yet outwit
+my lady. Besides, the papers once burned, there's little proof to
+condemn me. Speak to Rose, Nick! She will believe _you_; you never
+lied to her. Tell her there's no need to despair. Then make speed to
+the coast. I must go to Ryder Street.'
+
+As he turned, Nick caught him by the arm.
+
+'You must not go yet.'
+
+'Why?'
+
+For answer Wogan turned to the window.
+
+'Stand here in the shadow of the curtain. Across the street; there, in
+the corner.'
+
+Kelly put his hands to his face to shut out the light of the room, and
+peered into the darkness.
+
+'There is a man. Who is it?'
+
+'I told you! Scrope. I saw him an hour ago. A link-boy's torch showed
+me his face. You have to-night free. An hour or so more will make
+little difference to you, and may tire out our friend there--or he may
+mean another bout with the sharps.'
+
+'I hope so,' said Kelly.
+
+At this moment Sambo returned with a little damp sheet of the _Flying
+Post_, and the laces were forgotten. Sambo carried the sheet to Lady
+Oxford.
+
+'Faugh,' said she, 'I dare not touch the inky thing!'
+
+Wogan came out from his window, where he left his friend, and took the
+sheet from the boy's black paw.
+
+'Does your ladyship wish to alarm us all by reading out the news?
+These Papists are terrible fellows.'
+
+'Read! Read!' said Lady Oxford, with a contented laugh.
+
+Wogan ran his eyes over the print.
+
+'It is scarce fit for ladies' ears,' he said meaningly. 'Some nonsense
+out of Grub Street. The wretch should be whipped from Temple Bar to
+Westminster,' and Wogan made as if he would tear the sheet.
+
+Her ladyship hesitated. But she could not guess what the sheet
+contained, and she knew Mr. Wogan would try to screen his friend.
+
+'Nay, read sir,' she said boldly, 'or must I imperil my own fingers
+with the foul thing?'
+
+Wogan folded the paper, and with a bow held it out to her ladyship;
+again she hesitated; she did not take the sheet; she looked into
+Wogan's face as though she would read the news-sheet there. Curious
+smiles began to show upon the faces about her, heads to nod, lips to
+whisper.
+
+'Shall I oblige your ladyship?' asked Mr. Methuen, who stood by.
+
+'If you please,' replied Lady Oxford, but in a less certain tone than
+she had used before.
+
+Mr. Methuen took the sheet from Wogan's hand, unfolded it, and glanced
+at it.
+
+'It is indeed scarce fit for your ladyship's ears,' he said; and in
+his turn he folded it.
+
+The smiles broadened, the whispers increased. Lady Oxford was
+altogether disconcerted.
+
+'I will read it,' a young voice rang out. Lord Sidney Beauclerk
+stepped forward, took the sheet from Mr. Methuen, and at once read it
+aloud. He began defiantly, but towards the end his voice faltered. Mr.
+Kelly did not turn round, and seemed to pay no heed whatever.
+
+
+'They write from Paris that a foul Plot against the Throne, and even
+the sacred Person of His Most Gracious Majesty hath been discovered.
+In Town, it is thought that a Lady of great Beauty who has a Tory Lord
+of advanced years and gouty Habit to her Husband, and a young Whig
+Officer of great Promise for her Friend, hath given the Intelligence
+to the Minister. Nobody has yet been taken, but the Gentry of the
+Silver Greyhound are thought to have their eyes on a certain Reverend
+Nonjuror. We say no more for the present.'
+
+
+Lord Sidney crumpled up the sheet, and retiring from the circle,
+slowly tore it in pieces.
+
+'To be sure, they say quite enough,' murmured Lady Mary, and no one
+else spoke, but all looked to Lady Oxford.
+
+Lady Oxford was brave.
+
+In the silence of the company who were gathered round she spoke.
+
+'Too scurrilous to need a contradiction! Doubtless it is I and my kind
+lace-dealer who are aimed at. Now Mr. Johnson is here, and is my
+guest. The inference is plain.'
+
+Mr. Johnson turned from the window and came up to the group.
+
+'My confidence in her ladyship is as great as my certainty that there
+is no Plot in which I am concerned,' said Kelly, bowing to the lady,
+and letting his jolly laugh out of him to the comfort of the company
+who did not smoke his jest. Mr. Wogan admired his friend.
+
+It was now become impossible for Kelly to leave the house. Should he
+go now, his going would wear all the appearances of a hasty flight,
+and who knew but what some of Mr. Walpole's spies might be within the
+room as well as in the street? Kelly must remain and brave it out, as
+he clearly recognised. For,
+
+'There are ears to be cut for this,' he went on, 'but we had better be
+cutting the cards.'
+
+'Mr. Johnson holds the bank with me!' cried Lady Oxford. 'After this
+terrible false alarm I am ready to risk all, and brave everything. I
+must win enough to pay for my laces; I am much in Mr. Johnson's debt.
+Sambo, my money box.'
+
+The black boy ran out of the room. Mr. Kelly walked towards the
+card-table, and as he went, a light hand was laid upon his arm, and
+Rose's trembling voice whispered in his ear:
+
+'George, you will go. Yes, now, to-night. There may yet be time for
+you to cross to France.'
+
+Mr. Kelly was comforted beyond words, beyond belief. Rose knew, and
+she forgave; he had not thought it was in woman's nature. But he was
+also tempted to fly; his papers unburned, the Cause deserted. The hand
+upon his sleeve had its fingers on his heart-strings, and was twanging
+them to a very pretty tune. A few strides would bring him to the
+doorway, a couple of leaps to the foot of the stairs, and outside was
+the night.
+
+'You will go,' she repeated, seeing how her voice weakened him.
+'Now--now.'
+
+'Yes 'trembled on his lips. It seemed to Rose in her great longing
+that she heard the word breathed upon the air. But he did not speak
+it; he spoke no word at all. He started, his mouth dropped, his blue
+eyes stared, the blood was drained from his cheeks. He stood amazed,
+like one that sees a ghost. Rose followed the direction of his eyes;
+she saw the guests, the tables, the candles, but nothing that should
+so startle her lover.
+
+'What is it?' she asked, fearing any delay that checked the assent she
+had seen tremble on his lips. 'You will go! You will go!' But even as
+she spoke she knew that he would not go. His face kept its pallor, but
+grew resolute, ennobled. He had ceased to think of his own safety.
+
+'I cannot go,' he said.
+
+'Why?'
+
+'Mr. Johnson,' Lady Oxford's voice broke in. Sambo had returned with a
+casket curiously enamelled. 'Mr. Johnson,' said she, looking into the
+casket: 'Some five hundred pounds.'
+
+'And six rouleaux,' added Kelly, bringing out the spoils of Hazard
+with an air.
+
+Rose turned away, her face of a sudden grown very white and hard. She
+had done her best to make Kelly seek safety, and he would not: could
+she do more?
+
+The Parson crossed suddenly to Wogan, his face very pale, but with a
+wonderful bright light in his eyes.
+
+'Nick, I have seen the King, here, in this room, young, happy. The
+shadow of the hundred years of sorrow of his race has lifted from his
+forehead.'
+
+'The King is at Antwerp, George. You have not seen him.'
+
+'Then it is his spirit, which has taken form to hearten us,' Kelly
+whispered in a voice of awe.
+
+'George, you have seen Lord Sidney Beauclerk.' It needed no more than
+a word to make him understand. He had not seen the King nor the King's
+appearance, only the King's cousin, Lord Sidney. But now he could not
+forget any longer that the King's papers were in his lodgings; that at
+all costs he must reach his lodgings unfollowed; that at all costs
+those papers must be a little pile of ashes before the morning came.
+
+'The bank is open,' said Lady Oxford. 'Colonel Montague, will you find
+a lady and be our opposite?'
+
+The glum Colonel bowed in silence, and allied himself with silly
+smiling Lady Rich. The play was high. The luck had not deserted Kelly,
+while Lady Oxford paid him a hundred flattering compliments and
+bantered her military lover, who was not ready at repartee or was not
+ready then.
+
+'_Malheureux en jeu_,' said Lady Oxford, repeating the proverb Lady
+Mary had already quoted that evening. 'How fortunate, Colonel, must be
+your affections!'
+
+'It is only your ladyship who has all the luck and wins, or wins back
+if she loses,' answered the Colonel, looking at Mr. Kelly with an evil
+favour, and her ladyship laughed in pure delight.
+
+There was another game besides Quadrille played at that table. Lady
+Oxford was setting Colonel Montague and the Parson by the ears. Did
+she wish to embroil them in a quarrel to make Kelly's ruin doubly
+sure? Wogan watched the Colonel; he had the first claim upon the
+Colonel's sword. Mr. Kelly kept smiling and raking in the rippling
+golden stakes. The company stood round; they had left their tables to
+see this great battle of Quadrille. At times Wogan caught a glimpse of
+Rose Townley through a gap in the circle. She could not know why her
+lover had not fled. She only knew that, in her despite, he stayed in
+the house of the woman of whom he had told her at Avignon, though his
+life was in peril; she only saw that woman fawning upon him, and him
+smiling back to the woman. Lady Mary had stolen her hand into the
+girl's, that no doubt was cold as marble, and in his heart Wogan
+blessed her kind ladyship. At last all the tide of gold had turned to
+Lady Oxford's side of the table. The Colonel rose and confessed
+defeat.
+
+People began to say their good-byes. Dr. Townley crossed the room to
+his daughter, who rose at once with a word of thanks to Lady Mary. Mr.
+Kelly remarked her movement, and with an imploring look bade her wait
+until Lady Oxford released him.
+
+'Mr. Johnson,' said her ladyship, dividing the winnings, 'short
+accounts make long friends. I think when you reckon up the night you
+will find that all my great debt to you is fully paid.'
+
+Mr. Kelly bowed, and took the money, his eyes on her flushed face and
+glittering serpent's eyes. Lady Oxford turned to Colonel Montague.
+
+'Your revenge is waiting for you, Colonel, whenever you are pleased to
+claim it. To-morrow if you will.'
+
+'Madam, I may claim my revenge to-night,' said the Colonel, and
+stepped back with his full weight upon Kelly's foot. There was no
+mistaking the deliberate movement. Lady Oxford made as though she had
+not seen it, but as she turned away her face had a look of pleasure,
+which Mr. Kelly remarked.
+
+'Nay, Colonel,' said Wogan, 'you and I have a game to play, you
+remember. Le Queux's is still open and I claim the first call on your
+leisure at Hazard.'
+
+Colonel Montague answered Mr. Wogan with a good-nature which the
+latter did not comprehend.
+
+'I have indeed some words to say to you, sir.'
+
+'But, Colonel,' said the Parson, 'you trod upon my foot. I shall be
+happy to consult you on the bruise to-morrow.'
+
+'To-morrow?' said Montague, his face hardening instantly. 'I may
+inquire after it before then,' and so making his bow he got him from
+the room.
+
+Lady Oxford gave her hand to Wogan and dismissed him with a friendly
+word. She was so occupied with the pleasure of her revenge that she
+had altogether forgotten his jest about the ballad. Wogan on his side
+made his leave-taking as short as could be, for out of the corner of
+his eye he saw Kelly offering his arm to Miss Townley, and Kelly must
+not leave the house without Wogan at his side. For, in the first
+place, Colonel Montague was for a sure thing standing sentinel within
+ten paces of the door, and after he had run the gauntlet of the
+Colonel, there was Scrope for him to make his account with, should
+Scrope attempt to follow in his tracks. Mr. Wogan had a mind to insist
+upon his first claim to Colonel Montague's attentions, and, once they
+were rid of him, it would not be difficult to come to a suitable
+understanding with Scrope should he attempt to follow them to Ryder
+Street.
+
+Mr. Wogan was indeed already relishing in anticipation the half-hour
+that was to come, and hurried after the Parson, who was by this time
+close to the door with Rose upon his arm and Dr. Townley at his heels.
+
+'Good night, Mr. Johnson,' said her ladyship in a lazy voice. 'Take
+care of yourself, for they tell me the streets are not too safe.'
+
+Kelly dropped Rose Townley's arm and turned back towards Lady Oxford.
+
+'But surely,' said he with some anxiety, 'tonight the streets are
+safe. Your ladyship assured me of their safety to-night.'
+
+Lady Oxford made no reply for a few seconds, she stood watching Kelly
+with an indolent smile. A word of Lady Mary's came back to Wogan's
+mind--a word spoken two years since in Paris, 'She will play cat to
+any man's mouse.'
+
+'To-night?' said Lady Oxford, lifting her eyebrows, and she glanced
+towards the clock. It was five minutes to one. Kelly stared at the
+clock, his mouth open and his eyes fixed. Then he drew his hand across
+his forehead, and, walking slowly to the mantelpiece, leaned his hands
+on it in a broken attitude and so stared at the clock again. Lady
+Oxford had struck her last blow, and the last was the heaviest. Kelly
+had the night free, but the night was gone--and the streets were not
+safe. Nothing could be saved now--not even the King's papers. Then
+Wogan saw a change come over his face. The despair died out of it and
+left it blank as a shuttered window. But very slowly the shutter
+opened. He was thinking; the thought became a hope, the hope a
+resolve. First his knees straightened, then the rounded shoulders rose
+stiff and strong. In his turn Kelly struck.
+
+'Your ladyship,' he said, 'was kind enough some time ago to entrust me
+with your own _brocades_. Those brocades are in the strong box in my
+lodgings.'
+
+Wogan understood. Brocades was the name for letters in the jargon of
+the Plot. Lady Oxford's love-letters were in that box which he had
+handled that very afternoon. If Kelly was seized in the street his
+rooms would be searched, the King's papers found, and, with the King's
+papers, Lady Oxford's love-letters. Lady Oxford understood too. Her
+ingenious stratagems of the evening to discredit the ballad and save
+her fair fame would be of little avail if the world once got wind of
+those pretty outpourings of Smilinda's heart. Her face grew very
+white. She dropped her fan and stooped to recover it. It was
+noticeable, though unnoticed, that no one of those who were still
+present stepped forward to pick up the fan. Curiosity held them in
+chains, not for the first time that evening. It was as though they
+stood in a room and knew that behind locked doors two people were
+engaged in a duel. Now and then a clink of steel would assure them
+that a thrust was made; but how the duel went they could not tell.
+
+When Lady Oxford rose her colour had returned.
+
+'My brocades?' she said. 'Indeed, I had purely forgotten them. You
+have had them repaired in Paris?'
+
+'Yes, madam,' answered Kelly deliberately. 'I do not think the streets
+are so unsafe as your ladyship supposes; but I should be sorry for
+them to fall into any hands but your own if by any chance footpads end
+my days to-night.'
+
+He bowed and walked towards Rose Townley and her father, who stood in
+the doorway at a loss what to make of the scene. He had crossed half
+the distance before Lady Oxford moved. Then, it seemed with one swift
+step, she stood at Kelly's side.
+
+'Mr. Johnson, you are my prisoner!' she exclaimed. 'My dear brocades!
+Mr. Johnson, you are surely the most attentive of men. You must tell
+me how they have been repaired; I shall not close my eyes unless you
+take pity on my impatience.'
+
+Had Kelly been the man to care for triumphs wrested from a woman, he
+would have found his occasion now. A minute before, Lady Oxford's eyes
+glittered with menaces, her face was masterful; now, her eyes besought
+pity, her face was humbled.
+
+'If your ladyship will permit me,' said Kelly, 'I will return when I
+have seen Miss Townley to her chair.'
+
+It was a difficult moment for Miss Townley. For to those who looked on
+it seemed that by some means here was Mr. Johnson brought back into
+bondage before the very eyes of his betrothed. But Rose was patient of
+Lady Mary's lesson. 'Tomorrow give him his _conge_ if you will;
+to-night be staunch! It is for life and honour!' She knew no more, but
+she was loyal. Wogan had seen men go, for the Cause, to a shameful
+death by torture. But he never saw courage so unfaltering, or loyalty
+so true, as this girl's. She was not herself in that hour; she had
+taken up a part as an actress does, and she played it clean, and
+played it through. To-morrow she might be a woman again, a woman
+wronged, deceived, insulted; to-night, with the astonishing valour and
+duplicity of her sex, she was all in her part, to see nothing, to know
+nothing, to be staunch.
+
+To the smiles, the simpered sarcasms, the quizzing glances, she paid
+no heed. She said, with a simple dignity, to Lady Oxford:
+
+'I will not keep Mr. Johnson long. It is but a few steps to your
+ladyship's door, where my chair waits for me,' and she held out her
+hand to Kelly. She had her reward. Kelly's face put on a look of pride
+which no one in the room could mistake. He took her hand with a laugh,
+and threw back his chest.
+
+'I will return, your ladyship,' he said gaily, and with Rose passed
+out of the door. The whispers were stilled; the couple went down the
+stairs in a great silence. Rose bore herself bravely until she had
+stepped into her chair; showed a brave face then at the window.
+
+'I shall hear of you from France,' she whispered. 'Good-night.'
+
+The chair was carried off; Dr. Townley followed. The Parson returned
+slowly up the stairs. His heart was full; in Rose's eyes he had seen
+the tears gathering; no doubt in the darkness of her chair they were
+flowing now. She would hear of him from France! Well, he had his one
+weapon--Lady Oxford's letters. If he used that weapon aright, why
+should she not hear of him from France? By the time he reached the top
+of the stairs, he was already putting together the words of the letter
+he should write.
+
+When he re-entered the withdrawing-room, the last few guests, of whom
+Wogan was one, were taking their departure. Wogan saw Kelly move
+towards the little card-table which had stood empty. Kelly sat down,
+and with the fingers of one hand he played with the cards, cutting
+them unwittingly as though for a deal. It was, after all, he and not
+Wogan who had to play the hand with the shrouded figure. Wogan had
+already made his adieux. As he passed out of the door Lady Oxford was
+standing in the middle of the room plucking at her fan. As he went
+down the stairs, the door was flung to with a bang. Lady Oxford and
+Kelly were left alone.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XX
+
+ MR. SCROPE BATHES BY MOONLIGHT AND IN HIS
+ PERUKE
+
+
+Wogan had heard two doors shut that evening, and with very different
+feelings. One had been latched gently, and the sound had filled him
+with apprehensions; one had been flung to with an angry violence, and
+the sound soothed him like the crooning of music. For Kelly, it
+seemed, after all held the trumps in his hand; he had but to play them
+aright and the game was his.
+
+'The longer he takes to play them the better,' murmured Wogan, as he
+stood on the steps of Lady Oxford's house and looked briskly about
+him. For to his left, standing openly in the moonlight, he saw a tall
+martial figure wrapped in a cloak, and the end of a scabbard shining
+beneath the cloak, while across the road his eyes made out a hunched
+form blotted against the wall. The figure in the cloak was Colonel
+Montague; the skulker would no less certainly be Mr. Scrope. If the
+Parson would only take time enough to deploy his arguments like a
+careful general! Mr. Wogan would have liked to have run back and
+assured Kelly that there was no need whatever for hurry, since he
+himself had enough amusements on his hands to make the time pass
+pleasantly.
+
+He advanced to the Colonel first.
+
+'Sir, it is now to-morrow, the date at which you kindly promised me a
+few moments of your leisure. You may hear the chimes of the Abbey
+strike the half hour after one.'
+
+'Mr. Wogan,' replied the Colonel, 'I reckon this yesterday--till after
+breakfast. At present I have an engagement with another person.'
+
+'Colonel Montague, your reckoning of time is contrary to the almanac,
+and to a sound metaphysic, of which I am the ardent advocate. You will
+understand, sir, that such a difference of opinion between gentlemen
+admits of only one conclusion.'
+
+Colonel Montague smiled, and to Wogan's chagrin and astonishment
+replied:
+
+'You have grown a foot, or thereby, Mr. Wogan, since last we met, on
+an occasion which you will permit me to say that I can never forget.
+All our differences are sunk for ever in that one consideration. I
+implore you to leave me to the settlement of my pressing business.'
+
+So the Colonel knew of that unfortunate rescue at Preston. Wogan,
+however, was not so easily put off.
+
+'Grown a foot, sir!' he cried. 'I am not the same man! You speak of a
+boy, who died long ago; if he made a mistake in saving your life,
+overlook a pure accident, and oblige me.'
+
+'The accident does not remove my obligation.'
+
+'If you knew the truth, you would be sensible that there was no
+obligation in the matter. Come, take a stroll in the Park, and I'll
+tell the truth of the whole matter to whichever of us is alive to hear
+it.'
+
+'I had the whole truth already, to-night, from the young lady.'
+
+'The young lady?' Wogan had told Rose Townley of how he saved the life
+of a Colonel Montague, and to-night he had informed her that this
+Colonel was the man. She had been standing by his elbow when he had
+picked his quarrel with Montague. Sure she had overheard and had
+interfered to prevent it. 'The young lady!' he cried. 'All women are
+spoil-sports. But, Colonel, you must not believe her. I made a great
+deal of that story when I told it to Miss Townley. But you would find
+it a very simple affair if you had it from an eye-witness.'
+
+The Colonel shook his head.
+
+'Yet the story was very circumstantial, how you leaped from the
+barricades--'
+
+'That were but two feet high.'
+
+'And, through a cross fire of bullets, crossed the square to where I
+lay--'
+
+'The fire was a half charge of duckshot that an old fellow let off by
+mismanagement from a rusty pistol. Both sides stopped firing the
+moment I jumped over--the politest thing. I might have been tripping
+down the Mall with a lady on my arm, for all the danger I ran.'
+
+'But your wounds?'
+
+'I slipped and cut my shin on the sharp cobbles, that's true.'
+
+'Mr. Wogan, it will not do! Had I known your name this evening when
+Lady Mary made us acquainted, certain expressions properly distasteful
+to you would not have escaped my lips. But now I can make amends for
+them to the gallant gentleman who brought a wounded enemy out of a
+cross-fire. I apologise to you, but I cannot oblige you to the extent
+you wish, however you may attempt to make light of your courage, and
+of the obligation on my side.'
+
+'Sure, Colonel, to be done with adornment of the real truth, I only
+saved such a fine man to have the pleasure of killing him myself.'
+
+Here the Colonel broke into a laugh.
+
+'Mr. Wogan, if I drew my sword and stood up before you without making
+a parry or a lunge, would you kill me?'
+
+'No, indeed, there would be little diversion in that game,' said
+Wogan, who was now grown quite melancholic.
+
+'Well, that is the utmost you will get from me, I am much pressed for
+time, and look to find another.'
+
+'Another!' Wogan's failing hopes revived. 'Praise be to the Saints! I
+see your mistake, and you shall understand it in a twinkling. The
+other and myself are just one man for these purposes. George is my
+_alter ego_. We are the greatest friends, and have been taken for each
+other when we are talking. I'll talk all the time we fight, and you
+can fancy it is George whose ribs you are trying to tickle.'
+
+The Colonel, however, was obdurate, and before Wogan could hit upon a
+likelier argument both gentlemen heard a cough.
+
+Someone was standing on Lady Oxford's doorstep looking towards them.
+
+The Colonel coughed in reply, and the figure--it was Mr.
+Kelly's--waved his hand, and marched, like the ghost of Hamlet's
+father, toward St. James's Park.
+
+The Colonel followed, like Hamlet, and Mr. Wogan followed the Colonel.
+Would there be a fourth to follow Wogan? The three men marched in the
+moonlight, their footsteps rang boldly on the road. Was there a fourth
+behind them stealthily creeping in the shadow of the wall? As they
+turned a corner out of the square Wogan fell a little further to the
+rear. He kept his head screwed upon his shoulders, and he saw a shadow
+slink round the corner. He listened, and heard the stealthy steps. He
+stopped; the steps ceased. Wogan went on again. He knew that Scrope
+was dogging them.
+
+The figure in front moved silently on till he reached a sweet spot for
+an occasion, a little _clairiere_ among the trees, the smoothest
+sward, moonlight on the grass, dark shadow all around. There he
+stopped, turned, and dropped his cloak. The moon shone silvery on the
+silver shoulder-knots of Mr. Kelly. The other two gentlemen advanced.
+
+'Nick,' exclaimed Kelly, 'you should be on your road to the coast.'
+
+'At last!' cried Colonel Montague, dropping his cloak.
+
+'A moment, sir,' said Kelly; 'I must dismiss my friend.'
+
+'And would you be so mad? Are you to have nobody to see fair and run
+for the surgeon while the other gentleman makes his escape? George, I
+never knew you were so selfish.'
+
+Kelly drew his friend a little way aside.
+
+'Nick, I have that to do which cannot be done before a witness.'
+
+Mr. Wogan merely gaped at this extraordinary speech. He noticed that
+Kelly looked white and haggard even for a man in the full moonlight.
+
+'When I tell you that my honour hangs on it, that a witness is mere
+ruin, when I pray you by our old friendship? Nick, you _must_ go out
+of eye-shot and ear-shot.'
+
+'I think you are crazed,' said Wogan.
+
+'I have obeyed you all night. Things have taken the turn that you must
+obey me. There is no time for an explanation, the hour presses, and,
+Nick, my honour hangs on it. You must retire to where you can neither
+see nor hear us, or I am shamed--lost with the Cause.'
+
+Mr. Kelly had been whispering, his voice trembled as the Cause was
+named. Wogan had only once seen him thus moved. Had he played his
+trumps amiss after all? It seemed he had not won the game.
+
+'Very well,' said Wogan. 'Good-night. I will take care you are not
+troubled with witnesses.'
+
+'No,' said Kelly suddenly, and then 'yes; goodnight.'
+
+He stood looking at Wogan a moment and then hurried off to the
+Colonel, who seemed, to Wogan's judgment, a man apt to give the Parson
+his bellyful. Wogan twitched his cloak about him, and took his road
+down a path, bordered by bushes. It was the path by which they had
+come into the Park. Wogan was determined that the Parson should not be
+troubled by witnesses.
+
+From his boyhood Mr. Wogan has had a singular passion for
+bird's-nesting. He idly scanned the bushes as he marched, for he had
+heard a twig snap, and in a thick bush he saw what at a first glance
+certainly resembled a very large brown bird's-nest. Looking more
+narrowly at this curiosity there were shining eyes under the nest, a
+circumstance rarely found in animated nature.
+
+Mr. Wogan paused and contemplated this novelty. The bush was deep; the
+novelty was of difficult access because of the tangled boughs. Wogan
+reckoned it good to show a puzzled and bemused demeanour, as of one
+who has moored himself by the punch-bowl.
+
+'It's a very fine bird,' he said aloud. 'I wonder what is the exact
+species this fine fowl may belong to?'
+
+Then he wagged his head in a tipsy manner, and so lurched down the
+path singing:
+
+
+ 'I heard a bird
+ Sing in a bush,
+ And on his head
+ Was a bowl of punch,
+ _La-la-loodie!_'
+
+
+But Wogan's eye was cocked back over his shoulder, for he hoped that
+the fowl, thinking the hunter gone, would save him trouble by breaking
+cover. The bush did not stir, however; all was deadly still.
+
+Wogan lurched back to the bush, still singing, parted the branches,
+and peered in. His mind, in fact, was quite fixed as to the nature and
+name of this nocturnal fowl.
+
+He spied into the bush. 'I have heard, in France, of a bird called
+"the cuckoo Kelly,"' he said, 'I wonder if this can be _le cocu_
+Scrope?'
+
+Something glittered in the heart of the bush. Mr. Wogan leaped aside,
+his hat spun round on his head, he was near blinded by the flame and
+smoke of a pistol discharged almost _a bout portant_. A figure had
+scrambled out of the bush on the further side, and was running at a
+great pace towards St. James's.
+
+Mr. Wogan gave a view halloo, and set off at the top of his own pace
+in pursuit. He was swift of foot when young, sound of wind, and long
+of stride.
+
+At every step he gained on the flying figure, which, he happily
+remembered, might be armed with another pistol. These commodities
+usually go in pairs. Reflecting on this, and reckoning his distance to
+a mathematical nicety, Mr. Wogan applied his toe to that part of the
+flying gentleman's figure which he judged most accessible and most
+appropriate to his purpose. The flying gentleman soared softly into a
+parabola, coming down with a crash, while a pistol fell from his hand.
+As the priming was spilled, Mr. Wogan let the weapon lie, and
+courteously assisted the prostrate person to rise.
+
+'I fear I stumbled over you, sir,' he said. 'I hope I was not so
+unfortunate as to hurt you. Why, 'tis Mr. Scrope, the celebrated
+critic and amateur of Virgil. Mr. Scrope, the writer of ballads.'
+
+'You are a brutal Irish bully,' said Scrope, whose hands and face were
+bleeding, for he had the mischance to slip on a gravel path covered
+with sharp little flints at the top of the Canal.
+
+'Nay, when last we met it was my poetry that you criticised, and now
+'tis my manners that do not please you! How could I guess that it was
+Mr. Scrope who lay in a bush to watch an explanation between
+gentlemen? This time, sir, of your flight, you have not two horses to
+carry you off, and I am not barefoot. Suppose we take up our
+conversation where we left it when last you ran away? You have a sword
+I see.'
+
+Scrope's sword was already out, and he made a desperate pass at Wogan,
+who broke ground and drew his own weapon. Scrope was no match for his
+reach and skill in fence.
+
+'Why, sir, our positions are altered,' said Wogan. 'Now it is you who
+make errors, and I who play critic and instructor.'
+
+Wogan made a parade in _contre de carte_.
+
+'Look, sir, your blade was beaten a good half foot out of line. Had I
+chosen to riposte, my sword-hilt would have rung on your breast-bone.
+Ah, that was rather better,' he said, stepping a pace back, and
+offering his breast full like a fencing master with his pupil. 'But
+you did not really extend yourself. Now, sir, _un_, _deux_, _doublez_,
+_degagez_, _vite!_' and Mr. Wogan passed his sword through the lappet
+of Scrope's coat, coming back on guard. 'That is how you ought to
+lunge. There is another thing that I would have you notice. Coming on
+rashly as you do, I could stop you at any moment with a time thrust. I
+have only to extend my long arm, and where are you?'
+
+Scrope broke ground, sweating, and drew breath:
+
+'You cowardly _maitre d'armes!_' he exclaimed between two pants.
+
+'Cowardly, sir? Am I a spy? Or a nameless, obscene rhymer? Do I carry
+pistols and try to use them? Fie, Mr. Scrope, you must see that a
+coward who meant to kill you would have done so long ago, and left you
+here--with an insult, and without a surgeon. You remember the little
+square at Avignon. You want another lesson.'
+
+Wogan parried, riposted, and just grazed his opponent on the fore-arm.
+
+'_Touche!_' he said. 'Now you see I do not mean to kill you: at least,
+not with the sword. To do so would be to oblige a lady whom I have no
+desire to please. Would you prefer to lay down your weapon and come
+frankly to my embrace? You remember our fond hugs at Brampton Bryan?
+By the way, Mr. Scrope,' asked Wogan, as an idea occurred to him, 'the
+night is warm and you seem heated, do you swim? The place is
+convenient for a bathe, and sheltered from coarse observation.'
+
+With this remark Wogan switched Scrope's sword out of his hand by a
+turn of the wrist in _flanconade_. The blade flew up and fell flashing
+in the water of the Canal.
+
+'Now, sir, your life is at my mercy. You have betrayed my Cause; you
+have nearly murdered my friend; you have insulted two ladies of my
+acquaintance; you have censured my poetry; and you have spoiled my hat
+with your pistol bullet. I repeat, do you swim? There are two places
+here mighty convenient for a ducking.'
+
+Here Mr. Wogan caught his enemy by the collar.
+
+'The Canal is shallow; Rosamond's Pool is deep. You have your choice;
+safety and prose, or poetry and peril?'
+
+Scrope was squirming in Wogan's grip like a serpent. When Mr. Wogan
+had calmed him he carried Mr. Scrope like a babe to the edge of the
+Canal.
+
+'One, two, three!' he said, heaving Mr. Scrope backward and forward,
+like children setting a swing in motion. 'And away!'
+
+A heavy body flew through the air, flashed into the Canal, and did not
+at first arise to the surface.
+
+'I hope he has not hit his head or broken his neck,' said Wogan with
+anxiety. 'It would be very disagreeable to have to wade for him.'
+
+His fears were soon set at rest. Scrope scrambled to his feet, the
+water reaching nearly to his middle. In his dripping perruque he cut a
+figure odd enough, and sufficiently pitiable.
+
+'A water god! A Triton!' cried Wogan. 'Have you a Virgil in your
+pocket? You might study the marine deities whom you resemble. You are
+sure you have again forgotten to bring the Virgil you desired for Mr.
+Kelly's use at Avignon.'
+
+'D----n you, I shall see your bowels burned before your eyes for this,
+you Popish traitor,' cried Scrope, shaking his fist.
+
+'That is as may be. You have done what you can to that end already.
+You have told all you know; as regards myself it is not very much, and
+I am not in Newgate yet. Moreover, I know a way out. But stop, I
+cannot possibly permit you to land, for Scrope was wading to the bank.
+'Stay where you are and admire the moonshine! If you set foot on shore
+I will merely throw you in again! You might be hurt.
+
+Scrope turned and was beginning to wade to the other side of the
+Canal.
+
+'It really is not safe in the middle if you do not swim,' cried Wogan.
+'Moreover, I can easily be at the further bank before you.' Mr. Wogan
+suited the action to the word. He ran round the bank as Scrope waded
+across. He met his bedraggled victim at the water's edge. Mr. Wogan
+uttered a joyful whoop; there was a great splash and again Scrope sank
+beneath the surface. He regained his feet and rose spluttering. 'I do
+trust, Mr. Scrope, that you are not hectic, or subject to rheumatism,'
+said Wogan with sympathy.
+
+Wogan walked to the centre of the path across the top of the Canal. He
+spread his cloak upon the grass and sat down, contemplating the
+moonlight on Buckingham House. There was a sweet odour of the budding
+may in the air.
+
+'A more peaceful scene, Mr. Scrope,' he cried, 'I have rarely
+witnessed. All the poet whom you tried to crush wakes in my bosom. I
+shall recite Mr. Pope's celebrated Night piece for your benefit.'
+
+Mr. Wogan then arose from his seat on the grass, and, raising his hand
+towards the Moon, delivered Mr. Pope's lines in his best manner.
+
+
+ 'As when the Moon, refulgent lamp of Night,
+ O'er Heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light.
+ When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
+ And not a cloud o'erspreads the solemn scene.'
+
+
+'You are not listening, Mr. Scrope!'
+
+Scrope was listening, but not to Wogan. Wogan ceased from reciting and
+listened also. He heard steps and voices of men approaching.
+Presently, to his great amazement, he recognised the tones of Kelly
+and Montague, whose mere existence had been banished from his mind. He
+was yet more surprised when they both came in view, walking very
+friendly together.
+
+Wogan rose as they drew near him.
+
+'What, both of you?' he exclaimed.
+
+'You do not seem to be glad to see us again, sir?' said Colonel
+Montague.
+
+'And devil a scratch between the pair of you!' cried Mr. Wogan.
+'George, what does this mean? Am I to hear,' he asked with honest
+indignation, 'that one of you has debased himself to an apology?'
+
+He looked from one to the other much perplexed in mind.
+
+'It is too long a tale for the opportunity, Mr. Wogan,' said the
+Colonel laughing. 'But _what_ does that mean?'
+
+He pointed to the Water God in the perruque, whose shadow was
+reflected in the calm bosom of the lake.
+
+'Colonel Montague,' cried Scrope, 'I appeal to you as a Protestant and
+an officer of his Majesty's for your protection against an Irish,
+Popish, Jacobite conspirator.'
+
+'That gentleman,' said Wogan, 'whom I have been entertaining with Mr.
+Pope's poem, is an English Protestant, Whig, spy, and murderer, and
+even, I suspect, a writer in the newspapers. He persists in staying
+out in the water there, where I cannot get at him. He is one of the
+Maritime Powers. Egad! George, you know Mr. Scrope of Northumberland
+and Grub Street?'
+
+George bowed to Mr. Scrope.
+
+'The fourth time you see, sir, has been lucky, contrary to the
+proverb,' he said politely.
+
+'The poor devil's teeth are chattering audibly,' said Colonel
+Montague. 'May I ask you to explain his situation, Mr. Wogan?'
+
+'Faith, sir, the story, as you say, is too long for the occasion. And
+I want an explanation myself. After a gentleman has trod on another
+gentleman's foot, here you both are, well and smiling. I am betrayed,'
+cried Mr. Wogan, 'in the character of a friend. I could not have
+thought it of George.'
+
+'What was the pistol shot we heard, Nick?' asked Mr. Kelly.
+
+'That was Mr. Scrope firing at me.'
+
+'And the view halloo that might have wakened the dead?'
+
+'That was me remonstrating with Mr. Scrope. But I crave your pardon
+for my thoughtlessness. No doubt the noise brought up some
+ungentlemanly person who interrupted you in your explanation. You will
+begin it again? Mr. Scrope and I will be delighted to see fair play,
+but you will see it from the water, Mr. Scrope. You don't come out
+yet.'
+
+'Our honours, about which you are so kindly concerned, Mr. Wogan, are
+as intact as our persons,' said the Colonel.
+
+'Then you have been finding out that George saved your life, or you
+saved George's, some time in the dark ages, all to prevent you killing
+each other in a friendly way?'
+
+'You are in an ingenious error, Mr. Wogan; but Mr. Johnson and I have
+important business together in the town, and we must bid you farewell.
+Pray allow that dripping gentleman to land and go to bed.'
+
+'But I cannot take him with me, and it is purely inconvenient to let
+him follow me, for the precise reason that he would not follow me at
+all, but my friend Mr. Johnson. I am like my countryman who caught a
+Tartar in the Muscovite wars. To be sure, I might tie him to a tree
+with his garters. Come out, Mr. Scrope, and be tied to a tree!'
+
+'No, no,' said the Colonel; 'your friend will die of a cold.'
+
+'Then what am I to be doing?' asked Wogan. 'He is a very curious
+gentleman.'
+
+'I must leave that for you and your friend to determine,' said Colonel
+Montague. He turned to Kelly. 'In ten minutes,' said he, moving off.
+
+'In ten minutes, Corydon,' said Kelly, and Wogan thought he heard the
+Colonel mutter, 'Oh, damnation!'
+
+It was all Greek to Wogan, and Kelly seemed in no mind to translate
+the Greek for his baser comprehension.
+
+'Be off, Nick,' said he. 'I have ten minutes to wait here, and for ten
+minutes Mr. Scrope shall stand in the pond. You have that much law. It
+is time enough for your long legs.'
+
+'And do you think I am leaving Mr. Scrope to follow you while I go
+quietly to bed?' asked Wogan, who was in truth hurt by the proposal.
+'No. I shall take him with me. It is the best plan after all.'
+
+'It will not matter, I think, whether he follows me or no; and, Nick,
+as to going to bed, I hope it will not be on this side of the Channel.
+Truth, I should be blaming you as it is for your delay, but I have no
+heart to it.' He had dropped into the Irish accent, a thing very rare
+with him. 'For the world topples about me to-night, and the sight of a
+friend is very pleasant to me. There! It is all I had to say to you.
+Good-night. Good-bye.'
+
+He clapped his hand on Wogan's shoulder and then sat himself down on
+the grass. If Mr. Scrope had had his wits about him, he might have
+chosen this occasion to creep out of the water, for Wogan was paying
+little heed to him.
+
+'George,' said he, 'it seems the game has gone against you. But I have
+the simplest plan imaginable to put matters straight. What if you give
+me the key to that pretty despatch-box? You see if I go to your
+lodging and am taken--'
+
+'No!' cried Kelly.
+
+'But yes,' said Wogan, seating himself on the grass beside Kelly. 'If
+I am taken, why, it's just Nick Wogan that's taken, and no one but
+Nick Wogan is a penny the worse. But if you go and are taken--well,
+there's the Doctor's daughter.'
+
+Kelly would not listen to reason. It was not, he said, a mere matter
+of slipping into the house and burning the cyphers. But a man must pay
+for his own shortcomings, and the whole aspect of affairs had changed.
+And then he fell to thanking Wogan, which thanks Wogan cut short; and
+so they sat in the moonlight like a couple of owls, only they did not
+talk.
+
+'You are very thoughtful,' said Kelly, with a tired sort of laugh,
+'and you have thought most of your ten minutes away.'
+
+'I was thinking,' said Wogan, 'of a word you used to say about a
+little parsonage in Ireland and your Latin books, and an acre or two
+of land, and how, like a fool, I laughed at you for speaking so.'
+
+Kelly rose very quickly to his feet.
+
+'Come, Nick,' said he almost sharply. 'My ten minutes are almost up. I
+cannot watch Scrope after that, and you may just as well save your
+life as lose it.'
+
+'I mean to take him with me,' said Wogan. 'Come out, my friend. I'll
+give him the slip, never fear, when I want to.'
+
+'And then you will start for France?'
+
+Mr. Wogan did not mention a couple of obstacles which would at all
+events delay his departure. In the first place he had a little matter
+of business with Lord Sidney Beauclerk, and in the second it would be
+no more than politeness to inquire after Kelly's health before he went
+abroad. He kept silent upon this subject, and again summoned Scrope,
+who waded with his teeth chattering from the water. He drove Scrope
+before him along a bypath, leaving the Parson standing alone in the
+moonlight. Mr. Wogan had no expectation that he would ever see his
+friend's face again, and therefore he swore most heartily at Scrope.
+
+'Come, my man,' said he, 'I am to see that you do not catch cold,' and
+he marched Scrope at a round pace eastwards as far as Temple Bar, and
+thence northwards to Soho, and from Soho westwards.
+
+Scrope had been enjoined strictly not to open his lips; but, on the
+other hand, he heard a great deal about his own character, his merits
+as a poet, and the morals of his family, which was no doubt new to
+him. Some three hours later, when the moon had long since set, the
+pair came to the fields behind Holland House, and there Wogan took his
+leave of Scrope. The man could do no more harm for that night, and he
+had for the moment lost his taste for spying.
+
+'You will stay here for five minutes,' said Wogan, who in five seconds
+was lost in the darkness. He knew a shy place in Westminster where he
+could pass the night undisturbed. As he laid his head on the pillow it
+seemed to him to be a good year since he had driven off from Sir Harry
+Goring's house in the morning. And what of the Parson, whom he had
+last seen, a sombre figure in the moonlight by the water of St.
+James's Park? Well, the night had only then begun for Kelly, who, to
+be sure, had lain abed all the day before.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXI
+
+ IN WHICH MR. KELLY SURPRISES SMILINDA
+
+
+The devil in all this affair, it was that Wogan could not be in two,
+or even three, places at once. While Kelly was shut in with Lady
+Oxford earlier, Mr. Wogan, as he has said, was on the wrong side of
+the door. There he was again, after the rout, while he conversed with
+Colonel Montague in the street. Again, while Wogan was busy with Mr.
+Scrope in St. James's Park, Kelly and the Colonel were exchanging
+their unknown explanations, of a kind not admired by Mr. Wogan, which
+ended in their walking, like a pair of brothers, towards George's
+rooms. In all these conjunctures Mr. Wogan's advice, could he have
+been present, might have been serviceable, or at least his curiosity
+must have been assuaged.
+
+What did pass between Kelly and Lady Oxford when the rout was over,
+and what were the considerations which induced George and the Colonel
+to resist their natural and mutual desire for an honourable
+satisfaction?
+
+These questions (that perplexed Wogan when he awoke, about noon, from
+the fatigue of the previous day) were answered later by Kelly, and the
+answer must be given before the later adventures and sorrows of George
+can be clearly narrated. Sure, no trifle could have turned sword and
+gown into friends that night.
+
+When Lady Oxford and Kelly were left alone in the empty rooms, among
+the waning candles and scattered cards, Lady Oxford marched, like
+indignant royalty, to the end of the inner withdrawing-room, where
+they could not be heard or interrupted without warning.
+
+Mr. Kelly followed with a mind made up. It was, after all, Lady Oxford
+that had betrayed him, but he had, by an accident of forgetfulness,
+kept her letters, and they now gave him the advantage. If those
+letters could be saved, the Chevalier's papers could and should be
+saved too, and himself rescued from peril and Rose from much
+unhappiness. Rose was at the bottom of his thoughts that night; her
+face was mirrored there bright, it seemed, with divinity. The
+Chevalier was there too, no doubt, but Rose peeped over his shoulder.
+Mr. Kelly, then, hardened his heart, and, for love and loyalty, meant
+to push his advantage over Lady Oxford to its limits. He approached
+her as she stood retired.
+
+'Wretch,' cried Lady Oxford, 'you promised to burn my letters. Of all
+traitors you are the most abandoned and perfidious.'
+
+The Parson thought that memory supplied him with a parallel, but he
+replied:
+
+'It is a promise all men make and all men break.'
+
+Lady Oxford struck her hand upon a table.
+
+'You swore you had burned them.'
+
+This time George was less ready with his answer, but her ladyship
+stood awaiting it.
+
+'My passion must be my excuse, madam; I could not bear to part with
+these elegant testimonies of your esteem. It is as I have the honour
+to tell your ladyship; the brocades are in my strong box in my
+lodgings. To-morrow they shall be restored to your hands.'
+
+'To-morrow!' she said, in a voice of despair. 'To-morrow! I am
+undone!'
+
+'It is not so long to wait for the finery, and I do not think the
+streets are so purely unsafe as you suppose.'
+
+'I am undone!' she repeated. 'The public will ring of my name. I shall
+become a byword, a thing of scorn for every scribbler to aim his wit
+at.'
+
+She gnawed her fingers in an agony of fear and perplexity. Mr. Kelly
+had learned enough. There was plainly no chance within the lady's
+knowledge, as he had hoped, of saving her letters. Neither, then,
+could the King's papers be saved. He bowed, and took a step towards
+the door.
+
+'Stop!'
+
+Mr. Kelly turned with alacrity at the eager cry, but Lady Oxford had
+no words of hope for him.
+
+'You must not leave this house to-night, or must leave it secretly by
+the garden.'
+
+Kelly smiled grimly. Her ladyship was suddenly grown most tender of
+her reputation now that it was in peril.
+
+'Your ladyship's care for me, and your hospitality overcome me, but I
+have, as you perhaps remarked, an assignation of honour with Colonel
+Montague which nothing must prevent me from keeping. He is longing for
+an instant revenge--at the Hazard Table. A while ago, you may pardon
+me for observing, your ladyship was remote from feeling this sudden
+and violent anxiety on my hand.'
+
+Mr. Kelly's irony was poured out to deaf ears. Lady Oxford paced to
+and fro about the room, wringing her hands in her extremity. Then she
+stopped suddenly.
+
+'I might drive to the Minister's.' She reached out a hand towards the
+bell. Kelly shook his head.
+
+'That visit would be remarked upon unfavourably by the friends of my
+Lord Oxford, who are not in the Minister's interest. Mr. Walpole has
+no party to-night, and must have gone to bed--'tis verging on two
+o'clock--or else he is in his cups. Moreover, the _Dolliad_, the
+ballad on his sister, was credited to your pen. You know that Mr.
+Walpole loves a broad jest, and loves revenge. He will not protect you
+nor miss so fair an opportunity. Nay, I think I read in to-morrow's
+_Flying Post_, "In the papers of the prisoner Kelly, among other
+treasonable matter reserved for a later occasion, were found the
+following letters of a high curiosity, which we are graciously
+permitted to publish; one begins--_Oh, my Delicious Strephon_."
+
+Lady Oxford snapped her fan between her fingers and dashed the
+fragments in Kelly's face. He owns that he cannot well complain she
+served him ill, but he wanted to repay her in some sort for her
+innuendo about his fate at the hangman's hands, and similar favours.
+Beholding her passion, which was not unjust, he felt bitterly ashamed
+of his words.
+
+'You coward!' she said. Her dark eyes glared at him from a face white
+as the ivory of her broken fan, and then, quite suddenly, she burst
+into a storm of tears. Kelly's shame was increased a thousandfold.
+
+'I humbly crave your ladyship's pardon,' he said. 'I have spoken in
+terms unworthy of a chairman. But some remarks of your ladyship's on a
+future event, to me of painful interest, had left an unhappy
+impression.'
+
+But Lady Oxford paid no heed to the stammered apology. As Mr. Kelly
+moved to her she waived him aside with her hands, and, dropping on to
+a sofa, pressed her weeping face into the cushions. Sobs shook her;
+she lay abandoned to distress.
+
+Mr. Kelly stood apart and listened to the dolorous sound of her
+weeping. That was true which she had said; he had promised to burn
+those letters; he had sworn that he had burned them. His fine plan of
+using them as a weapon against her began to take quite another
+complexion. There were, no doubt, all manner of pious and respectable
+arguments to be discovered in favour of the plan, if only he pried
+about for them. But a saying of Mr. Scrope's was suddenly scrawled out
+in his recollections: 'AEneas was an army chaplain who invoked his
+religion when he was tired of the lady, and so sailed away with a
+clear conscience.' Kelly murmured 'Rose' to himself, and, again,
+'Rose,' seeking to fortify himself with the mention of her name. But
+it had the contrary effect. Even as he heard his lips murmuring it,
+the struggle was over.
+
+George had a number of pretty finical scruples, of which his conduct
+at this crisis of his fortunes was a particular example. He relates
+how it seemed to him that at the mention of her name Rose threw out a
+hand to him and drew him up out of a slough; how he understood that
+his fine plan was unworthy of any man, and entirely despicable in the
+man whom she, out of her great condescension, had stooped to love; how
+he became aware that he owed it to her, since she was a woman, that no
+woman's fame, whether a Smilinda's or no, should be smirched by any
+omission of his; how he suddenly felt in his very marrow that it would
+dishonour Rose to save her even from great misery by a _lachete_
+towards another of her sex. His duty was revealed to him in that
+moment, as clear as it was unexpected. He sets his revulsion of
+feeling wholly to Rose's account, as a man in love should, but very
+likely her ladyship's fan had something to do with it.
+
+He spoke again to Lady Oxford, and very gently.
+
+'Madam, it is true. I promised to burn your letters. I swore that I
+had burned them. My honour, I perceive, can only be saved by saving
+yours.'
+
+Lady Oxford raised her head from the cushions and stared at him with
+wondering eyes.
+
+'Let us play this game _cartes sur table_,' continued Kelly.
+
+Her ladyship rose from her sofa and sat herself in a chair at a table,
+still wondering, still suspicious. George took the chair on the other
+side of the table, and spoke while Lady Oxford dried the tears upon
+her face. To help her at all he must know all that she knew. His first
+business was to remove her ladyship's suspicions.
+
+'I understand that your ladyship, by some means of which I am as yet
+ignorant, has become aware of a certain Plot, and has carried the
+knowledge to Mr. Walpole.'
+
+Lady Oxford neither agreed nor denied. She admitted the truth of Mr.
+Kelly's statement in her own way.
+
+'You bragged and blabbed to my worst enemy, to Lady Mary, with her
+poisonous pen,' and her fine features writhed with hatred as she spoke
+Lady Mary's name.
+
+'There your ladyship was misled,' returned Kelly. 'My lips have been
+sealed, as I already had the honour to inform you. My Lady Mary may
+not love you, but she is innocent of this offence. If she wrote those
+rhymes, she was, indeed, more my enemy than yours; and my enemy, as
+your ladyship is aware, she is not.'
+
+Lady Oxford understood the strength of the argument.
+
+'Ah, yes,' she said thoughtfully. 'The apothecary's daughter!'
+
+The contemptuous phrase slipped from Lady Oxford by mistake, and was
+not at all uttered in a contemptuous voice. But she had no doubt
+fallen into a habit of so terming the girl in her thoughts. None the
+less, however, it stung Mr. Kelly, who was at some trouble to keep his
+voice gentle. He knew how much Smilinda owed at this moment to the
+apothecary's daughter.
+
+'The young lady to whom I conceive you refer, Miss Townley, is of a
+family as ancient, loyal, and honourable as your ladyship's own, and
+you may have seen on what terms both ladies were this evening.
+Moreover, Lady Mary was purely ignorant of Miss Townley's very
+existence when that pasquinade was written.'
+
+'Then who wrote it?'
+
+'Mr. Scrope, as I have the honour to repeat.'
+
+'Scrope?' she answered in a quick question, as though for the first
+time she understood that George might well be right. He gave the
+reasons for his belief as he had given them at the Deanery to Nicholas
+Wogan. They were to the last degree convincing. Lady Oxford was
+persuaded long before Mr. Kelly had come to an end. A look came into
+her face which Kelly could not understand, a look of bitter
+humiliation. 'Scrope,' she muttered, as her fingers played with the
+cards upon the table. She overturned a card which lay face downwards
+on the table, and it chanced to be the knave of hearts.
+
+'Your ladyship now sees that you fell into a natural error,' continued
+Kelly, who was anxious to smooth Lady Oxford's path, 'in consequence
+of which you took a natural revenge. May I ask how you secured the
+means of revenge? How, in a word, you came to know of the hidden Plot
+within the Plot?'
+
+Her ladyship's answer fairly startled Mr. Kelly. It was not given at
+once. She still played with the cards, and overturned another. It was
+the knave of clubs.
+
+'The cards tell you,' she said with a bitter smile.
+
+Mr. Kelly leaned back in his chair open-mouthed. 'Scrope?' he asked.
+
+'Scrope,' replied her ladyship. 'I received a humble letter from him
+praying that I would forgive his odious ingratitude, and, by way of
+peace-offering, bidding me tell my Lord Oxford--'
+
+'Who had already withdrawn,' said George. 'I think I understand,' Lady
+Oxford's look of humiliation had enlightened him, 'and I think your
+ladyship understands with me. Mr. Scrope is a sort of a gentleman, and
+would prefer to do his dirty work without appearing as a spy. He has
+made use of your ladyship. He sends you the Plot and spurs you to
+disclose it with his ballad. He would have disclosed it himself, I
+doubt not, had not your ladyship served his turn. But Mr. Scrope has
+his refinements, and, besides that he spares himself, would take a
+particular pleasure in compassing my ruin at the same time that he
+outwitted you.'
+
+Little wonder that Lady Oxford broke in upon Mr. Kelly's reasonings.
+It must have been sufficiently galling for her to reflect that in
+exacting her revenge she had been the mere instrument of a man she had
+tossed aside.
+
+'It is both of us that he has ruined, not you alone,' she cried.
+
+Certainly, Mr. Scrope was a person to reckon with, and had killed
+quite a covey of birds with one stone.
+
+'Are you sure?' asked Kelly. 'Are you sure of that?'
+
+She bent across the table eagerly, but she did not reply to the
+question.
+
+'Will you kill Scrope,' she flashed out, 'and you and I part friends?'
+
+Kelly, even in the midst of this tangle of misfortunes, could not but
+smile.
+
+'I fear that I may have been anticipated. Mr. Scrope has been watching
+your ladyship's house to-night--and Mr. Wogan observed him, and, I
+conceive, has undertaken for him.'
+
+Lady Oxford at that smiled too. 'Then he is a dead man,' she said,
+slowly savouring her words like wine.
+
+'But his death, madam, will not save your letters,' said Kelly; and
+the fire died out of her face.
+
+'He has betrayed us both,' she moaned. It seemed she had already
+forgotten how she herself had seized at the occasion of betraying Mr.
+Kelly. Kelly was in no mood to debate these subtleties.
+
+'Are you sure?' he contented himself with asking for a second time.
+'There is one thing Mr. Scrope has not done. He has taken no measures
+purposely to insure that your letters will be discovered, since he
+does not know of them; else, no doubt, he would have done his worst.
+We two are still engaged in a common cause--your ladyship's. Your
+intentions in my regard I were much less than a man if I did not
+forgive, granting (what I now know) your ladyship's erroneous
+interpretation of my ground of offence, the babbling to Lady Mary.
+Does your ladyship permit me, then, at the eleventh hour, to save you,
+if I can find a way, from the odious consequences of Mr. Scrope's
+unparalleled behaviour?'
+
+'You?'
+
+Lady Oxford's brows were drawn together in perplexity. The notion that
+Mr. Kelly was prepared to do this thing was still new and strange to
+her.
+
+'You?' Her eyes searched his for the truth of his purpose, and found
+it. 'You?' she said again, but in a voice of gratitude and
+comprehension. And then, with a gesture of despair, she thrust her
+chair back and stood up. 'You cannot save yourself. I cannot save
+you.'
+
+'No,' replied George, 'myself I cannot save; but it may not be too
+late to save my honour, which is now wrapped up in that of your
+ladyship's. My case is desperate; what can be done for yours? Be plain
+with me. How much does your ladyship know?'
+
+Lady Oxford turned away from the table. In the face of Kelly's
+generosity no doubt she hesitated to disclose the whole truth of her
+treachery.
+
+'I know no more than that you are in peril of arrest,' she said.
+
+'Madam, surely you know more than that. You spoke earlier this evening
+of my arrest, and you spoke with the assurance of a more particular
+knowledge.'
+
+Lady Oxford took a turn across the room.
+
+'Oh, my God, what can I do?' she cried, lifting her hands to her head.
+'I hear Lady Mary's laughter and the horrid things they will say!'
+
+The whimsical inconsequence of Smilinda's appeal to her Maker did not
+fail to strike Kelly as ludicrous, but, as his own case was hopeless
+and abandoned, any thought of revenge or mockery had ceased to agitate
+him. His honour now stood in saving all that was left of hers from
+open and intolerable shame, and Rose beckoned him to the task.
+
+'Surely you know more,' he persisted quietly.
+
+Lady Oxford gave in and came back to the table.
+
+'The Messengers should be waiting for you in Ryder Street.'
+
+At last Kelly knew the worst. He would be taken before he reached his
+doorstep. There would be no chance of saving the cyphers in his strong
+box. Could he save Smilinda's letters?
+
+He bent his forehead upon his hands, thinking. Smilinda watched him;
+her lips moved as though she was praying.
+
+'I might be carried to your lodgings and claim what is mine,' she
+suggested.
+
+'You would be carried to a trap--a _souriciere_. Ten to one you would
+be arrested by the Messengers. At all events your visit would be
+remarked upon, and you would not obtain the letters.'
+
+Lady Oxford had no other proposal at hand, and there was silence in
+the room. Mr. Kelly remained with his face buried in his hands; he
+took the air in long deep breaths. No other sound was audible except
+the faint ticking of the clock in the outer withdrawing-room. For
+Smilinda was holding her breath lest she should disturb the man whom
+she had betrayed, and who was now wholly occupied with the attempt to
+save her. Then she remarked that the sound of his breathing ceased.
+She bent forwards; he raised his face to hers. He did not seem to see
+her; his eyes kindled with hope.
+
+'You have found a way?' she whispered; and he whispered back:
+
+'A desperate chance, but it may serve.' He started to his feet. 'It
+must serve.'
+
+A smile brightened over his face.
+
+'It will serve.'
+
+Sure he showed as much pleasure as if he had discovered an issue for
+himself.
+
+'Quick!' said Smilinda, with a smile to answer his. 'Tell me!'
+
+'Colonel Montague--'
+
+'What of him? Why speak to me now of him?'
+
+Lady Oxford's face had clouded at the name.
+
+'He is your only salvation.'
+
+'What can he do?'
+
+'Everything we need. His loyalty to the present occupant of the Throne
+is entirely beyond a suspicion. He can act as he will without peril to
+his reputation. He can even rescue your papers, which are not in the
+same strong box as my own. The Colonel, if any man, can assist you if
+he will.'
+
+'But he will not,' said her ladyship sullenly.
+
+'He will,' answered Kelly confidently, 'if properly approached. He is
+a man of honour, I take it? You will pardon me for saying that your
+ladyship's flattering behaviour towards me, in his presence (for the
+nature of which you had, doubtless, your own particular reasons) can
+have left him in no doubt on certain heads; while it is equally plain
+that your ladyship hath no longer any very tender interest in keeping
+his esteem and regard. Nevertheless, being a gentleman, he will not
+abandon your ladyship's cause.'
+
+Lady Oxford was in no way comforted.
+
+'It may well be as you say,' she returned with a look at Mr. Kelly.
+She had already one example of how much a gentleman could forgive a
+woman when she stood in need of his help. 'But, Mr. Kelly, you cannot
+come at Colonel Montague.'
+
+'Why not?'
+
+'You know very well that he lodges in the same house as yourself. I
+sent a lackey with a note to you, yesterday. And your reply was dated
+from 13 Ryder Street.'
+
+Mr. Kelly stepped back, he could hardly believe his ears.
+
+'Colonel Montague--lodges--in the same house as myself?' he asked.
+
+'Yes,' Lady Oxford replied in a dispirited fashion. She had lost heart
+altogether. Mr. Kelly, on the other hand, was quite lifted up by the
+unexpected news.
+
+'This is a mere miracle in nature,' he cried. 'I only went into my
+present lodgings two days ago. I have been abroad for the greater part
+of the time, and asleep the rest, and have had no knowledge of the
+other tenants, even of their names. 'Faith, madam, your letters are as
+safe as though the ashes were now cold in your grate.'
+
+'But the Colonel will have gone home, and you are to be taken in Ryder
+Street. You will not get speech with him.'
+
+'Nay, madam, he has not gone home. He is waiting for me now.' Lady
+Oxford started. 'Ah, your ladyship remembers. He is waiting for me.
+Ten yards from your doorstep--ten yards at the farthest,' and Kelly
+actually chuckled. Carried away by his plan, he began to pace the room
+as he unfolded it. 'I shall see the Colonel, and if I can by any means
+do so, I will acquaint him, as far as is necessary, with the
+embarrassing posture of your affairs. I shall give him the key of the
+box containing the--brocades, and, if the Messengers be not already in
+possession of them, the rest must be entrusted to his honour as a
+gentleman and a soldier. The unexpected accident of our being
+fellow-lodgers gives him, to this end, a great advantage, and can
+scarce have occurred without the providence of--some invisible power
+or another which watches over your ladyship.'
+
+Kelly thought that Lady Oxford this night had enjoyed what is called
+the Devil's own luck.
+
+'Have I your ladyship's leave to try my powers of persuasion with
+Colonel Montague?'
+
+Very much to Kelly's surprise she moved towards him, like one walking
+in her sleep.
+
+'You are bleeding,' she said, and stanched with her handkerchief some
+drops from his brow, where it had been cut by the broken edges of the
+ivory fan. Then she went again into a bitter fit of weeping, which
+Kelly could never bear to see in a woman. She may have remembered the
+snow upon the lawn, years ago, and a moment's vision of white honour.
+Then she stinted in her crying as suddenly as she had begun; in a time
+incredibly short you could not tell that she had wept.
+
+'You must carry a token. I must write. Oh my shame!' she said, and
+sitting down to a scrutoire, wrote rapidly and briefly, sanded the
+paper, and offered it open to Kelly.
+
+'I cannot see it; your ladyship must seal it,' he said, which she did
+with a head of Cicero.
+
+George took the note, and said: 'Now time presses, madam. I must be
+gone. I trust that, if not now, at least later, you may forgive me.'
+
+Her lips moved, but no words came forth. Kelly made his bow, and so
+took leave of Smilinda, she gnawing her lips, as she watched him with
+her inscrutable eyes, moodily pushing to and fro with her foot the
+broken pieces of the fan on the polished floor.
+
+There came into Kelly's fancy his parting view of Rose at Avignon, her
+face framed among the vine leaves, in the open window; she leaning
+forth, with a forced smile on her dear lips and waving her kerchief in
+farewell. A light wind was stirring her soft hair at that time, and
+she crying '_Au revoir_! _Au revoir!_ There was a scent of lilacs from
+the garden in the air of April, George remembered, and now the candles
+were dying in the sconces with a stench.
+
+With these contrasted pictures of two women and two farewells in his
+fancy, Kelly was descending the wide empty staircase, not knowing too
+well where he went. Something seemed to stir, he lifted his eyes and
+before him he saw again the appearance of his King: the King, young
+and happy, and as beautiful as the dawn that was stealing into the
+room and dimming the lustres on the stairs.
+
+Then the appearance moved aside, and Kelly found himself gazing into a
+great empty mirror that hung on the wall, facing the gallery above.
+
+Lord Sidney Beauclerk, in fact, had not left the house with the other
+guests, and Kelly, remembering, laughed aloud as he reached the fresh
+air without.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXII
+
+ AN ECLOGUE WHICH DEMONSTRATES THE PASTORAL
+ SIMPLICITY OF CORYDON AND STREPHON
+
+
+Wogan has told already how Kelly came out of the house in Queen's
+Square, how he led the way to the glade, so convenient for the
+occasion, and how he dismissed his friend. George has since declared
+that he never was more tossed up and down in his mind than during that
+trifle of a promenade. Here was the Colonel that had insulted him, and
+wished nothing, more or less, than to cut his clerical throat. And
+here was Kelly, that must make friends with his enemy, if he was to
+save his honour, and the reputation, such as it was, of the woman whom
+he had once loved. It was a quandary. If Kelly began by showing a flag
+of truce, the Colonel, as like as not, would fire on it by way of a
+kick or cuff, and then a friendly turn to the conversation would be
+totally out of the possible. Had Kelly been six inches taller than he
+was and a perfect master of his weapon, he might have trusted to the
+chance of disarming the Colonel and then proposing a cartel, but
+unhappily it was the Elector's officer who possessed these advantages.
+Thus Kelly could think of nothing except to get rid of Mr. Wogan's
+presence as a witness of the explanation. He succeeded in that, and
+then marched back to the Colonel, who had stood aside while George
+conversed with his friend.
+
+Kelly waited, as the wiser part, till the Colonel should show his
+hand. But the Colonel also waited, and there the two gentlemen stood
+speechless, just out of thrust of each other, while every convenience
+in nature called on them to begin.
+
+At last the Colonel cleared his throat and said, 'Reverend Mr.
+Lace-Merchant, I am somewhat at a loss as to how I should deal with
+you.'
+
+'Faith, it is my own case,' thought George to himself, but all he
+uttered was, 'Gallant Mr. Drill-Sergeant, the case seems clear enough.
+You trod on my foot, and,' said George, as he let his cloak slip from
+his shoulders to the ground, 'you invited me to take a walk; what
+circumstance now befogs your intellects?'
+
+Kelly's instincts, naturally good, though dimmed a trifle by a learned
+education and a clerical training, showed him but that one way out of
+the wood.
+
+'Several circumstances combine, sir. Thus, I do not want to save the
+hangman a job. Again, my respect for your cloth forbids me to draw
+sword on you, and rather prompts to a public battooning tomorrow in
+St. James's. I therefore do but wait to favour you with this warning,
+which is more than a trafficker of your kidney deserves.'
+
+'Truth, sir, if you wait to cane me till to-morrow, I have every
+reason to believe that you may wait a lifetime. As to cloth, mine is
+as honourable as ever a German usurper's livery.'
+
+This did not promise a friendly conclusion, but George was ever
+honourably ready to support the honour of his gown, and he confesses
+that, at this moment, he somewhat lost sight of his main object.
+
+The Colonel stepped forward with uplifted cane, a trifle of
+tortoise-shell and amber, in his hand.
+
+George drew back one pace and folded his arms on his breast. His eyes,
+which are of an uncommon bright blue, were fixed on the Colonel's.
+
+'You will find, sir, if you advance one foot, that I do not stand kick
+or cuff. You are dealing with one who knows his weapon' (no experience
+could cure George of this delusion), 'and who does not value his life
+at a straw. Moreover, you began a parley for which I did not ask,
+though I desired it, and I have to tell you that your honour is
+involved in continuing this conversation in quite another key.'
+
+George stepped forward the pace he had withdrawn, and clasped his
+hands behind his back, watching the Colonel narrowly.
+
+There was something in his voice, more in his eyes. The Colonel had
+seen fire, and knew a brave man when he met one. He threw down his
+cane and Kelly reckoned that the worst of his task was over.
+
+'You may compel me to fight,' George went on, 'and I never went to a
+feast with a better stomach, but first I have certain words that must
+be spoken to you.'
+
+'You cannot intend to escape by promising a discovery?'
+
+'Sir, I do not take you for a Messenger or a Minister. One or both I
+can find without much seeking, and, for that sufficient reason, before
+they lay hands on me I absolutely demand to speak to you on a matter
+closely touching your own honour, which, as I have never heard it
+impeached, I therefore sincerely profess my desire to trust.'
+
+'You are pleased to be complimentary, but I know not how my honour can
+be concerned with a Jacobite trafficker and his treasons.'
+
+'I make you this promise, that, if you do thus utterly refuse to
+listen for five minutes, I will give you every satisfaction at the
+sword's point, or, by God! will compel you to take it, as you have
+been pleased to introduce battoons into a conversation between
+gentlemen. And if, when you have heard me, you remain dissatisfied,
+again I will give you a lesson with sharps. You see that we are not
+likely to be interrupted, and that I am perfectly cool. This is a
+matter to each of us of more than life or death.'
+
+'I do see that you desire to pique my curiosity for the sake of some
+advantage which I am unable to perceive. Perhaps you expect your
+friends on the scene?'
+
+'You may observe that I began by dismissing the only friend I have in
+this town. Do you, perhaps, suspect that Mr. Nicholas Wogan needs, or
+has gone to procure, assistance?'
+
+'I confess that I know that gentleman too well for any such
+suspicions.'
+
+'Then, sir, remember that the Roman says _noscitur a sociis_, and
+reflect that I am a friend of Mr. Wogan's, who must stand sponsor, as
+you do not know me, for my honesty. Moreover,' said George, working
+round by a risky way to his point, 'had I wished to escape I could,
+instead of socking you, have sneaked off t'other way. You observed
+that I remained some minutes with a lady to-night after you and the
+rest of her company had withdrawn?'
+
+'It is very like your impudence to remind me of that among other
+provocations! I am not concerned in your merchant's business of
+brocades.'
+
+'But, indeed, with your pardon, you are concerned in the highest
+degree, and that is just the point I would bring you to consider.'
+
+'I tire of your mysteries, sir,' he said, shrugging his shoulders.
+'Speak on, and be brief.'
+
+'On these brocades turns the question whether the honour of a lady,
+which you are bound to cherish, shall be the laughing-stock of the
+town. Sir, in a word, you, and you only, can save that person; need I
+say more?'
+
+'Did she send you with this message to save your own skin?'
+
+'That is past saving, except by a miracle, which I am in no situation
+to expect will be wrought for me. Understand me, sir, I am out of hope
+of earthly salvation. I have nothing to gain, nothing to look for from
+man. I make you freely acquainted with that position of my affairs,
+which are purely desperate. And the person of whom we speak looks to
+you as her sole hope in the world. She sends you this, take it, I know
+not the contents, the seal, as you perceive, being unbroken.'
+
+'This looks more serious,' said the Colonel, taking the sealed note
+which Kelly handed to him.
+
+He pored over the letter, holding it up to the moonlight. 'Do as the
+bearer bids you, if you would have me live,' he read; then, with a
+bitter laugh, he tore the note into the smallest shreds, and was about
+to dash them down on the grass.
+
+'Hold, sir,' Kelly said; 'preserve them till you can burn them. Or--I
+have myself swallowed the like before now.'
+
+The Colonel stared, and put the fragments into his pocket-book.
+
+'Well,' he said, 'I am hearing you.'
+
+'I thank you, sir; you will grant that I did not wrong you in trusting
+your generosity. If I am a free man to-morrow, or even to-night after
+this business is done, I shall have the honour of meeting you,
+wherever you are pleased to appoint. For my cloth have no scruple, I
+never was more than half a parson.'
+
+'Sir, I shall treat you as you may merit. And now for your commands,
+which, it seems, I am in a manner under the necessity to obey.'
+
+'You see this key, sir,' said Kelly, offering that of one of his
+strong boxes, 'take it, go to my lodgings, which, by a miracle, are in
+the same house as your own. Enter my parlour, 'tis on the ground
+floor; open the small iron strong box which this key fits, and burn
+all the--brocades which you find there.'
+
+'This is a most ingenious stroke of the theatre! I am to burn, I
+perceive, all the papers, or brocades as you call them, which damn you
+for a Jacobite plotter! It is not badly contrived, sir, but you have
+come to the wrong agent I am acquainted with the ingenious works of
+the French playwrights.'
+
+'Sir, you compel me, against my will, to be more plain with you than I
+desire. It is your own fault if I give you concern. On opening the
+coffer you may satisfy yourself of the hand of the writer, which
+cannot but be familiar to you. Moreover, the letters of the person for
+whom we are concerned are addressed (that you may not make the error
+which you apprehend) to one Strephon--not a cant name of a political
+plot.'
+
+'She called you--Strephon?'
+
+'She was so kind.'
+
+'And I was Corydon,' groaned the Colonel between his teeth.
+
+'_Arcades ambo!_' said George. 'But now 'tis the hour of a third
+shepherd! Lycidas, perhaps, _le plus heureux des trois_. Oh, Colonel,
+be easy, we are both yesterday's roses, or, rather, I am the rose of
+the day before yesterday.'
+
+'And it is for this woman--'
+
+'Ay, it is just for this woman that you are to risk your commission,
+for a risk there may be, and I my life, for I could get away from this
+place. You perceive that we have no alternative?'
+
+'What must be, must,' he said, after some moments of thought; 'but
+what if I find the Messengers already in possession of your effects?'
+
+'In that case I must depend solely on your own management and
+invention. But I may say that gold will do much, nay, everything with
+such fellows, and your position, moreover, as a trusted officer of
+your King's, will enable you to satisfy men not very eminent for
+scruples.'
+
+'Gold! I have not a guinea, thanks to the cards, not a stiver in my
+rooms to-night. The cards took all.'
+
+'Here, at least,' cried George, 'I can offer some kind of proof of my
+honesty, and even be of service. I am poor, Heaven knows, but there
+are my winnings, easily enough to corrupt four Messengers. Use the
+money; I have friends who will not let me starve in the Tower. Nay,
+delicacy is purely foolish. I insist that you take it.'
+
+'Mr. Johnson,' the Colonel said, 'you are a very extraordinary man.'
+
+'Sir, I am an Irishman,' said George.
+
+'I will not say that I never met one like you, but I hope, after all
+accounts are settled between us, to have the advantage of your
+acquaintance. Sir, _au revoir_.'
+
+'I shall be with you, sir, in ten minutes after your arrival in your
+lodgings, whether the coast be clear or not. But let me attend you
+across the Park, as far as the corner of Pall Mall Street.'
+
+If Kelly was an Irishman, Montague was an Englishman, and Kelly was
+well enough acquainted with that nation to know that the last proof
+given of his disinterestedness was by much the most powerful he could
+have used. He reflected again on the Devil's own luck of Smilinda that
+night, for if the cards had gone contrary to her and George he could
+not have produced this demonstration of his loyalty, nor could he very
+well have invited the Colonel to pay the piper out of his own pocket.
+
+The Colonel also walked silently, turning about in his mind all the
+aspects of this affair.
+
+'I understand,' he said, 'that you are upon honour not to involve me
+in tampering with anything disaffected? You will take no advantage
+whatever that may give _me_ the air of being concerned, to shelter
+yourself or your party?'
+
+'You have my word for it, sir. Your honour, next to that in which we
+are equally concerned, is now my foremost consideration.'
+
+He nodded, then sighed, as one not very well satisfied.
+
+'Things may come to wear a very suspicious complexion, but I must risk
+a little; the worse the luck. Mr. Johnson, neither of us has been very
+wise in the beginnings of this business.'
+
+'I came to that conclusion rather earlier than you, sir, and on very
+good evidence.'
+
+'No doubt,' growled Montague, and he muttered once or twice,
+'Strephon, Corydon--Corydon, Strephon.' Then he turned unexpectedly to
+Kelly. 'You mentioned these letters as I was leaving the room, and I
+noticed that her ladyship grew white. She kept you, she knew then of
+the danger you were in and has just informed you of it. Now, how came
+she to have so particular a knowledge of your danger?'
+
+Mr. Kelly did not answer a question which boded no good for Lady
+Oxford. 'She had grounds of resentment against you in a certain
+ballad.'
+
+Kelly seized at the chance of diverting Montague from his suspicions,
+and showed how the ballad was aimed at him no less than at her
+ladyship, and, without giving the Colonel time to interrupt,
+
+'Here I must bid you _au revoir_, sir,' he said, 'for some ten
+minutes, time enough for you to do what is needed, if, as I hope, you
+are not disturbed. The Messengers, I conceive, will be lurking for me
+in Ryder Street outside our common door; they will not think of
+preventing you from entering, and before I arrive, whatever befalls
+_me_, our common interest will be secured.'
+
+'You are determined to follow?'
+
+'What else can I do? I must know the end of this affair of the
+brocades. It is not wholly impossible that the Messengers have wearied
+of waiting, and think to take me abed to-morrow. When you have done
+what you know, you will leave my room, and I, if I am not taken, have
+some arrangements of my own to make. That, I presume, is not a breach
+of my engagement with you?'
+
+'Certainly not, sir. When I have left your room I am in no sense
+responsible for your actions. I wish you good fortune.'
+
+While they thus walked and were sad enough, they came within ear-shot
+of Wogan, who, at that moment, was declaiming Mr. Pope's Night piece
+to Mr. Scrope, who was in the Canal.
+
+What conversation passed between the four gentlemen Wogan has already
+told, and he has mentioned how the Colonel went away, and how, after
+using pains to prevent Mr. Scrope from catching a cold, he himself
+withdrew to court slumber, and left Mr. Kelly alone in the moonlight.
+
+Mr. Kelly did not remain in the open, but lay _perdu_ on the shadowy
+side of the grove. Concealing himself from any chance of a rencounter,
+he allotted a space of twelve minutes by his watch, and time never
+paced more tardy with him in all his life. There was in his favour but
+the one chance that the Messengers might choose to take him abed in
+the early morning, when the streets would be empty. At this moment St.
+James's Street was full of chairs and noises; night-rakers were
+abroad, and the Messengers, who are not very popular, might fear a
+rescue by the rabble. On this chance Kelly fixed his hopes, for if he
+could but be alone for ten minutes in his lodgings, he and his friends
+would have little to fear from any evidence in his possession.
+
+If the Colonel succeeded, Lady Oxford, and, with her ladyship,
+George's honour, were safe. If, by an especial miracle of heaven,
+George could have a few minutes alone in his room, the Cause and the
+faithful of the Cause would be safe. The Colonel, Kelly hoped, could
+hardly fail to do his part of the work; he would enter his own rooms
+unchallenged, his uniform and well-known face must secure him as much
+as that, and the Epistles of Smilinda would lie in ashes.
+
+So he hoped, but nothing occurred as he anticipated.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIII
+
+ HOW THE MESSENGERS CAPTURED THE WRONG
+ GENTLEMAN; AND OF WHAT LETTERS THE
+ COLONEL BURNED.
+
+
+For Colonel Montague was taken in Mr. Kelly's place, as you may see
+with your own eyes in his Grace of Dorset's Report to the Lords'
+Committees, where the informations of John Hutchins and Daniel
+Chandler, described as 'two of his Majesty's Messengers in Ordinary,'
+are printed. These did not chance to be men of a very high degree of
+intelligence, as their own confessions bear testimony, in itself a
+fortunate circumstance.
+
+Colonel Montague, when he parted from the Parson at the grove in St.
+James's Park, walked into Pall Mall Street by the path at the corner
+of St. James's House and up to St. James's Street to the corner of
+Ryder Street, where he turned. Ryder Street, what with gentlemen
+walking home on the footpaths and chairs carried in the road, was a
+busy thoroughfare at this time of the night, and he remarked nothing
+extraordinary until he was close to his own doorstep. Then he
+distinguished, or rather seemed to distinguish--for in the doubtful
+light he could not be certain--at a little distance on the opposite
+side of the road a man in the blue and silver livery of Lady Oxford.
+The man was loitering at the edge of the path, taking a few steps now
+this way now that. He was tall, and not unlike Mr. Wogan in his girth.
+Now, Colonel Montague was aware that her ladyship possessed a lackey
+of just such a conspicuous figure.
+
+'For once in a while,' he thought, 'the news-sheet spoke truth
+to-night. It seems it was Lady Oxford that set the reverend non-juror,
+for here is her lackey to point him out to the Messengers.'
+
+With this thought urging him to get his business done quickly,
+Montague walked up to his door and knocked. On the instant, three men
+ran across the road and collared him. The capture was observed by one
+or two gentlemen, who stopped, and immediately a small crowd began to
+gather about them.
+
+Montague was prudent enough to waste no time in a useless struggle
+with the Messengers, and asked them quietly who they were and what
+they intended. At this moment the door was opened by Mrs. Kilburne's
+maid, and the Messengers, lifting the Colonel up, carried him into the
+house. Hutchins, a short, stoutish fellow, who was the chief of the
+three men, told the Colonel who they were.
+
+'And we hold a warrant for your apprehension under Lord Townshend's
+seal,' he said, and showed his scutcheon and the warrant.
+
+'Not for my apprehension,' replied Montague. 'There is one without
+there who can speak for me.' For the door was still open to the
+street, and amongst the people who thronged the entrance, he now saw
+very clearly the blue and silver livery of her ladyship. The lackey,
+however, pushed backwards out of range, and since those who were
+foremost of the crowd turned about to see who it was that Montague
+pointed to, Hutchins took the occasion to close the door in their
+faces.
+
+'You are George Kelly, _alias_ James Johnson, _alias_ Joseph Andrews,'
+said he, turning again to Colonel Montague, and reading out from the
+warrant a number of names by which the Parson was known to the honest
+party.
+
+'It is the first I have heard of it,' replied Montague, and he invited
+the Messengers up to his rooms on the first floor, where he would be
+happy to satisfy them of their mistake. Mrs. Kilburne had now joined
+her maid in the passage, and she followed the Messengers up the
+stairs, wringing her hands over the disgrace which, through no fault
+of hers, had fallen upon her house. When they were come within the
+room, Montague threw open his cloak, which he wore wrapped about his
+shoulders, and discovered his scarlet coat beneath it.
+
+'I am Colonel Montague,' he said, 'and an officer under the King as
+well as you. If there is work to be done for the King, I shall be very
+happy to assist you. I fought for the King at Preston,' and he made a
+great flourish of his services and valorous acts, not being sure that
+the Messengers had reinforcements without, and hoping that Mr. Kelly
+might enter meanwhile and do what was needful. Mrs. Kilburne's tongue
+and care for the Parson seemed likely to forward this plan, for, with
+many unnecessary words, she declared how the Colonel had lodged with
+her for years.
+
+'And as for Mr. Johnson,' she said, 'there was such a man who came and
+went, but he lodged with Mrs. Barnes in Bury Street, and there you
+should go if you seek for news of him.'
+
+But the ten minutes were not yet gone. The maid remained downstairs in
+the passage. She was a perfectly honest poor wench, who would have
+risked herself for the Parson or for any gentleman in distress. But
+Montague, however closely he listened, could not hear that she opened
+the door, or any noise in the room below.
+
+Hutchins made his apologies with a great many 'your honours,' and the
+Colonel was no less polite in his compliments upon Hutchins's zeal,
+which he would be sure to make known in the proper quarters. But still
+the Parson did not come, and Montague could hold the Messengers in
+talk no longer, though that would have been of little use, as he now
+discovered.
+
+For Hutchins turned about to Chandler,--
+
+'Go down into the street and tell Lyng and Randall,' he said, 'that
+our man is not come. Bid them watch for him at the corner of Ryder
+Street and St. James's.' And as he spoke he gave Chandler the warrant.
+Chandler slipped it into his pocket, and ran downstairs to join the
+others of his worshipful calling in the street. Hutchins followed him,
+but remained within, in the passage, to watch the maid of the house,
+and see that she did not go out to warn the Parson.
+
+The Colonel and Mrs. Kilburne were thus left alone.
+
+'Mrs. Kilburne,' said Montague. 'You must take my word for it, I am
+Mr. Kelly's friend, and without any argument, if you please.' For he
+saw that she was on the point of interrupting him. 'There is but one
+thing you can do for him. Send someone you can trust, or go yourself
+to lure the Messengers off to Mrs. Barnes's house. But you must be
+quick, and here's money to help you.'
+
+He filled her hands with the Parson's gold, and she, in her turn, went
+downstairs and out of the house by a door at the back. Montague, for
+his part, had it in mind to try whether the like means might not
+over-persuade Hutchins's zeal. With that design he descended to
+Hutchins, whom he found lighting a candle in Mr. Kelly's room with the
+door open so that he might command a view of the maid who was still
+waiting in the passage.
+
+The Colonel stepped into the room, casting his eyes about for the
+strong-box with Smilinda's letters, which he could not see. He saw the
+scrutoire, however, which stood in the window with the lid closed.
+Hutchins held the candle above his head and remarked it at the same
+time.
+
+'I will search the rooms,' he said with an air of consequence. Colonel
+Montague was in a quandary. Hutchins had only to throw back the lid
+and the Parson's strong-box would be in his hands. He had only then to
+break open the lock, and all Smilinda's dainty sentiments about the
+union of souls would be splotched over by the dirty thumbs of a
+constable. And the Colonel could not prevent the sacrilege unless the
+money did it for him.
+
+'Mr. Hutchins,' he said, and jingled the gold in his pockets. But he
+got no further in his persuasions. For the name was scarce off his
+lips when a hubbub arose without. It was a confusion of noise at the
+first as though it came from the end of the street.
+
+'They have taken him,' said Hutchins, setting down the candle and
+flinging aside the curtains of the window.
+
+The noise was louder, and Kelly's voice was heard, bawling, 'A rescue!
+An arrest! an arrest! A rescue!' that the rabble might think he was
+taken for debt. Those who were gathered in front of the house did
+indeed turn themselves about, but they were for the most part of the
+better class, and the night-rakers and such-like who might have
+attempted a rescue, only came up behind at Mr. Kelly's bawling, from
+St. James's Street, where they were likely to find more profit than in
+Ryder Street. This friendly mob was running together indeed, but came
+too late.
+
+'Yes, they have taken him,' said Montague. Mrs. Kilburne had not drawn
+the Messengers off. On the other hand, Hutchins had not opened Mr.
+Kelly's scrutoire. 'They have taken him,' and the Parson was already
+under the window. His sword was gleaming in his hand but the
+Messengers dragged upon his arms and he could not use it.
+
+Hutchins threw up the window.
+
+'Bring him in,' and he rushed to the street door and unlocked it.
+Kelly was hustled up the steps, shouting all the while. He was forced
+into the passage just as the rabble came up at his heels.
+
+'A rescue!' they cried.
+
+Lyng and Chandler turned about and drove them back. Randall sprang in
+after Kelly and slammed the door.
+
+The posture of affairs then was this:
+
+Colonel Montague and Hutchins were standing in Mr. Kelly's room close
+to the scrutoire and the open window.
+
+Mr. Kelly, Lyng, who was a big lout, designed by Providence for this
+office and no other, and the maid, were in the passage. Randall and
+Chandler were outside in the street and at their wits' ends to keep
+back the mob, which was now grown very clamorous.
+
+Mr. Kelly was the first to make any movement. He sheathed his sword,
+carefully dusted the sleeves of his coat where the Messengers had held
+him and arranged his cravat.
+
+'These are ill times for a peaceful man to live in,' he said. 'It
+seems a gentleman cannot walk home of an evening but he must be set
+upon and cuffed.'
+
+With a shrug of the shoulders, as though the whole matter was a
+mystery, he sauntered into his parlour. His eyes carelessly took in
+the room. It seemed that nothing had been disturbed. The scrutoire was
+shut, but were Smilinda's letters still hidden there or were they safe
+in Montague's pockets? His eyes rested on the Colonel's face and put
+the question. But the Colonel gave no sign; Hutchins stood at his
+elbow. Kelly's eyes travelled from the Colonel's face to his red coat.
+
+'One of the King's officers,' he said with a smile. 'In the presence
+of one of the King's officers, gentlemen,' he said politely with a bow
+to Hutchins, 'I take it that you will forgo your ingenious attempt to
+rob me and we may all go quietly to bed.'
+
+He moved as he spoke towards the scrutoire, and again looked at the
+Colonel. The Colonel's face was still a blank.
+
+'We hold a warrant for the arrest of George Kelly, alias James
+Johnson,' began Hutchins.
+
+'Indeed?' replied George with an effort of attention, as though
+fatigue put a strain upon his good manners. 'And why should George
+Kelly prefer to call himself James Johnson? I cannot think it is the
+better name. Mr. George Kelly lacks taste, I am afraid,' and he
+stifled a yawn with his hand.
+
+'Colonel Montague,' said Hutchins, who was in some perplexity as to
+what to make of Kelly's present indifference, 'your honour promised to
+assist me.'
+
+Colonel Montague being appealed to, nodded his head.
+
+'Though you will not need my assistance,' he said, 'for here is
+another of your fellows.'
+
+Chandler had come within the house, and pushing into the room said
+that the curtains were drawn apart so that the rabble could see
+clearly all that happened in the room and were on that account the
+less inclined to disperse. As he spoke he hitched the curtains to and
+a volley of curses went up from the disappointed crowd.
+
+Hutchins immediately turned to Kelly.
+
+'Give me your sword.'
+
+Kelly, who knew not what to make of the Colonel's manner, but thought
+it likely he had taken his measures, took his sword by the hanger and
+handed it sheath and all to Hutchins, who in his turn passed it to
+Montague. Montague stood in the corner by the window.
+
+'There is some stupid blunder,' said Kelly, 'which I cannot take it
+upon me to understand. You talk to me a great deal about a warrant,
+but I have not seen it. It is a new thing to come taking off gentlemen
+to the round-house in the middle of the night without a warrant, but
+we live in ill times.' All this he said with an admirable air of
+resignation, though his eyes kept glancing towards Montague, who still
+dared give no sign. The Colonel waited upon occasion; his present aim
+was to hinder the Messengers from any suspicion that the Parson and he
+were in one purpose or indeed were acquainted.
+
+In answer to Kelly, Chandler took the warrant from his pocket and
+handed it to Colonel Montague, who read it through.
+
+'It is a very sufficient warrant,' he said, 'and this gentleman may be
+satisfied if he is rightly named, of which of course I have no
+assurance,' and folding the paper he handed it back to Chandler.
+Whereupon Chandler went out again into the street to guard the door
+from the rabble.
+
+Hutchins then took Kelly's hat, placed it on the table, and searching
+his pockets, pulled out some papers which he had about him, things of
+no moment; and these papers he laid in the hat. But to search Kelly's
+pockets Hutchins must needs stoop. Here was the Colonel's chance. Over
+Hutchins' shoulder, Kelly's eyes again put their question. The Colonel
+now answered with a shake of the head. Smilinda's letters had not been
+saved, a great surprise and disappointment to the Parson, who of
+course knew nothing of Montague's mistaken arrest.
+
+Kelly, however, wasted no precious moments in regrets. As Hutchins
+turned to place the papers in the hat, Kelly thrust Lyng aside, and,
+springing to the window, tore aside the curtains and again bawled at
+the top of his voice. 'A rescue! An arrest!'
+
+Shouts of encouragement greeted him; the hubbub filled the street
+again. Hutchins and Lyng at once sprang upon Kelly, tore him back from
+the window, and sent him staggering across the room.
+
+'Tie his hands!' cried Hutchins, as he pulled down the sash. 'Knock
+him down! Gag him!' and he turned to help Lyng.
+
+The maid in the passage began to cry; the Colonel stood irresolute;
+the Parson drew himself up against the wall as the two men approached
+him. His Irish blood bubbled in his veins at the prospect of so fine a
+tumble. He clenched his hands. He forgot Smilinda's letter, the Cause,
+even Rose. His face became one broad grin and in an accent as broad as
+the grin.
+
+'And what'll I be doin' while you're tyin' my hands?' he asked. 'Why,
+just this,' and his fist shot out like a battering-ram and took the
+worthy Lyng on the tip of the chin. Mr. Lyng was clean lifted off both
+his feet and so sat down on the floor with some violence, where he
+felt his neck in a dazed sort of way to make sure that it was not
+broken.
+
+'Oh, why isn't Nick here?' cried Kelly, and indeed Nicholas Wogan
+bewails his absence at that festivity to this day. 'Come, Mr.
+Hutchins, I have the other fist for you,' and he began to dance
+towards Hutchins, who called on the Colonel to mark the murderous look
+in the prisoner's eyes and save him from immediate destruction.
+
+'Is it destruction you want?' asked Kelly with a chuckle. 'I'll
+gratify you with all the destruction imaginable.' And no doubt he
+would have been as good as his word. But Hutchins, while shutting the
+window had not drawn the curtains, and the rabble in the street had
+thus enjoyed a full view of the Parson's prowess. They had roared
+their applause when Lyng went down, and as Hutchins drew back before
+the Parson's fisticuffs, they hooted the Messenger for a coward and
+made a rush at the door. A stone or two shattered the window and a
+voice was yelling, 'Murder! murder!' in tones of unmistakable
+sincerity. Chandler then rushed in, his face bleeding, and said that
+Randall was being mobbed, and, if they did not come to help him, would
+be knocked on the head. At this, Lyng, who was now got to his feet,
+ran out into the street with Chandler. Hutchins remained in the room,
+but cried out to Chandler that he should go or send for a file of
+musquets.
+
+Now Chandler, when he rushed into the room, was holding the warrant in
+his hand, he still held it when he ran out again, as the Parson
+remarked, and instantly thought of a plan by which, after all,
+Smilinda's letters might be secured, and her name kept wholly out of
+the business. Accordingly he ceased from his warlike posture and sat
+down in a chair. Hutchins took the occasion to draw the curtains and
+shut out the mob from a view of the room. Mr. Kelly smiled, for he was
+just wondering what excuse he could discover to do that very thing
+himself. Mr. Hutchins was helping him very well.
+
+'It is a pity,' said the Parson in a plaintive voice, sucking his
+knuckles, which were bleeding, 'that a peaceful, law-abiding citizen
+must put himself to so much discomfort because a couple of rascally
+Messengers will not show him their warrant.'
+
+'It is under Lord Townshend's seal,' began Hutchins.
+
+'It may be, or it may not be. I have not seen it. I cannot really
+surrender unless the proper formalities are observed.'
+
+Hutchins, who was no doubt well pleased to see the peaceful turn
+things were taking and had not the wits to suspect it, replied with an
+oafish grin that the prisoner was wise to submit himself to his lawful
+captors.
+
+'And as for the warrant, Chandler has it safe enough in the street.'
+
+'In the street!' cried Kelly, suddenly flying into a passion. 'And
+what's the warrant doing in the street? How dare the warrant be in the
+street when it is intended for a gentleman in the house? Upon my word
+it would take very little to persuade me that there's no warrant at
+all,' and he began to stamp and fume about the room.
+
+'Colonel Montague has read it,' said Hutchins.
+
+'I certainly read a warrant,' agreed the Colonel with an impartial
+air.
+
+'A warrant, yes,' said Kelly in a testy voice. 'But how can the
+Colonel know whether it is intended for me? How can he know whether it
+is a real warrant at all? You come here with a scutcheon, Mr.
+Hutchins. But you might have stolen the scutcheon, as you have
+certainly forged the warrant.' He stopped in front of Hutchins and
+wagged his head at him. 'Mr. Hutchins, I begin to suspect you are one
+of a gang of cheats come here to rob me. But I will not be your gull,'
+he cried out as though his fury overmastered him. 'No, nor his worship
+the Colonel either,' and he called to the maid to lock the street
+door.
+
+'Lock it,' said he. 'Lock the door' and Mr. Hutchins and I will get to
+the bottom of the matter quietly.'
+
+That very thing now happened which Mr. Kelly most desired. The maid
+ran down the passage to the street door: Hutchins ran out of the room
+after her to prevent her locking it. Kelly flung to the door of the
+parlour: Mr. Hutchins was outside, the Colonel and Kelly were alone
+within the room.
+
+'My sword,' said the Parson in a quick whisper. Montague held it out
+to him without a word: he had no right to refuse it to a free man.
+Kelly snatched the hilt; the blade rattled out of the scabbard; he
+stood on guard with his naked blade.
+
+Meanwhile Hutchins and the maid were quarrelling in the passage over
+the door key, as Kelly could distinguish from their voices.
+
+He made a quick step towards the window, threw open the scrutoire, and
+returned to his station at the door. But he had not so much as glanced
+at the scrutoire; he had kept his eyes fixed upon the door. Still
+keeping his eyes so fixed, he pointed towards the strong boxes.
+
+'Be quick,' he whispered. 'In the strong box! Take the candle and have
+done. You know the hand, and you have the key.'
+
+Montague pulled the key from his pocket, and fumbled at the lock.
+
+'It will not fit,' he said under his breath and swore.
+
+'Be quick,' repeated Kelly.
+
+The key rattled in the lock as the Colonel turned it this way and
+that. Mr. Kelly was about to throw a glance over his shoulder when he
+saw the handle of the door turn. It was turned cautiously without any
+noise. The next moment the door flew open. Fortunately it opened
+upwards towards the window and the scrutoire. Kelly stopped it with
+his foot when it was but half open, so that Montague was entirely
+hidden behind the panels from the eyes of any one on the threshold or
+in the passage. Hutchins was on the threshold peering into the room.
+But he did not peer long, for at the same moment that Kelly stopped
+the door with his foot he made at Hutchins, with his sword, a pass so
+vigorous that the hulking fellow leaped back a good yard, crying out
+to Montague:
+
+'Will your honour let a poor man be killed in his duty?'
+
+The Colonel made no answer to the pathetic question. He was occupied
+with business of another complexion. Mr. Kelly heard a crack.
+
+'What is the matter?' he asked, in a low voice.
+
+'The key is filled with dust, or the lock is jammed,' Montague
+whispered back. 'I have broken open the box with the guard of my
+sword.'
+
+'Be quick,' said Kelly. 'Make sure you have Smilinda's letters.'
+
+All this while he had not looked towards the scrutoire. The most that
+he saw was the shadow of the Colonel thrown on the wall of the room by
+the single candle, a shadow monstrous big that held the shadow of a
+paper to its eyes. It is to be said in Mr. Kelly's defence that he
+dared not look about him. The door of the room was half open; the
+Messenger who had retreated into the passage was plainly hardening his
+heart for a rush. Mr. Kelly's attention was entirely distracted from
+Colonel Montague's proceedings at this important moment.
+
+'Yes,' whispered Montague. 'This is her hand, this is the blue-edged
+paper she affects of late. "My own Strephon," and dated two days back.
+It bids you to her rout.'
+
+The words passed in and out of Mr. Kelly's ears. His eyes were
+occupied with Hutchins, and with his eyes his mind. He did not
+remember that he had thrust this letter of her ladyship's, as he had
+told to Wogan, into the wrong box, the box holding the papers of the
+Bishop and the King. Then a little flame shot up and illumined the
+room, which was at once filled with a smell of burning paper. Montague
+had burned Smilinda's letter, inviting Kelly to her rout.
+
+It seemed that Hutchins had after all no stomach for Mr. Kelly's
+sword, which to be sure must have glittered ominously in the dismal
+light of the solitary candle. He ran back again down the passage and
+pulled open the street door.
+
+'Chandler,' he shouted, calling his fellow to assist him. A yell of
+laughter answered him, and a voice from the street cried out that
+Chandler was gone for a file of soldiers. Kelly could hear Hutchins
+swearing and cursing, though it was himself that had sent Chandler on
+the errand.
+
+A second flame spirted up and died away. Montague had burned a second
+letter.
+
+'Lyng! Randall!' cried Hutchins at the street-door, but again he was
+answered with jeers, and again the voice called to him mockingly that
+they were gone to Bury Street, where they were told they would be sure
+to snare the right man.
+
+Montague, who heard everything clearly, blessed Mrs. Kilburne aloud,
+and burned a third paper. Kelly kicked the door to.
+
+'We are safe, then, it seems,' he said. 'Smilinda's safe.'
+
+He took out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his face,
+leaning his back against the panels of the door. He could hear
+Hutchins bawling up the street for his partners, and his voice sounded
+as though he had moved from the door in search of them. So for the
+first time Kelly looked at Montague and the scrutoire.
+
+Colonel Montague had turned the strong-box upside down and emptied the
+papers on the scrutoire, so that they lay face downwards. By a scruple
+of delicacy, having read the topmost letter to make sure it was Lady
+Oxford's hand, he looked at them no more. He took them up one by one,
+face downwards, and so burned them separately, knowing no doubt that,
+lighted in a single heap, only those on the outside and the edges of
+the letters in the middle, would catch fire. One by one he burnt them
+face downwards at the candle, the secret letters of the Cause. He had
+burned three, and he now held the fourth in his hand. He approached it
+to the candle; he did not so much as look at it. But had he merely
+glanced once at Mr. Kelly leaning there against the panels of the
+door, that glance would have surely told him what papers he was
+burning.
+
+Kelly did not speak a word, or stir a muscle. He had wiped the sweat
+from his face a second ago, but his forehead was wet now: his eyes
+stared greedily at the papers: a slow smile, of a knavish kind, that
+went very ill with his face, curved his lips. An extreme temptation
+chained him; the Devil whispered in his ear, 'Be silent,' and the
+Parson held his peace.
+
+The blue-edged letter bidding him to the rout he had slipped on the
+top of the Chevalier's papers, as he had told Mr. Wogan. Colonel
+Montague was merrily burning the papers of the Plot. Kelly had but to
+hold his tongue, and in a few minutes he was safe. The Cause was saved
+so far as the papers went, and Lady Oxford, her letters unburned, was
+lost. No wonder the key did not fit; it was the wrong key! Kelly could
+see the corner of Wogan's strong-box peeping out from beneath a thatch
+of papers in the corner of the scrutoire.
+
+All this the Parson saw and understood in the one short moment during
+which Montague approached the paper to the candle. His mind was tossed
+up and down in a tempest; the winds of temptation blew hard against
+the tides of his nature. On one side was safety and the King's
+interest, and Rose, who to be sure need never know of the treachery by
+which the Parson had won her; on the other, a broken pledge that he
+had given to the Colonel, and the ruin of Smilinda, who had betrayed
+him.
+
+Montague lit the sheet of paper and held it up. Kelly saw the blue
+flame creep down from the edge, the writing turn brown, the paper curl
+over black and tattered, with a multitude of red sparks; and still he
+kept his peace.
+
+Montague dropped the ashes on the scrutoire, and took a fifth paper
+from the pile. The Parson turned away, and laid his ear to the panel,
+making a pretence that he heard Hutchins stirring in the passage.
+
+'Be quick!' he said first, and then, moistening his dry lips with his
+tongue: 'Make quite sure you have Smilinda's letters.'
+
+'Smilinda?' asked Montague.
+
+Kelly forced a laugh.
+
+'No doubt she called herself something equally pretty to you.'
+
+'Phylissa,' growled Montague.
+
+'She has a pretty conceit in names. Make sure those are her letters,'
+and again he spoke with an effort.
+
+'Not I. I have had my fill of the lady's handwriting.'
+
+Montague was already holding the paper to the flame, when Kelly's good
+angel got the upper hand with him. He is happy now to think that no
+chance accident, such as the return of Hutchins or the coming of the
+soldiers, hurried him into the better choice with a mind half made up.
+Here was the very occasion of which he had dreamed when he stayed
+behind in Lady Oxford's withdrawing room. He could use the weapon
+which her letters put into his hand to save the Chevalier's papers and
+himself and Rose. But he put the weapon aside. He turned about from
+the door: Montague was holding the paper to the flame, and a corner of
+it had taken fire. Kelly sprang to the scrutoire, snatched the paper
+out of Montague's hand, and crushed the fire out in the palm of his
+hand.
+
+'I gave you the right key, 'he whispered. 'You chose the wrong box.'
+
+Montague snatched up the pile of papers and turned them over.
+
+'Good God! Cyphers!' he exclaimed, and dropped them as though they
+were, in truth, burning.
+
+'The other box; the other box,' said Kelly, pointing to it. He fancied
+that he heard Hutchins moving cautiously just outside the door, and
+was now in a fever lest the delay brought about by his incertitude
+might balk his intentions. At any moment the Messenger might come back
+from Bury Street, or the file of the musquets march tramping up the
+stairs.
+
+All this indeed takes a long time to tell, and seemed no less long to
+Mr. Kelly in the happening; but the whole of the occurrences, the
+movements of the Messengers, the tidings cried to him from the street,
+the burning of the papers, with Kelly's own thoughts and doubts and
+unlooked-for temptations, passed with momentary speed.
+
+Montague found Wogan's strong box, the box of the love-letters,
+unlocked it, tore out all the contents, and glanced at a few at the
+top, middle and bottom.
+
+'Smilinda--Smilinda--Smilinda,' he said, reading the signatures. 'And
+it's for this woman,' he cried, striking the letters with his fist,
+'Smilinda, Phylissa, and the Lord knows what else to the Lord knows
+what other men, that----'
+
+But the Parson was in no mood to listen to Montague's reflections.
+
+'Put the other papers back into that box, the box with the unbroken
+lock, lock it and give me the key,' he said. Montague crammed her
+ladyship's letters into the inner pocket of his coat. But before he
+could move the door opened with a crash, and Hutchins flew in, Kelly
+made a furious pass, and Hutchins, leaping back, 'parried the thrust
+with the door,' as he truly said in his evidence before the Lords'
+Committee. Had he not used that novel parade Kelly would infallibly
+have run him through, and, as it was, George could scarcely drag his
+point out of the wood of the door, which Hutchins in leaping back had
+shut. Being now sufficiently terrified, for indeed no man ever had a
+narrower escape of his life, Hutchins contented himself with a
+plaintive expostulation from the safety of the passage.
+
+'Sure, I would serve Lord Townshend himself in the same way,' Kelly
+shouted back, 'if he tried to enter my room against my will without a
+warrant,' and lowering his voice so that only Montague might hear,
+'Lock the box, and throw me the key.' If only for Montague's sake the
+papers of the Plot must not be found lying open upon Kelly's
+scrutoire, and the box which held them broken among a litter of ashes.
+Mr. Kelly could not but remember with what care, earlier in the
+evening, he had burned and buried the ashes of his Grace of
+Rochester's letters, and reflect with some sadness what little good
+had come of it. Montague locked up the papers of the Plot in the box
+which had held Smilinda's letters, and tossed the key to Kelly, who
+caught it.
+
+'There is no more to do?' said Montague.
+
+'Nothing,' and Kelly handed him back his sword and sat him down on a
+sofa. He seized the occasion to make Montague acquainted with the
+accident through which Smilinda's last letter had been laid on the top
+of those in the box that contained very different wares, adding
+apologies for his brief delay to inform him. The Colonel then sat down
+over against Kelly and laid the flat of Kelly's sword across his
+knees. He looked at the sword for a little. Then,
+
+'You had a chance to let me destroy your own papers,' he said.
+
+'Yes, and to be a liar to a loyal gentleman, and a traitor to a more
+sacred cause than even my King's.'
+
+'Smilinda's?' Montague looked up in perplexity.
+
+'No,' said Kelly, and he stared for a little at the floor, then he
+said very slowly, 'A long while ago I made a prayer that nothing might
+ever come between the Cause and me except it be death. Even while I
+made the prayer I was summoned to visit Lady Oxford, who was then
+unknown to me. Well, something has come between the Cause and
+me--honour. A more sacred Cause than even my King's. Himself would say
+it.'
+
+Colonel Montague fancied that he heard a distant regular tramp of feet
+like soldiers. But Mr. Kelly was clean lost in his thoughts.
+
+'I could meet the King with a clear face and this story on my lips,'
+he continued, 'even though it were over there in Rome, and in his old
+lodging. The very approach to him was secret, his antechamber a cellar
+underground. You went by night, you crossed the cellar in the dark,
+you climbed a little winding stair, and above, in a mean crazy chamber
+which overhangs the Tiber, there was my King looking towards England.
+A man like me, with a man's longings and a man's despair, but, unlike
+me, robbed of a nation. Day by day delay shadowed his eyes and wrote
+upon his face until the face became an open book of sorrows. Yet
+himself would say, "Perish the Cause, perish all but honour,"' and,
+suddenly throwing up his arms, Mr. Kelly cried out in a voice of great
+passion and longing, 'The King! The King!'
+
+Colonel Montague very likely had his own opinions as to how the King
+would take it, but he was careful to keep them to himself, and in the
+silence which followed upon Kelly's outburst the tread of soldiers was
+heard very distinct, and Hutchins's voice at the door bidding them
+hurry.
+
+Mr. Kelly raised his head. He too had heard the sound, and, drawing a
+ring from his finger,
+
+'Take my seal ring, when you are alone seal up the brocades in a
+packet. You know the person whom they concern.'
+
+Montague took the ring and slipped it on his finger.
+
+'Mr. Johnson, or Kelly, or whoever you are,' he said cordially, 'we
+must needs be public enemies, but I wish my King had many as loving
+servants as your King has in you.'
+
+The rattle of the butts of musquets could now be heard in the passage.
+
+'And, damme,' said Montague, bending forward suddenly; he had all this
+while maintained in word and carriage the reserve of the Englishman,
+but now he showed a decent warmth of blood, 'had you been in my place
+and I in yours, Smilinda or no Smilinda, I should have let you burn
+the cyphers.'
+
+On those words he was pleased to say, which Mr. Kelly merely counted a
+politeness, the door was driven open by the butts of several fusils, a
+sergeant with a file of musqueteers entered; behind them came Chandler
+with the warrant, Lyng with a broken head, Hutchins with a white,
+scared face, and Randall whose coat was in tatters.
+
+They were surprised enough, you may be sure, to see the Colonel on one
+side of the fireplace and their redoubtable prisoner as quiet upon the
+other.
+
+'Oh,' said Mr. Kelly, with an admirable air of astonishment, 'it seems
+you have a warrant after all.'
+
+Hutchins then read the warrant through, and Mr. Kelly surrendered. But
+the Messenger had not done; he picked up presently the impudence to
+question the Colonel.
+
+'Your worship let the prisoner take his sword?'
+
+The dignified Montague stared at Hutchins with a strong amazement
+until the fellow was quite abashed.
+
+'What's the world coming to?' he said. 'Here is your prisoner's sword,
+if he is your prisoner.' and, lifting Mr. Kelly's sword from his
+knees, he handed it to Hutchins. Hutchins then made haste to secure
+Mr. Kelly's effects. He went over to the scrutoire, and the first
+things he clapped his eyes upon were a pile of black ashes and a great
+many splotches of hot grease from the candle.
+
+Hutchins looked at the Colonel with a question upon his lips; the
+Colonel looked stonily at Hutchins. Hutchins raised his nose and
+sniffed the air.
+
+'Will your worship tell me whether the prisoner meddled with any
+papers?' he asked, but with less impertinence than before.
+
+'Yes, sir, the gentleman did.'
+
+'What was done with them?'
+
+'Sir, they were burned, as you may perceive.'
+
+'And how came you, sir, to let them be burned?'
+
+'I am not to answer to you, sir, for my conduct, of which I can give a
+sufficient account to persons who have the right to question me. I
+have, for your satisfaction, no knowledge of this gentleman's name,
+nor as to whether he is correctly described in a warrant which was not
+in the house while we were together. It appears to me that you are all
+very likely to lose your scutcheons for your doltish stupidity,
+whether you have hold of the right or the wrong gentleman. I wish you
+a good night, sir,' he said, bowing to Kelly, 'and speedy deliverance,
+if you deserve it, from your present company.'
+
+He put his hat on his head and walked out of the room without another
+word. Hutchins thereupon searched Mr. Kelly's scrutoire; he found one
+box broken open and empty, another box, its own fellow, locked. Mr.
+Kelly delivered the key to it, with a great show of reluctance. It
+held the papers of the Bishop's Plot and a key to the Bishop's cypher,
+which was used to convict him at his trial. As for the burned papers,
+it came out at George's trial that he had destroyed letters in the
+presence of a King's officer. But the Duke of Wharton, in his famous
+speech, argued that a man of Mr. Kelly's figure might very well have
+letters to burn which were not political.
+
+That night the Parson was taken to the house of John Gardiner, living
+in Westminster Market, there to be kept in safe custody. He walked
+between the soldiers, and whistled a lively tune as he walked.
+
+This was related in more than one inn-parlour the next day by the
+sergeant, who was mightily surprised that a man should bear so heavy a
+charge so easily, and so the story got about.
+
+But Mr. Kelly was sensibly lightened by having saved Smilinda in the
+end after so many mischances, and when he thought of her letters safe
+in the Colonel's inner pocket, felt a private glow of pleasure which
+put all conjectures of his fate and doom clean out of his head.
+Moreover, he says that Rose was never nearer to him than on that night
+and during that walk. He speaks as though she walked by his side
+amongst his captors, and walked with a face that smiled.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIV
+
+ MR. WOGAN WEARS LADY OXFORD'S LIVERY, BUT
+ DOES NOT REMAIN IN HER SERVICE.
+
+
+The question with which Mr. Wogan lay down to sleep after Lady
+Oxford's rout, woke him at noon; he sent a boy whom he could trust to
+Ryder Street to desire Colonel Montague's attendance. Montague came
+back presently with the boy, and gave Wogan the news that the Parson
+was taken.
+
+'There was no escape possible,' he said. 'I cannot tell you the
+innermost truth of the affair, because the secret is not mine to tell;
+but, Mr. Wogan, you will take my word for it, your friend was in the
+net.'
+
+'The room was searched?'
+
+'And his papers seized. One or two, I believe, were burned, but the
+greater part were seized,' and then he broke out with an oath. 'Damn
+these plots! What in the world made you meddle with such Tory
+nonsense?'
+
+'Faith,' said Wogan, 'I have been wondering how ever you demeaned
+yourself to become a Whig.'
+
+Wogan wondered very much more what strange mishap had brought Mr.
+Kelly to this pass at the moment when he seemed to have success
+beneath his hand. Something wholly unexpected must have happened
+during those few minutes when he and Smilinda were left alone.
+Something had happened, indeed, but it was something very much simpler
+than Mr. Wogan looked for, who had not the key to the Parson's
+thoughts. However, he forebore to inquire, and instead:
+
+'Colonel,' said he, 'you professed last night that you were under some
+trifling obligation to me.'
+
+'I trust to-day to make the profession good.'
+
+'Faith, then you can, Colonel. There's a little matter of a quarrel.'
+
+At this the Colonel broke in with a laugh.
+
+'With whom?'
+
+'With a lad I have taken a great liking for,' and the Colonel laughed
+again. 'Therefore I would not put a slight on him by missing a certain
+appointment. It is Lord Sidney Beauclerk.'
+
+Colonel Montague's face clouded as he heard the name.
+
+'And the reason of the quarrel?'
+
+'He took objection to a few words I spoke last night.'
+
+'About a ballad? I heard the words.'
+
+'I told him that he would find a friend of mine waiting at Burton's
+Coffee-house this morning, and I doubt if many friends of mine will be
+seen abroad to-day.'
+
+Montague rose from the bed.
+
+'I will not deny,' he said, 'that there are services I should have
+preferred to render you. But I will go to Burton's, on one condition,
+Mr. Wogan--that you do not stir from this house until I come back to
+you. There's an ill wind blowing which might occasion you discomfort
+if you went abroad.'
+
+This he said with some significance.
+
+'It catches at one's throat, I dare say,' replied Wogan, taking his
+meaning. 'I have a tender sort of delicate throat in some weathers.'
+
+Colonel Montague walked to Burton's, at the corner of King Street in
+St. James's. The coffeehouse buzzed with the news of Mr. Kelly's
+arrest, and Colonel Montague saw many curious faces look up from their
+news-sheets and whisper together as he entered. In a corner of the
+room sat Lord Sidney Beauclerk, with a man whom Montague had remarked
+at Lady Oxford's rout the night before.
+
+Lord Sidney arose as Montague approached and bowed stiffly.
+
+'I come on behalf of a gentleman, whom, perhaps, we need not name,'
+said Montague.
+
+'Indeed?' said Lord Sidney, with a start of surprise.
+
+'I can understand that your lordship did not expect me, but I am his
+friend.'
+
+'To be frank, I expected no one.'
+
+'Your lordship, then, hardly knows the gentleman?'
+
+'On the contrary,' said Lord Sidney, and he took up from the table the
+_Flying Post_ of that morning. He handed the paper to Montague, and
+pointed to a sentence which came at the end of a description of Mr.
+Kelly's arrest.
+
+'It is said that Mr. Nicholas Wogan is also in London, hiding under
+the _incognito_ of Hilton, and that he will be taken to-day.'
+
+'You see, my lord,' said Montague, 'that there are certain
+difficulties which threaten to interfere with our arrangements.'
+
+'My friend is aware of them,' said Lord Sidney, and presented his
+friend.
+
+'Before making any arrangements I should be glad if your lordship
+would favour me with a hearing in some private place. It is I who ask,
+not my friend, Mr. Hilton.'
+
+Lord Sidney reluctantly consented, and the two men walked out of the
+coffee-house.
+
+'There are to be no apologies, I trust,' said Lord Sidney.
+
+Montague laughed.
+
+'Your lordship need have no fears. What I propose is entirely unknown
+to Mr. Wogan. But it seems to me that the conditions of the duel have
+changed. If Mr. Wogan shows his face in London he will be taken. If he
+fights you, it matters not whether you pink him or no, for if he
+escapes your sword he will be taken by the Messengers. On the other
+hand, he will not go from London until he has met you; unless--'
+
+'Unless--?'
+
+'Unless your lordship insists upon deferring the meeting until it can
+take place in France.'
+
+'Yes, I will consent to that,' said Lord Sidney, after a moment's
+pause. 'It is common fairness.'
+
+'Again I take the liberty to observe that your lordship does not know
+the gentleman. You must insist.'
+
+Lord Sidney was brought without great difficulty to understand the
+justice of Colonel Montague's argument.
+
+'Very well; I will insist,' he said; and, coming back to Burton's
+coffee-house, he wrote a polite letter, which the Colonel put in his
+pocket.
+
+Montague, however, did not immediately carry it to Mr. Wogan. He stood
+on the pavement of King Street for a little, biting his thumb in a
+profundity of thought; then he hurried to the stable where he kept his
+horses, and gave a strict order to his groom. From the stable he set
+out for Queen's Square, but on the way he bought a _Flying Post_, and
+stopped in St. James's Park to see what sort of account it gave of Mr.
+Kelly's arrest.
+
+'The Plot concerning which they write from Paris,' it began, 'hath
+brought the Guards into the Park, and a reverend and gallant non-juror
+within danger of the Law. The Messengers that were essaying to take
+Mr. Kelly needed reinforcement by a file of musquets before his
+reverence's lodgings could be stormed. It is said that a loyal Colonel
+of the Guards who lodges in the same house in Ryder Street was
+discovered with Mr. Kelly when the soldiers forced their way in, and
+that by his interference many valuable papers have been saved, which
+would otherwise have been destroyed. It appears that Kelly was intent
+upon burning certain cyphers and letters, and had, indeed, burnt two
+or three of them before the loyal Colonel interrupted him.'
+
+The loyal Colonel took off his hat to Grub Street for this charitable
+interpretation of his conduct. Lady Oxford, he reflected, must be in a
+fine flutter, for assuredly she would have sent for the news-sheet the
+first thing.
+
+Montague tapped the pocket in which were her ladyship's letters, and
+smiled. Her anxieties would be very suitable to a certain plan of his
+own.
+
+He walked straight to Queen's Square and knocked at the door. It
+seemed to him purely providential that the man who opened the door was
+the big lackey whom he had seen in Ryder Street the night before.
+Montague looked him over again and said, 'I think that I saw you last
+night in Ryder Street.'
+
+He had some further conversation with the lackey, and money passed
+between them. But the conversation was of the shortest, for her
+ladyship, in a fever of impatience, and bearing every mark of a
+sleepless night, ran down the stairs almost before Colonel Montague
+had finished. She gave her hand to him with a pretty negligence, and
+the Colonel bent a wooden face over it, but did not touch the fingers
+with his lips. Then she led the way into the little parlour, and her
+negligence vanished in a second. She was all on fire to know whether
+her letters had been seized or no; yet even at that moment it was not
+in her nature to put a frank question when a devious piece of cajolery
+might serve.
+
+'Corydon!' she said in a whisper of longing, as though Montague was
+the one man her heart was set upon, as though she had never brought
+Mr. Kelly into this very room on a morning of summer two years ago.
+'My Corydon!' she said, and sighed.
+
+'Madam,' said Montague, in a most sudden enthusiasm, 'I think there is
+no poetry in the world like a nursery rhyme.'
+
+Her ladyship could make nothing of the remark.
+
+'A nursery rhyme?' she repeated.
+
+'A nursery rhyme,' repeated the Colonel. '"Will you walk into my
+parlour, said the spider to the fly."'
+
+Lady Oxford looked at him quite gravely.
+
+'I do not in the least understand,' she said. She had a wonderful
+knack of burying her head in the sand and believing that no one spied
+her, as travellers tell of the ostrich. 'But you have a message for
+me, have you not?'
+
+She put the question frankly now, since coquetry had failed.
+
+'I have a packet to deliver to your ladyship,' replied Montague.
+
+Lady Oxford drew a breath and dropped into a chair. 'Thank you! How
+shall I thank you?' she cried; and seeing that Montague made no answer
+whatever, but stood stiff as a ramrod, she became at once all weak
+woman. 'You are very good to me,' she murmured in a very pathetical
+voice.
+
+'Your ladyship owes me no thanks,' replied Montague. 'Your ladyship
+has need of all your gratitude for a gentleman who gave up all that he
+held dear to save your good name.'
+
+He had it on the tip of his tongue to add, 'which was not worth
+saving,' and barely refrained from the words.
+
+Lady Oxford was not abashed by the rebuke. She turned upon the Colonel
+eyes that swam with pity for Mr. Kelly's misfortunes.
+
+'I read that he was taken,' she said sadly. 'Poor gentleman! But he
+should have burnt my letters long ago. They were letters written, as
+we women write, with a careless pen and ill-considered words which
+malice might misconstrue. He should have burnt them, as he swore to
+do; but he broke his word, and so, alas! pays most dearly for his
+fault. Indeed, it grieves me to the heart, and all the more because he
+brought his own sufferings about. So unreasonable we poor women are,'
+and she shook her head, and smiled with a sort of pity for women's
+frail readiness to forgive.
+
+'Madam,' said Montague, growing yet colder, 'it is not for me either
+to construe or to misconstrue the packet which I am to give you, nor
+am I at all concerned to defend a gentleman whom I am proud to name my
+friend.'
+
+The indifference of the speech no doubt stung her ladyship.
+
+'Friend!' she said with a sneer. 'This friendship is surely something
+of the suddenest. I did not even so late as last night notice any
+great cordiality between you.'
+
+'Very likely not,' said Montague. 'Last night there was a trivial
+cause for disagreement upon which to-day we are of one mind.'
+
+Lady Oxford flushed and took another tone.
+
+'You are cruel,' she said. She was not so much insulted as hurt. 'You
+are ungenerous. You are cruel.'
+
+But Colonel Montague was not in a melting mood, and so, 'Give me the
+packet,' she said sullenly.
+
+Montague pressed his hand over his pocket and smiled.
+
+Lady Oxford rose from her chair with a startled face.
+
+'You mean to keep it? To use it?'
+
+'Not to your ladyship's hurt.'
+
+Lady Oxford looked at him with eyes mournful in their reproach.
+
+'Mr. Kelly bade you give these letters back to me at once,' she said;
+and then, with a great fervour of admiration, 'Mr. Kelly would have
+given them back to me at once.' It seemed as though the thought of the
+noble Mr. Kelly was the one thing which now enabled her to keep her
+faith in men.
+
+'Very likely,' replied Montague coolly, who was not at all moved by
+the disparaging comparison of himself with the Parson. 'Mr. Kelly
+would have given them back to you at once had not your ladyship taken
+good care that a few locks and bars should hinder him. But I am not
+Mr. Kelly, and indeed it is well for your ladyship I am not. Had your
+ladyship betrayed _me_, why, when that pretty news-sheet was read out
+last night, I would have stood up before the whole company, and told
+boldly out how your ladyship came by the knowledge which gave you the
+power to betray me.'
+
+The words and the stern voice in which they were spoken stung Lady
+Oxford into a passion. She forgot to deny that she had betrayed Mr.
+Kelly.
+
+'It would have been an infamy!' she cried.
+
+'A harsh critic might say that it would have matched an infamy.'
+
+Her ladyship saw her mistake.
+
+'There was nothing which Mr. Kelly could have said. Mr. Kelly was my
+friend, as I have told you frankly; but I did not betray him.'
+
+'Your ladyship's livery is blue and silver, I think--a pretty notable
+livery even at night, as I had occasion to remark in Ryder Street.'
+
+Lady Oxford was put out of countenance.
+
+'What am I to do to earn the packet which is mine?' she asked
+bitterly.
+
+'The simplest thing imaginable. Your ladyship, I fear me, has not
+slept well. What say you to a little country air, with your humble
+servant for a companion? If your ladyship would order your carriage to
+be at your door in an hour's time we might take the air for a while
+together. On our return your ladyship will be refreshed for this
+evening's diversions, and I shall be the lighter by a packet of
+letters.'
+
+Lady Oxford did not know what to make of the Colonel's proposal, but
+she perforce consented to it.
+
+'I obey your orders,' said she bitterly; and Montague went back to
+Wogan, whom he found sitting on the edge of the bed and disconsolately
+swinging his legs.
+
+'I have a letter for you from Lord Sidney Beauclerk,' said Montague.
+
+It was a very polite letter, and assured Mr. Wogan that he would on no
+account fight with him in England; but would cut his throat somewhere
+in France with the greatest friendliness possible.
+
+'Very well,' said Wogan, 'but I have to reach France first.'
+
+'You will start in an hour's time,' said Montague.
+
+'In broad daylight?' asked Wogan. 'And what of the ill wind and the
+sore throat that's like to come of it?'
+
+'I have got a fine coat to protect the throat.'
+
+Montague went outside and cried down the stairs to know whether a
+parcel had been brought into the house. The parcel was carried
+upstairs into Mr. Wogan's room. The Colonel unwrapped it, and spread
+out on the bed a blue and silver livery.
+
+'A most distasteful garb,' said Wogan.
+
+'It is indeed not what we would choose for the descendant of kings,'
+murmured Montague gently as he smoothed out the coat.
+
+'Viceroys, Colonel, viceroys.'
+
+'Viceroys, then, Mr. Wogan; but no doubt they murdered, and robbed,
+and burned, and ravished, just like kings. Besides, you have an
+example. For I seem to have heard of another Wogan, who went to
+Innspruck as a shopkeeper.'
+
+'To be sure,' cried Nick. 'That is the finest story in the world. It
+was my brother Charles--'
+
+'You shall tell me that story another time,' said Montague, and Wogan
+stripped off his clothes.
+
+'Will you tell me what I am to do when I am dressed?'
+
+'You will go to a certain house.'
+
+'Yes,' said Wogan, and pulled on the lackey's breeches.
+
+'At the house you will find a carriage.'
+
+'I shall find a carriage.' Wogan drew on a stocking.
+
+'You will mount behind as though you were a footman from the house.'
+
+'A footman from the house,' repeated Wogan, and he pulled on the other
+stocking.
+
+'I shall get into the carriage with a companion. You won't know me.
+The carriage will drive off. You won't speak a word for fear your
+brogue should betray you.'
+
+'I will whisper my opinions to you in English, Colonel,' said Wogan as
+he fastened his garters.
+
+'I don't think you could,' said Montague, 'and certainly you will not
+try. We shall drive to the almshouses at Dulwich. When we get there, I
+will make an excuse to stop the carriage.'
+
+'You won't be alone, then?'
+
+'No. Let me see. It is a fine sunny day. I will say that my watch is
+stopped, and I will send you to see the time by the sundial in the
+court.'
+
+Wogan buttoned his waistcoat.
+
+'I will bring you the exact minute.'
+
+'No you won't. You will cross the court to the chapel, by the chapel
+you will find a path, and the path will lead you out through an arch
+into another road, bordered with chestnut trees.'
+
+'And when I am in the road?' Wogan tied his cravat.
+
+'You will find my groom with a horse. The horse will be saddled. There
+will be pistols in the holsters, and then your patron saint or the
+devil must help you to get out of the country.'
+
+'I have a friend or two on the coast of Sussex who will do as well,'
+said Wogan, and he drew the coat over his shoulders, 'and I am very
+grateful to you. But sure, Colonel, what if a constable pulls me off
+the carriage by the leg before we are out of London? You will be
+dipped yourself.'
+
+'There's no fear of that if you hold your tongue.'
+
+Wogan took up his hat.
+
+'And who is to be your companion?'
+
+Montague hesitated.
+
+'My companion will be a lady.'
+
+'Oh! And where's the house with the carriage waiting at the door?'
+
+'In Queen's Square, Westminster.
+
+Wogan looked at his clothes.
+
+'I am wearing her damned livery,' he cried. 'No, I will stay and be
+hanged like a gentleman, but I take no favours at Lady Oxford's hand,'
+and in a passion he began to tear off the clothes.
+
+'She offers none,' said Montague. 'She knows nothing of what I intend.
+I would not trust her. If you have to stand behind, I have to drive by
+her side; and upon my word I would sooner be in your place. Her
+ladyship's footman for an hour! Man, are you so proud that your life
+cannot make up for the humiliation? Why, I have been her lapdog for a
+year.'
+
+Wogan stopped, with one arm out of the sleeve of his coat. The notion
+that her ladyship was not helping him, but that, on the contrary, he
+was tricking her, gave the business a quite different complexion.
+
+'D'ye see? The one place in London where the King's Messengers will
+not look to find you is the footboard of Lady Oxford's carriage,'
+urged Montague.
+
+There was reason in the argument: it was the same argument which Mr.
+Wogan had used to persuade Mr. Kelly to go to Queen's Square the
+evening before, and now he suffered it to persuade himself.
+
+Wogan drew on the coat again, pulled his peruke about his face, and
+drew his hat forward on his forehead.
+
+'Now follow me. It is a fortunate thing we are close to her ladyship's
+house.'
+
+Montague walked quickly to Queen's Square. Wogan followed ten yards
+behind. As they turned into the square they saw Lady Oxford's carriage
+waiting at the door.
+
+'Does the coachman know?' asked Wogan, lounging up to the Colonel and
+touching his hat with his forefinger.
+
+'The lackey whose place you took has primed him.'
+
+At the door Mr. Wogan climbed up to the footboard while Montague
+entered the house. In a minute Lady Oxford came out, and was handed
+into the carriage by the Colonel. She did not look at her new lackey,
+but gave an order to the coachman and the carriage drove off. Mr.
+Wogan began to discover a certain humour in the manner of his escape
+which tickled him mightily. He noticed more than one of his
+acquaintances who would have been ready to lay him by the heels, and
+once Lady Oxford made a little jump in her seat and would have stopped
+the coachman had not Colonel Montague prevented her. For Lord Sidney
+Beauclerk stood on the path gazing at her ladyship and the Colonel
+with a perplexed and glowing countenance. Mr. Wogan winked and shook a
+friendly foot at him from the back of the carriage, and his lordship
+was fairly staggered at the impertinence of her ladyship's footman. So
+they drove out past the houses and between the fields.
+
+Colonel Montague was plainly in a great concern lest Lady Oxford
+should turn round and discover who rode behind her. He talked with
+volubility about the beauty of spring and the blue skies and the green
+fields, and uttered a number of irreproachable sentiments about them.
+Lady Oxford, however, it seemed, had lost her devotion to a country
+life, and was wholly occupied with the Colonel's indifference to
+herself. Her vanity put her to a great many shifts, which kept her
+restless and Mr. Wogan in a pucker lest she should turn round. Now it
+was her cloak that, with an ingenious jerk, she slipped off her
+shoulders, and the Colonel must hoist it on again; now it was her
+glove that was too small, and the Colonel must deny the imputation and
+admire her Liliputian hand, which he failed to do; now his advice was
+asked upon the proper shape of a patch at the corner of the mouth, and
+a winsome, smiling face was bent to him that he might judge without
+any prejudice. The Colonel, however, remained cold, and Wogan was
+sorely persuaded to lean over and whisper in his ear:
+
+'Flatter her, soften your face and adore her, and she will be quiet as
+a cat purring in front of a fire.'
+
+For it was solely his indifference that pricked her. Had he pretended
+a little affection, she would have whistled him off without any
+regret, but she could not endure that he should discard her of his own
+free will. This, however, Colonel Montague did not know; he had not
+Mr. Wogan's experience of the sex, and so Lady Oxford restlessly
+practised her charms upon him until they came to the gates of the
+almshouses at Dulwich.
+
+Then Colonel Montague cried to the coachman to halt.
+
+'Or would your ladyship go further?' he asked, and pulled his watch
+out of his fob to see the time. But his watch had unaccountably
+stopped. 'Nay, there's a sundial in the court there,' he said, and
+over his shoulder bade the lackey go and look at it. The lackey
+climbed down from the footboard. At the same moment Colonel Montague
+bade the coachman turn, and since the lackey kept at the back of the
+carriage as it turned, Lady Oxford did not catch a glimpse of him. The
+lackey walked through the gates, crossed the grass to the chapel
+without troubling his head about the sundial, ran down the passage and
+under the archway into a quiet road shaded with chestnut trees and
+laburnums. Colonel Montague's groom was walking a horse up and down
+the road. Wogan mounted the horse, thrust his feet into the stirrups,
+and took the air into his chest with incomparable contentment.
+
+The afternoon sunlight shone through the avenue and glistened on the
+laburnum flowers. But there is another sort of yellow flower that
+blooms from the mouth of a pistol barrel with which Mr. Wogan was at
+that moment more concerned, and he unstrapped the holsters and looked
+to the priming to see whether the buds were ready to burst. Then he
+drove his heels into his horse's flanks and so rode down between the
+chestnut trees. 'Your ladyship, we need wait no longer,' said Montague
+to Lady Oxford. 'Your footman will not come back, and I have the
+honour to return you your packet of letters.'
+
+With that he drew the letters from his pocket, sealed up in a parcel
+with Mr. Kelly's ring. Lady Oxford clutched them tight to her bosom,
+and lay back in the carriage, her eyes closed. The coachman drove back
+to London.
+
+They had gone almost half the way before Lady Oxford recovered
+sufficiently from her joy to have a thought for anything but the
+letters. Then she looked at Montague, and her eyes widened.
+
+'The footman!' she said. 'Ah! I have saved Mr. Kelly after all. I have
+saved him!'
+
+The Colonel might have pointed out that whatever saving had been done,
+Lady Oxford had taken but an involuntary hand in it. But he merely
+shrugged his shoulders; he imagined her anxiety on Mr. Kelly's account
+to be all counterfeit, although, may be, she was sincere.
+
+'Mr. Kelly,' he said, 'is most likely in the Tower. Your footman was
+Mr. Nicholas Wogan.'
+
+Lady Oxford was silent for some little time. Then in a low, broken
+voice she said:
+
+'There was no need you should have so distrusted me.'
+
+Montague glanced at her curiously. Her face had a new look to him. It
+was thoughtful, but with a certain simplicity in the thoughtfulness;
+compunction saddened it, and it seemed there was no artifice in the
+compunction.
+
+'Madam,' he answered gently, 'if I had told you, and the manner of Mr.
+Wogan's escape became known, you might fall under the imputation of
+favouring Mr. Wogan's cause.'
+
+Lady Oxford thanked him with a shy look, and they drove back among the
+streets. Neither of them spoke until they reached Queen's Square, but
+Colonel Montague was again very gentle as he handed her from the
+carriage and bade her good-bye. Lady Oxford's discretion was to seek.
+The Colonel seemed to be in a relenting mood; she could not resist the
+temptation.
+
+'My Corydon!' she whispered under her breath.
+
+Montague's face hardened in an instant.
+
+'My Phylinda!' he replied. 'No, I should say my Smilissa. Madam, there
+is, in truth, some family likeness between the names, and perhaps it
+would be better if I said simply "Lady Oxford."'
+
+So the Colonel got his foot out of the net. Her ladyship made no
+answer to his sneer, but bowed her head and passed slowly into her
+house. Montague had struck harder than he had intended, and would
+gladly have recalled the words. But the door was closed, and the
+strange woman out of sight and hearing. He walked away to his lodging
+in Ryder Street, very well content with his day's work, and opening
+the door of his parlour on the first floor was at once incommoded by a
+thick fog of tobacco-smoke. But through the fog he saw, comfortably
+stretched in his best armchair, with his peruke pushed back and his
+waistcoat unbuttoned, a lackey in Lady Oxford's livery. Montague
+lifted up his voice and swore.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXV
+
+ HOW THE MINIATURE OF LADY OXFORD CAME BY
+ A MISCHANCE.
+
+
+'I lent you the swiftest horse I have,' said Montague.
+
+'It is just for that reason I am back before you,' replied Wogan.
+
+Colonel Montague at once became punctilious to the last degree. He
+stood correct in the stiffest attitude of military deportment. A
+formal politeness froze the humanity out of his face.
+
+'This makes me very ridiculous, Mr. Wogan,' he said in a tone of
+distaste. 'If you will pardon the remark, I was at some pains and
+perhaps a little risk to get you safe out of London. You accepted my
+services, as it seemed, and yet here you are back in London! Indeed
+this makes me very ridiculous.'
+
+Mr. Wogan had quite forgotten that Colonel Montague was an Englishman,
+and so hated ridicule worse than the devil. He was briskly reminded of
+the fact, and having ruffled the gentleman's feelings, must now set to
+work to soothe them.
+
+'It is very true, Colonel. My behaviour looks uncommonly like a breach
+of good taste. But it was not for the purpose of playing a trick on
+you that I came back into danger, when I was safe upon the back of
+your beautiful horse. Sure, never have I ridden a nobler beast. A
+mouth of velvet, a leg tapered like a fine lady's finger, a coat--sir,
+I have seen the wonderful manufactures of Lyons. There never was silk
+so smooth or of so bright a gloss, as the noble creature's coat. He
+spurned the earth, at each moment he threatened to float among the
+clouds. Sure, that horse was the original of Pegasus in a direct
+descent. A true horse, and more than a horse, a copy of all that is
+best in England, an example of what is most English and therefore most
+admired, the true English military gentleman.'
+
+'Mr. Wogan,' interrupted Montague, with a grim sort of smile, 'you are
+likely to learn a little more particularly about the velvet mouth of
+the English military gentleman if you continue to praise his horse at
+the expense of his sense. Will you tell me why you have come back?'
+
+'You have a right to ask that, Colonel, but I have no right to answer
+you. It is a private affair wherein others are concerned. I should
+have remembered it before, but I did not. It only came into my mind
+when I was riding between the chestnut trees, and leaving my friend
+behind me.'
+
+Colonel Montague was silent for a little.
+
+'In another man, Mr. Wogan, I should suspect an intention to meddle
+with these plots. But I have no need to remind you that such a
+proceeding would not be fair to me. And if Mr. Kelly's concerns have
+brought you back I cannot complain. Meanwhile how are you to lie
+hidden? I cannot keep you here.'
+
+'There are one or two earths, Colonel, which are not yet stopped, I
+have no doubt. I did but take the liberty to use your lodging until it
+grew dark.'
+
+The evening was falling while Wogan and Montague thus talked together.
+Wogan wrote a letter which he put into his pocket, and holding the
+ends of his wig in his mouth, without any fear ran the hazard of the
+streets.
+
+Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was that evening adorning herself for a
+masquerade in her house, when word was carried to her that Lady
+Oxford's big lackey was below and had brought a letter. Lady Mary had
+no sooner glanced at the superscription than she sent her maid
+downstairs to bring the lackey immediately to her boudoir. Thither he
+came without awaking suspicion in the servants, and found Lady Mary
+sitting in front of her toilette, which was all lighted up with
+candles, and the rest of the room dark.
+
+Mr. Wogan remained in a dark corner by the door.
+
+'You have a message from Lady Oxford,' said she, carelessly holding
+out a hand as though to take a letter.
+
+'By word of mouth, your ladyship,' replied Wogan in a disguised voice.
+
+Lady Mary dismissed her maid and spoke in considerable heat:
+
+'Colonel Montague told me you had escaped.'
+
+'I have come back,' replied Wogan coolly, who had no reason to think
+he had justly incurred Lady Mary's anger, and so made no account of
+it.
+
+'It is sheer madness,' she exclaimed, 'and yet no more mad than it is
+for your friends to take precautions for your safety,' and she dabbed
+a patch on her cheek viciously. 'Why have you come back?'
+
+'Your ladyship has not forgotten how some while ago Lady Oxford paid
+her losses at cards.'
+
+Lady Mary raised her head from her mirror and looked at Wogan.
+
+'With Mr. Kelly's winnings from the South Sea,' said she.
+
+'Your ladyship was kind enough then to say that you would not count
+the money yours.'
+
+'I remember.'
+
+'But would keep it, since you could not return it to George, until
+such time as it could be used on his behalf.'
+
+Lady Mary took a key from a drawer in her toilette and, unlocking a
+cabinet in a corner of the room, showed Wogan a parcel of bills of
+exchange lying amongst a heap of guineas.
+
+'The moment for using it has come,' said Wogan.
+
+'Take it, then,' said Lady Mary, who now asked for no explanations.
+
+'No. It is only of use if your ladyship uses it.'
+
+'How?'
+
+Lady Mary went back to her toilette and busied herself with a number
+of little silver pots and boxes, while Wogan disclosed his plan.
+
+'George was taken last night in his lodging, as your ladyship is no
+doubt aware. It is a large sum that Lady Oxford lost at cards, and a
+large sum might perhaps bail George, if a trusted Whig were the
+surety. He would have some few weeks of liberty, at all events.'
+
+'Some few weeks that are like to cost you your life,' said Lady Mary,
+who was now grown friendly. 'It was to tell me this you came back. I
+should have guessed.'
+
+'Madam, I shall never believe my life's in danger until I am dead,'
+replied Wogan, with a laugh.
+
+'I will see what the money can do to-morrow,' said Lady Mary. 'Where
+shall I have news of you? Or very likely I am to meet you at
+Ranelagh?'
+
+Wogan disclaimed any such bravado, and told her ladyship of a house
+where she might hear of him if she sent by night and if her messenger
+knocked in a particular way. To that house he now bent his steps, and
+stayed there that night and the next day. It was already dark when the
+particular knock sounded on the door, and Mr. Wogan lifted a corner of
+the blind and peered down into the street. What he saw brought him
+down the stairs in a single bound; he opened the door cautiously, and
+who should slip in but the Parson.
+
+'Nick!' said he, in a warm voice. His hand clasped Wogan's in the
+dark. 'Thanks, thanks!'
+
+It appeared that Lady Mary, after seeing that George was bailed out,
+had told him that the notion of bailing him was none of hers.
+Moreover, in order to make sure Smilinda's letters were safe, Kelly
+had gone as soon as he was released to Colonel Montague, who told him
+of Wogan's return to London and other matters of no importance, so
+that he now wasted a great deal of time in superfluous compliments.
+'But you shall not lose your life on my account, Nick. Montague's
+horse, which it seems you have taken a liking to,' he said, with a
+smile, 'will be waiting for you at twelve o'clock to-night at Dulwich,
+and in the same road; but, Nick, this time you will have to walk to
+Dulwich. There is a warrant out for you. You can slip away with a
+better chance on foot; and, Nick, this time you will not come back.
+Promise me that.'
+
+Wogan promised readily enough.
+
+'I brought the Colonel into some danger of suspicion by returning
+before,' he said. 'It is a strange thing, George, that, while our
+friends have left us in the lurch, we should owe, I my escape, you
+your few weeks of liberty, to perfectly inveterate Whigs, though how
+you came to an understanding with the Colonel is quite beyond me to
+imagine.'
+
+'I will tell you that now, Nick, since you have an hour to spare;'
+and, going up to Wogan's room, Mr. Kelly related to him the story of
+his meeting with the Colonel in the Park, of the disturbance with the
+Messengers in his rooms, and of the saving of Smilinda, and how his
+love for Rose urged him to it. It was eight o'clock when he had come
+to an end. Mr. Wogan heard the clocks striking the hour.
+
+'It will take me an hour to get to Dulwich,' he said, 'so I have three
+hours to spare. George, have you seen Rose?'
+
+'No; but she knows that I am free, for Lady Mary sent the news to
+her.'
+
+'That's a pity,' said Wogan, pursing his lips.
+
+'On the contrary, it was not the least kind of Lady Mary's many
+kindnesses,' said George, who was astonished at Mr. Wogan's cruelty,
+that would have left the girl in her anxieties a moment longer than
+was necessary. 'Had she not heard the news till it was stale, she
+would never have forgiven me--she that has forgiven me so much,' said
+he, with more sentiment than logic.
+
+'Oh,' said Wogan, 'she has forgiven you so much? My young friend, you
+are very certain upon a very uncertain point. There's that little
+matter of her ladyship's miniature.'
+
+Mr. Kelly looked anxiously at Wogan.
+
+'True,' said he; 'I told her a lie about it at Avignon, and made out
+it was the likeness of Queen Clementina.'
+
+'The lie is the smallest part of the difficulty. She wore the
+miniature, and wore it in Lady Oxford's withdrawing-room. There's the
+trouble, for there's the humiliation.'
+
+'But, Nick,' said Kelly, 'she forgave it. Didn't I escort her to her
+chair? Didn't I feel her hand upon the sleeve of my coat?'
+
+'Oh! she carried herself very bravely, never a doubt of that. For one
+thing, you were in peril; and, to be sure, she will have kept a liking
+for you at the worst of it. For another, Lady Oxford was there, and
+Lady Oxford was not to win the day. My little friend Rose is a girl of
+an uncommon spirit, and would hold her own against any woman, for all
+her modest ways. But, just because she has spirit, she will not meekly
+forgive you. If you expect her to droop humbly on to your bosom, you
+are entirely in the wrong of it. 'Oons! but it must have been a hard
+blow to her pride when she found she was in Lady Oxford's house, and
+knew who Lady Oxford was, and had that miniature about her throat.
+Will she forgive you at all? The best you have to hope is that she
+will be content with making your head sing. That she will do for a
+sure thing; and I think--'
+
+'What?' asked the Parson. The danger of life, the Messengers, the
+angry Colonel, had only raised his blood; the fear of Rose drove it to
+his heart. He was now plainly scared.
+
+'I think it was the greatest pity imaginable that Lady Mary sent word
+to her you were free. For, d'ye see, if you had dropped upon Rose
+suddenly, and she thinking you locked up in a dark prison and your
+head already loose upon your shoulders, why, you might have surprised
+her into a forgetfulness of her pride; but now she will be prepared
+for your coming. I think, George, I will walk along with you as far as
+Soho, since I have three hours to kick my heels in.'
+
+'Will you, Nick?' cried George eagerly; and then, with his nose in the
+air, 'But I have no fears whatever. She is a woman in a thousand.' He
+was, none the less, evidently relieved when Wogan clapped his hat on
+his head. The night was dark, and Wogan in his livery had no fears of
+detection.
+
+The two men walked through by-streets until they came to Piccadilly.
+The Parson was nerving himself for the meeting, but would not allow
+that he was in the least degree afraid. 'A trivial woman would think
+of nothing but her humiliation and her slight, but Rose is, as you
+say, of an uncommon spirit, Nick,' he argued.
+
+Nick, however, preserved a majestic silence, which daunted the Parson,
+who desired arguments to confute. They were by this time come into
+Bond Street, and Mr. Kelly, who must be talking, declared with a great
+fervour, 'There are no limits to a woman's leniencies. Black errors
+she will pardon; charity is her father and her mother; she has an
+infinity of forgiveness, wherefore with truth we place her among the
+angels.' Upon that text he preached most eloquently all the way up
+Bond Street, past the New Building, until he came to the corner of
+Frith Street in Soho. In Frith Street, all at once the Parson's
+assurance was shown to be counterfeit. He caught at his friend's arm.
+
+'Nick,' said he, in a quavering, humble voice, 'it is in Frith Street
+she lives. What am I to do at all? I am the most ignorant man, and a
+coward into the bargain. Nick, I have done the unpardonable thing.
+What am I to do now?'
+
+Thus the Parson twittered in a most deplorable agitation. Mr. Wogan,
+on the contrary, was very calm. It was just in these little
+difficulties, which require an intimate knowledge of the sex, that he
+felt himself most at home. He stroked his chin thoughtfully.
+
+'Nick,' and George shook the arm he held, 'sure you can advise me. You
+have told me so often of your great comprehension of women. Sure, you
+know all there is to be known about them, at all.'
+
+'No, not quite all,' said Wogan, with a proper modesty. 'But here I
+think I can help you. Which is the house?'
+
+Kelly pointed it out. A couple of windows shone very bright upon the
+dark street, a few feet above their heads. Looking upwards they could
+see the ceiling of the room and the globe of a lamp reflected on the
+ceiling, but no more.
+
+'It is in that room she will be sitting,' whispered the Parson.
+
+'And waiting for you,' added Mr. Wogan grimly.
+
+'And waiting for me,' repeated the Parson with a shiver.
+
+They both stared for a little at the ceiling and the shadow of the
+lamp.
+
+'Now, if the ceiling would only tell us something of her face,' said
+Kelly.
+
+'It would be as well to have a look at her,' said Wogan. The street
+was quite deserted. 'Will you give me a back'?
+
+The house was separated from the path by an iron railing a couple of
+feet from the wall. The Parson set his legs apart and steadied himself
+by the railing, while Wogan climbed up and knelt on to his shoulders.
+In that position he was able to lean forward and catch hold of the
+sill. His forehead was on a level with the sill. By craning his neck
+he could just look into the room.
+
+'Is she there?' asked the Parson.
+
+'Yes, and alone.'
+
+'How does she look? Not in tears? Nick, don't tell me she's in tears.'
+The Parson's legs became unsteady at the mere supposition of such a
+calamity.
+
+'Make yourself easy upon that point,' said Wogan, clinging for dear
+life to the sill, 'there's never a trace of a tear about her at all.
+For your sake, George, I could wish that there was. Her eyes are as
+dry as a campaigner's biscuits. Oh, George, I am in despair for you.'
+
+'Nick, you are the most consoling friend,' groaned the Parson, who now
+wished for tears more than anything else in the world. 'What is she
+doing?'
+
+'Nothing at all. She is sitting at the table. George, have you ever
+noticed her chin? It is a sort of decisive chin, and upon my word,
+George, it has the ugliest jilting look that ever I saw. She has just
+the same look in her big grey eyes, which are staring at nothing at
+all. Keep still, George, or you will throw me.'
+
+For the Parson was become as uneasy as a restive horse.
+
+'But, Nick, is she doing nothing at all? Is she reading?'
+
+'No, she is doing nothing but expect you. But she is expecting you.
+Steady, for if I tumble off your shoulders the noise will bring her to
+the windows.'
+
+The menace had its effect. Mr. Kelly's limbs became pillars of marble,
+and Wogan again looked into the room.
+
+'Wait a moment,' he said, 'I see what she is doing. She is staring at
+something she holds in her hands.'
+
+'My likeness?' cried the Parson hopefully. 'To be sure it will be
+that.'
+
+'I will tell you in a moment. Hold on to the railings, George.'
+
+George did as he was bid, and Wogan, still holding to the window-sill
+very cautiously, stood up on his friend's shoulders. George, however,
+seemed quite insensible to Mr. Wogan's weight.
+
+'It will be my likeness,' he repeated to himself. 'I had it done for
+her by Mr. Zincke. I was right, Nick; she has forgiven me altogether.'
+
+Mr. Wogan's head was now well above the window-sill, and he looked
+downwards upon Rose, who sat at the table.
+
+'Yes, it's a likeness,' said Nick.
+
+'I told you. I told you,' said the Parson. The man began to wriggle
+with satisfaction. 'You are wrong, Nick. You know nothing at all about
+women, after all. Come down, you vainglorious boaster.' It seemed he
+was about to cut capers with Mr. Wogan on his shoulders.
+
+'Wait,' said Nick suddenly, and hitched himself higher.
+
+'Nick, she will see you.'
+
+'No, she's occupied. George!'
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'It's Lady Oxford's miniature she is staring at, and not yours at
+all.'
+
+The Parson grew quite stiff and rigid.
+
+'Are you sure?' he whispered, in an awe-stricken voice.
+
+'I can see the diamonds flashing. 'Faith my friend, but I had done
+better to have let you throw them into the sea at Genoa.'
+
+A groan broke from the Parson.
+
+'Why didn't you, Nick? What am I to do now?'
+
+'I can see the face. 'Tis the miniature of her ladyship that you gave
+out to be Queen Clementina's. Did you ever meet Gaydon, George?' he
+asked curiously.
+
+'Gaydon?' asked Kelly. 'What in the world has Gaydon to do with Rose?'
+
+'Listen, and I'll inform you. He told my brother Charles a very pretty
+story of the Princess Clementina. It seems that when she escaped out
+of her perils and came to Bologna to marry the Chevalier, who had,
+just at the moment when he expected his bride, unaccountably retired
+into Spain, she stayed at Bologna, and so, picking up the gossip of
+the town, expressed a great desire to visit the Caprara Palace. 'Twas
+there the lady lived who had consoled the Chevalier in his anxieties.
+No doubt he never expected the Princess to get out of the Emperor's
+prison. But Charles got her out, and here was she at Bologna. To be
+sure, the Princess was a most natural woman, eh? And when she came to
+the Caprara Palace she asked to be shown the portrait of the Princess
+de la Caprara. That was more natural still. Gaydon describes how she
+looked at the portrait, and describes very well. For sure Rose is
+looking at Lady Oxford's in just the same way.'
+
+'That's good news, Nick,' said Kelly, grasping at a straw of comfort.
+'For the Princess Clementina forgave.'
+
+'Ah, but there's a difference I did not remark at the first. I
+remember Gaydon said the Princess turned very red, while your little
+friend Rose, on the contrary, is white to the edge of her lips. Sure,
+red forgives, when white will not. George,' and Mr. Wogan ducked his
+head beneath the window-ledge, 'she is coming to the window! For the
+love of mercy don't move, or she will hear!'
+
+George pressed himself close to the railings. Wogan hunched himself
+against the wall in the most precarious attitude. Would she open the
+window? Would she see them? Both men quaked as they asked themselves
+the question, though they had come thither for no other purpose but to
+see her and be seen of her. Wogan threw a glance over his shoulder to
+where the light of the window fell upon the road. But no shadow
+obscured it.
+
+'Sure, she's not coming to the window at all,' said Nick.
+
+'Oh, Nick,' whispered the Parson, 'you made my heart jump into my
+throat.'
+
+Wogan drew his head up level with the window again, and again ducked.
+
+'She is standing looking towards the window with the likeness in her
+hand,' and he scrambled to the ground, where the pair of them stood
+looking at one another, and then to the house, and from the house down
+the street. Wogan was the first to find his tongue.
+
+'It is a monstrous thing,' said he, and he thumped his chest, 'that a
+mere slip of a girl should frighten two grown men to death.'
+
+Mr. Kelly thumped his chest too, but without any assurance.
+
+'Nick, I must look for myself,' he said.
+
+Footsteps sounded a little distance down the street, and sounded
+louder the next moment. A man was approaching; they waited until he
+had passed, and then Mr. Kelly climbed on to Wogan's shoulders, and in
+his turn looked into the room.
+
+'Nick!' he whispered in a voice of awe.
+
+'What is she doing?'
+
+'She has thrown Smilinda's likeness on the ground. She is stamping on
+it with her heel. She is grinding it all in pieces.'
+
+'And the beautiful diamonds? Look if she picks them up, George!'
+
+'No; she pays no heed to the stones. It is the likeness she thinks of.
+It was in pieces a moment ago; it is all powder now,' and he groaned.
+
+'George, it is an ill business. When a woman spurns diamonds you may
+be sure she is in a mortal fluster. It's a Gorgon you have to meet--a
+veritable Gorgon.'
+
+Mr. Kelly slid from Wogan's shoulders to the ground.
+
+'What will I do, Nick?'
+
+Nick bit his thumb, then threw his shoulders back.
+
+'I am not afraid of her,' said he. 'No, I am not. I have done nothing
+to anger or humiliate her. I am not afraid of her at all--not the
+least in the world. I will go in myself. I will beard her just to show
+you I am not at all afraid of her.'
+
+'Will you do that? Nick, you _are_ a friend,' cried Kelly, who was
+most reasonably startled by his friend's heroism.
+
+'To be sure I will,' said Nick, looking up at the window. 'I am not
+afraid of her. A little slip of a girl! Why should we fear her at all?
+Haven't we killed men more than once? Do you wait here, George. If I
+hold my hand up at the window with my fingers open--so, you may come
+in. But if I hold up a clenched fist, you had best go home as fast as
+your legs can carry you. You see, the case is different with you. I
+have no reason whatever to be frightened at her.'
+
+He knocked at the door, and in a little the door was opened. 'Not the
+least bit in the world!' he stopped to say to Mr. Kelly in the street.
+Then he stepped into the passage.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVI
+
+ MR. WOGAN TRADUCES HIS FRIEND, WITH THE
+ HAPPIEST CONSEQUENCES
+
+
+Mr. Wogan's title of Hilton was now, thanks to the _Flying Post_, as
+familiar as his name; he refused both the one and the other to the
+servant, and was admitted to Rose Townley without any formalities. Her
+eyes flashed as they remarked his livery, but she was not in any
+concern about Mr. Wogan, and asked him no questions. She rose with the
+utmost coldness, did not give him her hand, and only the bare mockery
+of a bow, as though her indignation against Mr. Kelly was so complete
+that it must needs embrace his friend.
+
+'I thought that he would have plucked up enough courage to come
+himself,' said she, with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.
+
+'He is a man of the meanest spirit,' replied Wogan, in a sullen
+agreement. 'It is a strange thing how easily one may be misled. Here
+have I been going up and down the world with him for years, and I
+never knew him until now, never knew the black heart of him, and his
+abominable perfidies.'
+
+Rose was taken aback by Wogan's speech. No doubt she expected a
+hotch-potch of excuses and arguments on Mr. Kelly's behalf, which
+would but have confirmed her in her own opinion; but falling in with
+her views, he took the words out of her mouth.
+
+'So,' she said doubtfully, 'he has lost your friendship too?'
+
+'To be sure,' cried Wogan in a heat, 'would you have me keep friends
+with a vile wretch whose thoughts writhe at the bottom of his soul
+like a poisonous nest of vipers?'
+
+Rose neither answered the question nor expressed any approval of
+Wogan's elegant figure describing Mr. Kelly's mind.
+
+'Oh,' said she, 'then he did not send you to make his peace with me?'
+
+Wogan answered with all the appearances of reluctance.
+
+'No. In fact the man was coming himself, and with a light heart. He
+made a great to-do about the infinite fairness and charity of women,
+which place them equal to the angels, and how you excelled all women
+in that and other womanly qualities. But I told him, on the contrary,
+that I knew your spirit, and that you were of too noble a pride to
+shut your eyes to a slight, and would certainly dismiss him. However,
+he would not be persuaded, so I slipped away from him and ran here, so
+that I might warn you against him.'
+
+Rose forgot to thank Mr. Wogan for his zeal on her behalf. Indeed her
+face, in spite of herself, had lightened for a second; in spite of
+herself her eyes had sparkled when Wogan spoke of the great faith Mr.
+Kelly had in her charity.
+
+'It was more than a slight,' she said, 'I could forgive a slight--He
+would have come himself had not you prevented him.'
+
+'But he is coming. He would have been here already, but that he paid a
+visit on the way to Colonel Montague to discover whether Lady Oxford's
+letters had been restored to her.'
+
+'Lady Oxford's letters!' exclaimed Rose, her face flushing again with
+anger.
+
+'To be sure,' said Wogan, 'you would know nothing of them. It is a
+fine story--the story of Lady Oxford's love-letters.'
+
+'I have no wish to hear it,' cried Rose sharply, and she turned
+towards the window. Mr. Wogan took a quick step towards her. If she
+looked out of the window she could hardly fail to observe the Parson.
+
+'Nor is it a story that you should hear,' said Wogan in a soothing
+voice, 'though indeed to hear it from Mr. Kelly's lips would surely
+make you aware of his devilish sophistries. For he declares that, but
+for you, Lady Oxford's love-letters would never have been restored to
+her, nor would he have gone to prison and put his neck in the noose.'
+
+Rose shivered at those last words and drew in her breath. She turned
+quickly back to Wogan.
+
+'But for me?' she asked. 'What have I to do with Lady Oxford's
+love-letters, or with his danger?' and her voice softened towards the
+end of the sentence.
+
+'Why, Lady Oxford, who knew very well Mr. Kelly's trade, betrayed him
+in revenge for a certain ballad wherein your name was mentioned.'
+
+'Yes,' interrupted Rose, 'Lady Mary told me of the ballad.'
+
+'Well, you heard Mr. Kelly perhaps assure Lady Oxford that he had her
+brocades in his lodging, and perhaps you remarked her ladyship's
+confusion.'
+
+'Yes. I guessed what the brocades were.'
+
+'Very well. Mr. Kelly remained with her Ladyship, who informed him
+that he would be taken outside his door, and his rooms searched. There
+were papers in his rooms of a kind to bring him into great danger. But
+there were also Lady Oxford's letters. The story he will tell you is
+this, that he meant to use Lady Oxford's letters as a weapon by which
+he might save his papers and so himself; but a complete revolution
+took place in his thoughts. He suddenly understood that he owed it to
+you that no woman's name should be smirched by his fault, and that
+thus he was bound, at the peril of his life, to rescue Lady Oxford's
+letters, as he did. A strange chance put it into his hands to burn his
+own papers, and leave Lady Oxford's to be seized, in which case he
+would have been saved, and she lost. But he saved his honour instead,
+and his love for you helped him to it. He rescued her Ladyship's
+letters, his own are in the hands of the Minister.'
+
+Mr. Wogan, who had now secured a most attentive listener, disclosed
+all that Mr. Kelly had told him of what took place in Ryder Street.
+
+'This is the story he will tell you. And to be sure, he adds a pretty
+touch to the pretence. For he went whistling to prison and he says
+that he whistled because he felt as if you were walking by his side.'
+
+'But what if it were no pretence at all?'
+
+Mr. Wogan sagely shook his head, though the story had the stamp of
+truth on it to those who knew the Parson.
+
+'If he had held you in such respect would he have sent you Lady
+Oxford's miniature to wear at Lady Oxford's rout?'
+
+'But he did not send it to me for that purpose,' she cried, 'he did
+not even know that I was going to the rout. He gave me the miniature a
+long time ago, when it would have been very difficult for him to tell
+me whose it was.'
+
+'But he told you it was Queen Clementina's.'
+
+'No. It was I who guessed at that, and he--did not deny it.'
+
+Here at all events was sophistry, but Mr. Wogan was less indignant at
+it than his anger with the Parson's subtleties would lead one to
+expect.
+
+'Well,' said Wogan, 'I have told you what it was my plain duty to
+disclose to you.'
+
+At this moment Wogan chanced to look towards the window. He beheld Mr.
+Kelly's face pressed against the glass. The man had grown impatient
+and so had climbed on to the railings. Mr. Wogan broke off with an
+exclamation he could not repress.
+
+'What is it?' said Rose, turning about.
+
+'Some most beautiful diamonds,' said Wogan, spreading out his hand to
+the window. He then dropped on to the floor and began picking up the
+diamonds which Rose had scattered when she set her foot on the
+miniature. Rose bit her lips, and flushed, as he held them in his
+palm. Then he said carelessly:
+
+'That fine miniature had diamonds set about it. D'ye know, Miss
+Townley, that miniature would have been at the bottom of the sea long
+before Mr. Kelly came to Avignon, but for the diamonds about it. 'Twas
+I held his arm when, having done with her Ladyship, he would also have
+done with her Ladyship's present, and I bade him keep it for the value
+of the jewels.'
+
+There was a loud knocking at the door, which came not a moment earlier
+than was necessary to prevent Mr. Wogan revealing himself as still the
+Parson's friend.
+
+'There's the fellow come to importune you,' said Wogan.
+
+'Then he would have thrown it away but for you,' said Miss Townley
+thoughtfully. 'He did not keep it out of any--'
+
+But Wogan heard the servant pass down to the door, and thought it
+would be as well if he had a private word with the Parson.
+
+'You will excuse me,' he said with dignity, 'but I have no heart for
+the man's company. Besides, I have stayed too long in London as it is.
+Delays would be dangerous.'
+
+But Rose had no ears for any dangers of Mr. Wogan, as he was
+indescribably glad to remark. For her eyes looked past him to the
+door; from head to foot she seemed to listen for the sound of the
+Parson's voice. Mr. Wogan bowed, and opened the door. Though she
+followed him to the door, and held it open as he passed out, she did
+not notice that he was going, she had no word of farewell. She did not
+even notice that Mr. Wogan put the diamonds in his pocket. For Mr.
+Wogan had his wits about him. Diamonds were diamonds, and the carpet
+no place for them. Some day they might be of use to the Parson. The
+door of the street was opened as Wogan stepped into the passage. But
+Rose did not shut the door of the parlour and so Wogan, as he met
+Kelly, could only whisper hurriedly, 'Remember, I am your worst
+enemy,' and so left him to his own resources.
+
+It appeared, however, that they were sufficient. The Parson made no
+excuses whatever; he carried the day by the modesty of his omissions.
+Both with regard to the miniature and to the saving of Smilinda he
+disclosed to her no more than a bald array of facts. He made no parade
+of the part which the thought of Rose had played in the revulsion of
+his feelings, bringing him to see that he was bound in honour to save
+Smilinda's honour; he did not tell her why he went whistling to
+prison. But Rose knew from Wogan of these evidences of his love, and
+no doubt thought of them the more because he would not use them to
+soften her just resentments.
+
+Mr. Wogan left them together, and, walking out to Dulwich, found the
+Colonel's horse waiting in the road between the chestnut trees. He
+came to the coast of Sussex in the morning, where he had friends among
+the smugglers, and lay all that day in a hut within sound of the
+waves. It was a black, melancholy day for Nicholas Wogan, who was
+leaving his friends behind him to face their perils alone, and who
+felt very solitary; not even the memory of the noble deeds of his
+illustrious forefathers had any power to cheer him, until he heard the
+grating noise of the boat's keel as it was dragged down the beach to
+the sea, and saw the sail like a great wing waft up between him and
+the stars.
+
+He got safe to Paris, where he heard of the strange use to which the
+Parson put his few weeks of liberty, for the Parson married Rose
+Townley three weeks later at St. James's Church in Piccadilly, and
+wrote to Mr. Wogan a very warm, human sort of letter which had not one
+single classical allusion to disfigure it. In that letter he gave the
+reasons which had induced him to the marriage.
+
+'I am told,' he wrote, 'that a man so dangerously circumstanced must
+be selfish in the extreme to marry a woman who, in a short while, may,
+at the worst, be widowed; and at the best must be separated from her
+husband in his gaol. I do not fear that you will have so mean an
+opinion of my inclinations, but I would not have you think me careless
+upon this point neither. Dr. Townley is old, and his health breaks. He
+will leave his daughter, when he dies, but little money, and that
+moment cannot be very far off. It is true that Rose has beauty, and no
+doubt she might make a rich marriage if she had only beauty. But she
+has frankness, truth, and constancy as well, qualities which are not
+marketable wares, since those who possess them will not bring them
+into the market. Now, if I suffer death for the Cause, Rose will be no
+poorer than she was before; if, on the other hand, I live, there are
+the booksellers, and from the silence of my prison I can make shift to
+earn for her a decent livelihood.'
+
+As all the world knows, Mr. Kelly lived, and even gained much credit
+by his speech at his trial. He made it plain, to all but prejudiced
+Whigs, that there was no Plot, nor he concerned in any, if there were.
+But what is Whig justice? He was sentenced to prison for life. The
+papers in his strong box were enough to help a foolish fellow,
+Counsellor Layer, on his way to Tyburn, enough to send Lord Orrery to
+the Tower, and Lord North and Grey into exile. The Plot was ruined for
+that time; the Bishop of Rochester was banished, for Mar's traitorous
+mention of the dog Harlequin fixed the guilt on that holy man. Mr.
+Kelly came off with loss of fourteen years of his life, which years he
+passed in the Tower.
+
+It was not, after all, so silent a prison as he imagined it would be.
+For though during the first months his confinement was severe, and he
+never drew air except from between the bars, afterwards this rigour
+was relaxed. He was placed in a room of which one window took the
+morning sun, and the other commanded the river, and the ships going up
+and down with the tide; he was allowed the use of his books, and to
+receive what visitors he would. His visitors were not few, and amongst
+them Colonel Montague was the most frequent. His gaolers, the officers
+who were stationed in the Tower, and their wives, became his familiar
+friends, and it is said that when, after fourteen years, he escaped,
+not a woman in the precincts could make up her mind whether to clap
+her hands for joy, or weep at the loss of his society. Moreover, Rose
+came and went at her pleasure.
+
+The first years of his imprisonment were thus not wholly unhappy
+years. He sat amongst his books translating Cicero, and if at times
+his limbs ached for the stress and activity of his youth, and he began
+to dream of hours in the saddle and starry nights at sea, it was not
+perhaps for very long. He had friends enough to divert his leisure
+moments, and Rose to keep him busy at his work. For what he had
+foreseen came to pass. Two years after Mr. Kelly came to the Tower,
+Dr. Townley died, and left Rose but poorly circumstanced. She came to
+lodge close by the Tower Gates, and the Parson set his pen to his
+paper and wrote essays and translations till the whole Tower of London
+buzzed with his learning, and no doubt a friendly Jacobite here and
+there bought one of his books. Mr. Wogan, indeed, bought them all. He
+has them ranged upon a bookshelf in his lodging at Paris, all bound in
+leather and most dignified; the very print has a sonorous look. 'Mr.
+Kelly's _Opera_' he calls them, and always speaks of the books as
+'tomes' with prodigious respect and perhaps a sigh. For--
+
+'He lacks one quality,' Mr. Wogan was heard to say, 'to set him on the
+pinnacle of fame. He cannot write poetry. It is a trick, no doubt, a
+poor sort of trick; but George had it not, and so when there was
+poetry to be written, he had to come to his friends.'
+
+Thus ten years passed, and then came the black day, when Rose fell
+sick of a fever and must keep her bed. She sent word to George daily
+that he should expect her on the morrow, until a delirium took her,
+and the doctor, who had been charged by Rose to make light of her
+suffering, was now forced to tell Mr. Kelly the truth. She lay at
+death's door, calling on her husband, who could not come to her, and
+talking ever of that little garden at Avignon above the Rhone, in
+which she fancied that he and she now walked.
+
+Mr. Kelly took the news in silence as a dog takes pain, and never
+slept and barely moved while the fever ran its course. Rose was at the
+Tower Gates, George was in his prison; a few yards only were between
+them, but those few yards were built upon with stones. In the daytime
+messages were brought to him often enough, but at night, when the
+mists rose from the river and the gates were closed, and the Parson
+had the dark loitering hours wherein to picture the sick room with its
+dim light and the tired figure tossing from this side to that of the
+bed, then indeed Smilinda had her revenge.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVII
+
+ HOW, BY KEEPING PAROLE, MR. KELLY BROKE
+ PRISON
+
+
+Every morning Mr. Kelly looked for the doctor to come to him with word
+that in the little house without the Tower Gate the blinds were drawn.
+But that message was not brought to him, and Colonel Montague, making
+a visit to the prison, three weeks after Rose fell ill, found the
+Parson sitting very quiet in his chair with a face strangely
+illumined.
+
+'Last night she slept,' said George, 'and waked only at midday. The
+fever has left her, and she will live. It is wonderful.'
+
+The Colonel said what was fitting to the occasion, and the Parson
+replied to him absently, with his eyes upon the river and the boats
+swinging on the tide; and after a while Father Myles Macdonnell, whom
+the Colonel had neither seen nor heard of, was ushered into the room.
+
+The Reverend Father was a kinsman of Parson Kelly, and though their
+acquaintance had been of the slightest, the Parson now turned to him
+with a great welcome. For his thoughts were now entirely bent upon an
+escape from his captivity. He dared not survey the possibility that
+some time Rose might again fall ill, and that again he must sit behind
+the bars and only hear news of how she fared.
+
+The Reverend Myles, who was of the honest party, but not as yet blown
+upon by suspicion, seemed to him his only help and instrument. For a
+long while, when the Colonel had gone, the pair debated the means of
+escape, but found no issue; and Rose brought her white face back to
+the Tower, and the Parson's spirits drooped, so that at last his
+health began to fail. He was therefore allowed to drive out in a coach
+to any place within ten miles of London in the custody of a warder,
+and on his parole to return before dark. Of this favour he made
+frequent use, and no doubt the sight of the busy faces in the streets
+urged him yet more to make a bid for his freedom.
+
+Now these journeys of the Parson to take the air set Father Myles
+Macdonnell upon a pretty plan, which he imparted to Rose and to
+George.
+
+'You drive one afternoon up into Highgate Woods--d'ye follow that? I
+have half-a-dozen well-disposed persons hiding in a clump of trees who
+will take care of your warder--d'ye see? There will be a stout horse
+tethered to a branch close by, and a lugger waiting off the coast of
+Essex--'but the Parson would hear no more of the scheme.
+
+'I have given my parole to come back to the Tower before dark,' said
+he, and glanced at Rose, who was looking away, to strengthen him in
+his objection. 'I cannot break it, can I, Rose? I have given my
+parole. I am not one of the Butcher Cumberland's officers. We must
+keep troth.'
+
+Rose made an effort and agreed.
+
+'Yes,' said she, 'he has given his parole, and he cannot break it.'
+
+'Not so long as he's a lost Protestant,' said the Reverend Father. He
+tapped George on the knee, and continued in a wheedling voice: 'It is
+a matter of religion, d'ye see? Just let me convert you. I can do it
+in a twinkling, and so I shall save your body and your soul in one
+glorious moment.'
+
+'How so? 'asked the Parson with a laugh, for he was by this time well
+used to his kinsman's efforts to convert him. 'How shall a Catholic
+creep out of the Tower more easily than a Protestant?'
+
+'Because a Catholic can break his parole. It's a great sin, to be
+sure, but I can absolve him for it afterwards.'
+
+To Mr. Kelly's thinking (and, indeed, to Mr. Wogan's) this was no
+sterling theology, and he would not be persuaded. Another device had
+to be invented, and when at last a satisfactory plan was resolved
+upon, the plotters must wait for the quick nightfalls of autumn.
+
+It was on Guy Fawkes day, the fifth of November, 1736, that Mr. Kelly
+made his escape. On the morning of that day he drove out to Epsom in
+the custody of his warder and upon his parole to return before dark.
+At four o'clock, when the light was just beginning to fall, Father
+Myles Macdonnell came into the Tower by the Sally Port Stairs opposite
+the Mint. He was told that the Parson was taking the air, and replied
+that he would go to the Parson's room and wait. Thereupon he crossed
+the precincts of the Tower, and coming over the green and down the
+steps of the main-guard, he inquired of the porter at Traitor's Gate
+whether or no Mr. Kelly had returned.
+
+The porter answered 'Not yet.'
+
+'It is a great pity,' said the Reverend Myles, who seemed much
+flustered. 'I am in a great hurry, and would you tell him, if you
+please, the moment he comes, to run with all haste to his room?'
+
+Upon that he turned off under the archway of the Bloody Tower, and
+again mounted the steps of the main-guard.
+
+About half-an-hour afterwards, in the deepening twilight, Mr. Kelly
+was set down within the Traitor's Gate; he had kept his parole. The
+porter gave him Father Myles's message; and the warder, since it
+appeared that he could only proceed as usual to his lodging, took his
+leave of him.
+
+The Parson accordingly ran up the steps of the main-guard on to the
+green, which was by this time very obscure. Three minutes afterwards
+Father Myles Macdonnell hurried past the sentry at the Sally Port
+Stairs opposite the Mint, grumbling that he would wait no longer, and
+so came out upon Tower Hill. Just at that time to a moment another
+Father Myles Macdonnell accosted the porter at Traitor's Gate and
+requested him to let him out, seeing that he was, as he had already
+said, in a great hurry. The porter let him out with no more ado.
+
+The second Father Myles was the real Father Myles; the first one who
+went grumbling out by the Sally Port Stairs was Parson Kelly. He had
+met Father Myles in the dark corner by Beauchamp Tower, had slipped
+over his head a cassock which the Father had brought with him, and had
+run across to the entrance over against the Mint, and so into freedom.
+
+The carriage which had driven him to Epsom, after putting him down
+again at the Tower, had driven to Tower Hill, where it waited for the
+Parson close by the Sally Port Stairs. It did not wait long: and the
+Parson was hurried at a gallop out of London amidst the crackling of
+fireworks and the burning of effigies of Guy Fawkes. It seemed the
+town was illuminated to celebrate his escape.
+
+At the Tower his evasion was not discovered until half-past seven of
+the evening, when the two porters, being relieved from their separate
+stations at the Traitor's Gate and the Sally Port Stairs, each vowed
+that he had let out Father Myles Macdonnell. This seemed so miraculous
+an occurrence that the warder ran to Mr. Kelly's chamber. It was
+empty, and then the clamour began. The Parson had thus three hours'
+start, and, though a reward of 300_l_. was offered for his recapture,
+no more was heard of him for a week.
+
+Then, however, two fishermen coming into an alehouse at Broadstairs
+saw the reward for Kelly proclaimed in print upon the wall, and fell
+into a great fury and passion, saying that they had only received five
+pounds when they might have had three hundred. For a fee of five
+pounds they had put a man over from Broadstairs to Calais, who, when
+once he was landed in France, had said to them:
+
+'If anyone inquires for George Kelly, you may say that he is safely
+landed in France.'
+
+And indeed at the very moment when the fishermen were lamenting their
+mistake in the alehouse, George Kelly and Rose were taking their
+dinner in Mr. Wogan's lodging at Paris. Rose had travelled into France
+the day before the Parson escaped, and so, after fourteen years, they
+were united. It was a merry sort of a party, and no doubt Wogan made a
+great deal of unnecessary noise. He drew the Parson aside into a
+window before the evening was over.
+
+'You are not very rich, I suppose?' said he.
+
+'I want for nothing,' said the Parson with a foolish eye on Rose, like
+a boy of eighteen.
+
+Wogan fumbled in his fob and brought out a packet which he unfolded.
+
+'Diamonds!' cried Kelly.
+
+'They are yours,' said Wogan. 'I picked them up off the floor of a
+room in Soho on an occasion which you may remember. A miniature frame
+had come by a mischance.'
+
+'Smilinda's?' asked Kelly with a frightened glance over his shoulder
+to Rose, who had the discretion not to meddle in this private
+conversation.
+
+'Yes,' says Wogan; 'Smilinda's. She gave the stones to you. Very
+likely they are worth a trifle.'
+
+'We'll slip out and sell them to-morrow,' answered the Parson in a
+whisper.
+
+They slipped out, but they did not sell them. The diamonds were paste,
+and Mr. Wogan at last understood why Lady Oxford, when she gave her
+miniature set with brilliants to the Parson, had been so anxious that
+he should never part with it.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+ MR. WOGAN AGAIN INVADES ENGLAND, MEETS THE
+ ELECT LADY, AND BEARS WITNESS TO HER PERFECTIONS
+
+
+It seemed to Wogan that this particular story of the Parson's
+fortunes, which began in Paris so long ago, had now ended in Paris.
+But he was wrong, and it was not till ten years after Mr. Kelly's
+escape from the Tower that Wogan witnessed the last circumstance in
+England, and himself spoke the closing word.
+
+Retiring soon from Paris, which ill suited a slender purse, Mr. Kelly
+lived, with his fair wife, at Avignon, where he played secretary to
+the Duke of Ormond. The Parson was a _gene_ on the amours of the aged
+Duke, who posted him off, in the year Forty-Five, to, escort the
+Prince of Wales to the Scottish islands. Wogan himself, earlier in the
+same year of grace, lost an arm at the battle of Fontenoy, but got a
+leaf of the laurels, being dubbed Chevalier of the Order of St. Louis.
+
+His arm amputated and the wound healed, Wogan must needs join the
+Prince of Wales, then residing in his palace of Holyrood, near
+Edinburgh. Wogan came too late for that pretty onfall at Prestonpans,
+but he marched south with the Prince's forces, riding again the old
+roads from Carlisle to Lancaster and Preston. The buxom maids of the
+inns were broad-blown landladies now; some of them remembered Wogan;
+and the ale was as good as ever.
+
+It chanced that at Preston, where he tarried for a couple of days, Mr.
+Wogan was billeted on a cobbler, a worthy man, but besotted with a new
+religion, which then caused many popular tumults. To England it had
+been brought over from America by two brothers of Wogan's old friend,
+Sam Wesley, the usher at Westminster School, and familiar of Bishop
+Atterbury.
+
+Wogan's host could talk of nothing but this creed, whose devotees
+cried out (it seemed), laughed, fell down in fits, barked, and made
+confession in public.
+
+'Ah, sir,' he said to Wogan, 'if you could but hear the Brothers
+Wesley, Charles and John, in the pulpit or singing hymns! Charles
+sings like an angel, and to hear John exhort the unaroused might waken
+those who have lain for a score of years in the arms of the Devil.'
+
+'John Wesley, little Jack Wesley?' cried Wogan. 'Why, I have saved him
+from many a beating at Westminster School!'
+
+'Do you know that saint, sir? 'asked the cobbler, in an enthusiasm.
+
+'Know him, I know nobody else, if he is the brother of honest Sam
+Wesley, that once let me into the Deanery on a night in May. Assuredly
+I knew little Jack.'
+
+The cobbler came near kneeling to Wogan. 'Here, indeed, is the finger
+of Providence,' he exclaimed. 'Dear sir, you may yet cast off the
+swathings of the Scarlet Woman.'
+
+'Easy, be easy, Mr. Crispin!' quoth Wogan. 'But tell me, is Jack to
+preach and is Charles to sing in this town of yours to-night?'
+
+'Unhappily no, but we are promised the joy of hearing that famed
+disciple, Mr. Bunton, discourse, and the Elect Lady, as the Brethren
+style her, will also speak.'
+
+'Do the women preach in your new Church?'
+
+'No, but they are permitted to tell the story of their call, and
+to-night we shall hear the Elect Lady--'
+
+'Confess before the congregation? 'Faith, the discourse may be
+improving. Is the Elect Lady handsome?'
+
+'She hath been one of the most renowned beauties of her age, and there
+are some who say that she is little altered by time. Ah, sir, she will
+make you embrace the truth.'
+
+'My embraces were ever at the mercy of feminine persuasion,' said
+Wogan. 'Is this Elect Lady of these parts?'
+
+'No, sir, she comes from the South, travelling with holy Mr. Bunton.
+You will oblige me infinitely, sir, if you will take pity on your own
+poor soul and join our love-feast. We meet in the warehouse of Mr.
+Brown, our most eminent grocer, in Scotch Lane, behind the "Jackdaw
+and Bagpipes."'
+
+'I thank you for your solicitude,' Wogan said; 'and as to the
+love-feast, I'll think of it.'
+
+Consequently he thought no more of it till the bottle had gone round
+half-a-dozen times at the Prince's mess in the 'Bull Tavern.' Lord
+Elcho, who had certainly drunk his dose, began telling, as a good
+thing, of his conversation with a _bourgeois_ of Preston.
+
+'"What is your Prince's religion?" asked the _bourgeois_.
+
+'"That is still to seek, my good man, still to seek," I answered him,'
+cried Elcho, laughing.
+
+The Prince laughed also; the free-thinking philosophers had been at
+him already, first in Rome, then in Paris.
+
+'Good for you, Elcho,' he cried; then, musing, ''Tis a very awkward
+business, this of religion. We have given three crowns for a mass, and
+there's the difficulty, there it is, as black as ever. I wish some one
+would invent a new creed, and the rest agree about it, d----n them,
+and then what is still to seek, my religion, would be found.'
+
+A thought came into Wogan's head; the bottle had made rounds enough,
+and more; next morning they were to march early.
+
+'Sir,' he said, 'there _is_ a new religion, and a handsome lady to
+preach it.' Then he repeated what his host, the cobbler, had chanted
+to him, 'The meeting is at night in the warehouse of Mr. Brown, the
+eminent grocer.'
+
+'A handsome woman!--a new belief! By St. Andrew, I'll go,' cried
+Charles. 'You'll come, Nick, you and--' he looked at the faces looming
+through the tobacco smoke round the wine-stained table. The blue reek
+of pipes clouded and clung to men's faces; to the red rough beard of
+Lochgarry, the smart, clean-shaven Ker of Graden and Maxwell of
+Kirkconnell, the hardy gaze of brave Balmerino, the fated Duke of
+Perth. Wogan thought of the Highland belief in the shroud of mist that
+is seen swathing men doomed soon to die, as were so many of them. The
+Prince stood and stared, his pipe in his hand. 'Nick, you will come,
+you and Ker of Graden; he's sober! _Allons!_'
+
+'Sir,' whispered Mr. Murray of Broughton, 'think of the danger! The
+Elector has his assassins everywhere; they are taken; your Royal
+Highness laughs and lets them go, and the troops murmur.'
+
+'Danger! Will they look for me at a tub-thumping match?'
+
+The Prince picked up a cork from the floor; he set it to the flame of
+a candle; he touched with it his eyebrows and upper lip; he tucked his
+brown hair under his wig, standing before the mirror on the
+chimneypiece. Then he flung a horseman's cloak over his shoulders,
+stooped, and limped a little in his walk.
+
+'A miracle,' everyone called out, for scarce a man of them could have
+known him.
+
+He tossed his hand in the air; '_Allons, en avant!_' he cried, with a
+laugh; and Wogan, with Ker of Graden, did what all might have better
+done at Derby--followed their leader.
+
+The night was wintry, and a cold north wind blew about the rare
+flickering oil lamps in the street. All three men buttoned themselves
+up in their cloaks. The Prince, still stooping and limping, took an
+arm of each of his aides-de-camp; indeed, he somewhat needed their
+support.
+
+'I am like that Sultan in Monsieur Galland's Eastern tales,' he said,
+'visiting my subjects incognito. Nick, you are Mesrour, the Chief of
+the--no, you're Giaffar. Graden is--I forget the Eastern minister's
+name. I am the Caliph. But what are the rabble about?'
+
+The three pilgrims had entered the lane that led to the warehouse of
+the devout grocer. There was a mob around the door waving torches and
+shouting insults at a few decent tradesmen and their wives who were
+bent on the same pious errand as Wogan and his friends.
+
+'Away, swaddlers!' 'Down with the Methodists!' they cried; and a burly
+fellow brushed against Wogan's shoulder in the least gentlemanly
+style. He reeled off and fell flat in the lane, while the other
+ragamuffins laughed at him.
+
+The three devotees stepped briskly through the grinning crowd that
+cried to Graden, 'Come to buy brimstone, Scotch Sandy?'
+
+'Come to escape it, my dear friend,' quoth Wogan's host, the cobbler,
+who stood at the door, and kept it, too, against the mob with a great
+show of spirit.
+
+'You _have_ thought of us, sir?' asked the cobbler.
+
+'Ay, and brought two other inquiring spirits,' said Wogan.
+
+They were conducted into a long half-empty warehouse, smelling of
+cheese and festooned with cobwebs. A light or two burned dimly in horn
+lanterns; a low platform of new planks had been set up at the top of
+the room; a table with seven candles made an illumination there; a big
+black Bible, and a jug of water with a glass flanked the Bible. The
+preacher sat on a chair (most of the congregation stood, or reposed on
+barrels and benches), and on another chair, beside the preacher, was a
+lady, veiled, her fine figure obscured by widow's weeds.
+
+'Is that your beauty?' whispered the Prince.
+
+'The Elect Lady, sir,' murmured the cobbler devoutly.
+
+'_Mon Dieu!_ she has a very pretty foot!'
+
+And Wogan, too, noticed the blaze of a diamond buckle that nearly
+covered the little arched instep. Tap, tap! went the Elect Lady's
+foot, thrust out in front of her heavy petticoat of crape.
+
+'The lady is travelling everywhere, for the good of souls, gentlemen,
+with Mr. Wesley's friend and choice disciple, the preacher, Mr.
+Bunton.'
+
+'L'heureux Monsieur Bunton! Quelle chance!' quoth his Highness.
+
+Mr. Bunton, the preacher, was indeed a fine, handsome young fellow as
+any widow could wish to look upon. He wore lay dress, not being a
+priest ordained of the Church of England. As for the congregation,
+they were small trading people, not rabble; indeed, the mob outside
+broke most of the windows during the sermon, that was interrupted, not
+only by the pebbles of the ragamuffins, but by the antics of the
+congregation.
+
+Mr. Bunton, after a hymn had been sung without any music, began his
+preaching. He assured the audience that none of them could be a gayer
+dog than he had been, that was now a shining light. He obliged the
+congregation with a history of his early life and adventures, which
+Wogan now tells in few words, that people may know what manner of men
+were certain of these saints, or had been. Mr. Bunton was reared in
+sin, he said, as a land-surveyor. A broth of a boy he was, and nine
+times his parents sent him from Reading to London to bind him to a
+trade. Nine times his masters returned him on their hands.
+
+Here the audience groaned aloud, and one went off in a fit. Mr. Bunton
+then told how he was awakened to sin as he walked in Cheapside. At
+this many, and the cobbler among them, cried 'Hallelujah!' but some
+went off into uncontrollable fits of laughter, which did not disturb
+the gravity of the rest of the assembly.
+
+The preacher's confession was, indeed, of such a nature that Wogan let
+a laugh out of himself, while Graden and the Prince rolled in extreme
+convulsions.
+
+'Go on, gentlemen; you are in the right path,' said the cobbler. 'Our
+converts are generally taken in this way first. It is reckoned a very
+favourable sign of grace. Some laugh for a week without stopping to
+sleep, eat, or drink.'
+
+'I'll try to stop to drink,' hooted his Highness, his face as red as a
+lobster; and then off he went again, the bench shaking beneath him,
+while Wogan and Graden laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks in
+their dark corner. The sympathetic cobbler murmured texts of an
+appropriate character. Indeed, now he thinks of it all, and sees Mr.
+Bunton sawing the air while he tells the story of his early wicked
+days, Mr. Wogan laughs as he writes. The man was greasy and radiant
+with satisfied vanity. His narrative of what he did and thought after
+he awoke to sin in Cheapside was a marvel.
+
+'I felt that beef and mutton were sinful things.'
+
+Here came a groan from an inquiring butcher.
+
+'I wished to put away all that was of the flesh fleshy. My desire was
+to dwell alone, in a cave, far from the sight of woman.'
+
+The Elect Lady groaned, and all the wenches in the congregation
+followed suit.
+
+'Abstaining from feasts of fat things, my mind was set on a simple
+diet of acorns, grass, and crabs.'
+
+'Les glands, les ecrevisses, et l'herbe des champs!' hooted the
+Prince. 'Mon Dieu, quel souper, et quelle digestion il doit avoir, cet
+homme-la!'
+
+'But, sisters and brethren,' Mr. Bunton went on, 'did I yield to these
+popish temptations? Did I live, like one of their self-righteous
+so-called saints, on crabs, acorns, and grass? Did I retire to a cave?
+No, dear sisters and brethren. My motive for abstaining was bad; it
+was a suggestion of the Old Man--'
+
+'Qui donc est-il, ce vieillard bien pensant?' whispered the Prince.
+
+'The devil, sir,' answered Graden, who knew the doctrine of the Scotch
+ministers.
+
+'My motive for not living on crabs in a cave was bad, I confess, but
+it was over-ruled for the best. Dear friends, I kept myself far from
+these temptations, because, indeed, I was afraid of ghosts that haunt
+caves and such places.'
+
+'Il ne mangeait pas les ecrevisses, parce qu'il avait peur des
+revenants! O c'est trop!' said the Prince, in a voice choked with
+emotion, while more advanced disciples cried 'Glory!' and
+'Hallelujah!'
+
+'But next,' the preacher went on, much gratified and encouraged by
+these demonstrations, 'I was happily brought acquainted with that
+precious sister, that incomparable disciple of Mr. Wesley, whom we
+call the Elect Lady. Then I awoke to light, and saw that it was laid
+upon me to preach, continually and unceasingly, making in every town
+confession of my offences. That dear lady, friends, promises for this
+once (she is as modest as she is generous and good) to tell us the
+moving story of her own early dangers, while she was a dweller in the
+tents of--of Shem, I think.'
+
+The congregation cheered and stamped with their feet, all but a few
+who were rolling on the floor in fits and foaming at the mouth. Mr.
+Bunton sat down very warm, and applied himself to the mug of water.
+
+The Elect Lady rose up to her full height, and tossed back her veil
+over her shoulders.
+
+'Ah, nous sommes trompes,' said the Prince. 'C'est une femme de
+quarante ans, bien sonnes!'
+
+But Wogan, between the shoulders of the congregation, stared from his
+dim corner as he had never stared at mortal woman before. The delicate
+features were thickened, alas, the lips had fallen in, the gold
+threads had been unwoven out of the dark brown hair. There were two
+dabs of red on a powdered face, where in time past the natural roses
+and lilies had bloomed; but the voice and the little Andalusian foot
+that beat the time with the Elect Lady's periods were the voice and
+the foot of the once incomparable Smilinda! Nay, when she turned and
+looked at the converted land-surveyor beside her, Mr. Wogan knew in her
+gaze the ghost of the glance that had bewitched Scrope, and Kelly, and
+Colonel Montague, and Lord Sidney Beauclerk, and who knows how many
+other gallants? In that odd place Wogan felt a black fit of the
+spleen. A woman's loss of beauty,--Wogan can never think of it
+unmoved. What tragedy that we men endure or enact is like this?
+
+But her ladyship spoke, and she spoke very well. The congregation, all
+of them that were not in fits or in laughing hysterics, listened as if
+to an angel. Heavens! what a story she told of her youth! What dangers
+encountered! What plots prepared against her virtue, ay, by splendid
+soldiers, beautiful young lords, and even clergymen; above all, by one
+monster whom she had discovered to be, not only a monster, but a
+traitor to the King, and an agent of the Pretender. She was a young
+thing then, married to an old lord, all unprotected, on every side
+beset by flattery.
+
+The congregation groaned and swayed at the picture of man's depravity,
+but Wogan, his spleen quite forgotten, was chuckling with delight.
+
+Yet, all unawakened as she was, said this penitent, an unknown
+influence had ever shielded her. She remembered how one of these evil
+ones, the clergyman, after kneeling vainly at her feet, had cried,
+'Sure, some invisible power protects your ladyship.'
+
+Here the groans gave place to cries of praise, arms were lifted, the
+simple, good people wept. Wogan listened with a less devotional air,
+bending forward on his bench, and rubbing his hands for joy. In truth
+it had just come upon him that it was his duty to stand up when the
+Elect Lady sat down, and bear his witness to the truth of her
+narrative.
+
+'Not to her be the triumph,' she went on, 'all unawakened as she then
+was, and remained, till she heard Mr. Wesley preach,' and thereafter
+went through the world with Brother Bunton, converting land-surveyors,
+colliers, and others.
+
+Wogan does not care to remember or quote any more of this lady's
+pieties. They had a kind of warmth and ease of familiarity which, in
+sacred things, are not to his liking. However, when she ceased, Mr.
+Wogan stood up, a tall figure of a French officer with an empty sleeve
+in his dim corner.
+
+'Good people,' he said; 'in my heedless youth I had the honour to be
+of the acquaintance of this lady who has just spoken to you.'
+
+The Elect Lady glanced at Wogan; she gave a strange, short cry, and
+the black veil swept over her face again.
+
+'I was,' Wogan went on, 'the eye-witness of these trials to which her
+Ladyship's virtue was exposed by the wicked ones of whose company I
+was a careless partaker. I have heard that wicked minister say that
+some invisible power protected her Ladyship. If any testimony to the
+truth of her ladyship's moving tale were needed I could bear that
+evidence, as could my friend the Rev. Mr. Kelly, now in France with
+despatches, and also General Montague, at present serving with
+Field-Marshal Wade, in the neighbourhood of Newcastle.'
+
+Wogan sat down.
+
+'That was providential indeed,' said the cobbler; and all the
+congregation bawled 'Miracle.' But the Elect Lady sat still, her face
+in her hands, like a Niobe in black bombazine.
+
+In the confusion, the three inquirers from the Prince's army slipped
+modestly out. A heavy shower of snow had swept the rabble out of the
+lane. All was dark and cold, after the reek of the crowded warehouse.
+
+'Nick,' said the Prince, 'was that story all true? Was the Elect Lady
+a prude?'
+
+'It is Mr. Kelly's story, sir,' said Wogan. Your Royal Highness can
+ask him.'
+
+'George was her adorer? Then George shall tell me the tale over a
+bottle. How the cold strikes! Hey, for a bowl of punch!' cried the
+Prince.
+
+'I am at your commands, sir, but may I say that it is one of the
+morning, and the pipes play the reveille at four?'
+
+'To quarters, then! What is the word, damme? What is the word?'
+
+'_Slaint an Righ_, sir.'
+
+'Slaint an Righ? I never can get my tongue about it. Oh, if our
+subjects had but one language and one religion! But it shall not be
+the religion of Mr. Bunton. _Bon soir!_'
+
+'You have taken every trick, Wogan!' said Graden, as the Prince
+entered his inn. 'A sober night, for once, before a long day's march.'
+
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+Next morning the army went south, to Derby, and then (by no fault of
+the Irish officers or of their Prince) came back again. Wogan was at
+Falkirk, Culloden, and Ruthven, woe worth the day! How he reached
+France when all was over, is between him and a very beautiful young
+lady of Badenoch; she said she bore a king's name--Miss Helen
+Macwilliam. Of King Macwilliam Wogan hath never heard, but the young
+lady (whose brothers had taken to the heather) protected Wogan in his
+distress, tended his wound, hid him from the red-coat soldiers, and at
+last secured for him a passage in a vessel from Montrose.
+
+And for all souvenir, she kept the kerchief with which she had first
+bound up the bayonet-stab that Wogan came by, when he, with the
+Stewarts, broke through Barrel's regiment at Culloden. He writes this
+at Avignon, where George and his wife also dwell, in the old house
+with the garden, the roses, and the noisy, pretty children that
+haunted Mr. Kelly's dreams when he was young.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Parson Kelly, by
+A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason and Andrew Lang
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARSON KELLY ***
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