"They shelter themselves in the village of Wandsworth, near London, in an old house on the Waterside, as the strand there is called. It is the first reached from the village."
Again this was written down, after which Captain Morris rose to take his departure, but my lord's tale was not yet told. Pointing to the chair the other had risen from, he said:
"I beg you to be seated a moment longer. There is still another-the worst rebel of all-of whom I wish to apprise you. A priest."
"A priest! You speak truly; they are, indeed, his Majesty's worst enemies. A Jesuit, of course?"
"Of course. With him it will be necessary to use the most astute means in the Government's power to first entrap him, and then to deal with him afterwards. He should, indeed, be confined in total solitude, forbidden, above all things else, to hold any communication with other rebels."
"You may depend, Lord Fordingbridge, on all being done that is necessary, short of execution."
"Short of execution!" interrupted the other. "Short of execution! Why do not the scheming Jesuits-the mainspring of all, the cause of the very rebellion but now crushed out-merit execution as well as those who routed Cope's forces and hewed down Cumberland's men? Grand Dieu! I should have thought they would have been the first to taste the halter."
"Possibly," replied the captain in passionless tones, and with an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders, "but at present no Jesuit priests have been executed. I doubt if any will be. The Government have other punishments for them-exile to the American colonies, and so forth. Now, my lord, this priest's name and abode."
"He is brother to Douglas Sholto, an elder brother by another mother, yet they have ever gone hand in hand together. Named Archibald, of from thirty-eight to forty years of age. Crafty, dissimulating, and-"
"That is of course," said Captain Morris. "Now, tell me, if you please, where this man is to be found. Is he also in hiding at Wandsworth?"
"Nay," replied the other-and for the first time the informer seemed to hesitate in his answer. Yet for a moment only, since again he proceeded with his story. "He is disguised, of course; passes as a Scotch merchant having business between London and Paris, and is known as Mr. Archibald." He paused again, and Captain Morris's clear eyes rested on him as, interrogatively, he said:
"Yes? And his abode?"
"Is my own house. In Kensington-square."
This time the officer started perceptibly, and fixed an even more penetrating glance upon the other than before. Indeed, so apparent were both the start and look of surprise on his face that the traitor before him deemed it necessary to offer some excuse for his strange revelation.
"Yes," he said, "in my own house. It has been necessary for me to let him hide there awhile the better to-to entrap-to deliver him to justice."
"Your lordship is indeed an ardent partisan," coldly replied Captain Morris; "the King is much to be congratulated on so good a convert."
"The King will, I trust, reward my devotion. The Stuarts have never shown any gratitude for all that has been done for them-by my family as much as any. Now, Captain Morris," he went on, "I have told you all that I have to tell. I have simply to ask that in no way shall it be divulged-as, indeed, I have the promise of his Majesty's Ministers that nothing shall be divulged-as to the source whence this information is derived. It is absolutely necessary that I appear not at all in the matter."
"That is understood. The Secretary of State for Scotch affairs, from whom I receive my instructions, knows your lordship's desire, without a doubt."
"Precisely. It is with him I have been in communication. Yet, still, I would make one other request. It is that Father Sholto may not be arrested in my house. That would be painful to-to-Lady Fordingbridge, a young and delicate woman. He can easily be taken outside, since he quits the house fearlessly each day."
"That too," replied Morris, "I will make a note of for the Secretary's consideration. I wish you now, my lord, good evening," saying which he bowed and went toward the door.
"If I could possibly prevail on you to refresh yourself," said Fordingbridge, as he followed him to it, "I should be happy," and he held out his hand as he spoke.
But the captain, who seemed busy with his sash, or sword belt, did not perhaps see the extended hand, and muttering that he required no refreshment, withdrew from the room.
Nevertheless, when he reached the bar in the passage below he asked the smiling landlady if she could give him a glass of cordial to keep out the rawness of the night air, and to fortify him for his ride. Also he asked, in so polite a manner as to gratify the good woman's heart, if he might scrawl a line at her table whereat she sat sewing and surrounded by her bottles and glasses. Buxom landladies rarely refuse politenesses to persons of Captain Morris's position, especially when so captivatingly arrayed as he was in his undress bravery, and as he wrote his message and sealed it she thought how gallant a gentleman he was.
Then he looked up and enquired if there was any ostler or idle postboy about the place who could ride for him with a letter to-morrow morning to Dunstable, and receiving a reply in the affirmative, paid for his cordial, the hire of the next morning messenger and his horse's feed, and so bade her a cheerful good-night.
In the yard, while his animal was being brought out, he looked with some little interest at his lordship's travelling carriage, inspected the crest upon its panels and the motto, and, tossing the fellow who brought the nag a shilling, and seeing carefully to his holsters, rode away into the night.
Upstairs, my lord, standing before the fire, noticed the unemptied glass of wine, and, remembering that the captain had not chosen to see his outstretched hand, cursed him for an ill-conditioned Hanoverian cur. Downstairs, the hostess, being a daughter of Eve, turned over the captain's letter addressed to "Josias Brandon, Esq., Justice of the Peace," and would have given her ears, or at least a set of earrings, to know what its contents were. Had she been able to see them they probably would have given her food for gossip for a twelvemonth, brief as they were. They ran:
"The Viscount Fordingbridge passes through Dunstable to-morrow in his coach on his road to Cheshire. From the time he does so until he returns through your town to London, he is to be followed and watched and never lost sight of. Let me be kept acquainted with all his movements-by special courier, if needful. – Noel Morris, Captain."
CHAPTER VI
KATE MAKES AN APPOINTMENT
Between Lady Fordingbridge and her father a better state of things existed than that which prevailed between her and her husband. Indeed, Kitty, who could not forgive the treachery of the man who was now her husband, could not, at the same time, bring herself to regard her father's share in that treachery in as equally black a light. She knew that it was the actual truth that he had been much in debt to Simeon Larpent (as he was then), and she had persuaded herself also to believe that which he constantly assured her was the truth-and, perhaps, might have been-that Larpent would have proceeded against him for his debt, in spite of the story Fane had been instructed to tell to the effect that the other was very willing to continue their creditor. Moreover, old and feeble as her father was now-broken down and unable any longer to earn bread to put in their mouths, she did not forget that, until the events of the last few unhappy months, he had been an excellent parent to her. For, hardly and roughly, by long days of weary work, the bread had been earned somehow, the roof kept over their heads, the clothes found for their backs. Hour after hour, as she remembered, the worn-out old Irish gentleman-once the brilliant young military adventurer had stood in the room set apart for the fencing school, giving his lessons to men young enough to be his sons; and also she recalled how every night, it seemed to her, he was more fatigued than before, his back a little more bowed, his weariness greater. And as-even after the marriage had taken place into which she had been hoodwinked-she thought of all this, and of how he had grown older and more feeble in his fight to keep the wolf from the door, she almost brought herself to forgive him entirely for the great wrong he had done her.
She sat thinking over all this on the morning after her lord's departure for