an entrance into my Lord
Shaftesbury's great house in Aldersgate Street. He was there under
false colours, being a spy of the other camp, but something in him found
itself at home among the patriots. A resolve had been growing to
cut loose from his old employers and settle down among the Whigs in
comparative honesty. It was the winning cause, he thought, and he longed
to get his head out of the kennels.... But that had happened yesterday
which scattered his fine dreams and brought him face to face with
terror. God's curse on that ferrety Justice, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey.

He had for some time had his eye on the man. The year before he had run
across him in Montpelier, being then engaged in a very crooked business,
and had fancied that the magistrate had also his eye on him. Taught by
long experience to watch potential enemies, he had taken some trouble
over the lean high-beaked dignitary. Presently he had found out curious
things. The austere Protestant was a friend of the Duke's man, Ned
Coleman, and used to meet him at Colonel Weldon's house. This hinted
at blackmailable stuff in the magistrate, so Lovel took to haunting his
premises in Hartshorn Lane by Charing Cross, but found no evidence
which pointed to anything but a prosperous trade in wood and sea-coal.
Faggots, but not the treasonable kind! Try as he might, he could-get no
farther with that pillar of the magistracy, my Lord Danly's friend,
the beloved of Aldermen. He hated his solemn face, his prim mouth, his
condescending stoop. Such a man was encased in proof armour of public
esteem, and he heeded Mr. Lovel no more than the rats in the gutter.

But the day before had come a rude awakening. All this talk of a Popish
plot, discovered by the Salamanca Doctor, promised a good harvest to
Mr. Lovel. He himself had much to tell and more to invent. Could he but
manage it discreetly, he might assure his fortune with the Whigs and
get to his feet at last. God knew it was time, for the household in
the Billingsgate attic was pretty threadbare. His busy brain had worked
happily on the plan. He would be the innocent, cursed from childhood
with undesired companions, who would suddenly awaken in horror to the
guilt of things he had not understood. There would be a welcome for
a well-informed penitent.... But he must move slowly and at his own
time.... And now he was being himself hustled into the dock, perhaps
soon to the gallows.

For the afternoon before he had been