er him."

Oates rubbed his hands and cast his eyes upward. "Great are the doings of
the Laard," he said, "and wonderful in our saight!"

CHAPTER 11. THE LIT CHAMBER

He was hoisted on his horse by an ostler and two local sots from the
tap-room, his valise was strapped none too securely before him, and
with a farewell, which was meant to be gracious but was only foolish,
he tittuped into the rain. He was as drunk as an owl, though he did not
know it. All afternoon he had been mixing strong Cumberland ale with the
brandy he had got from the Solway free-traders, and by five o'clock had
reached that state when he saw the world all gilt and rosy and himself
as an applauded actor on a splendid stage. He had talked grandly to his
fellow topers, and opened to their rustic wits a glimpse of the great
world. They had bowed to a master, even those slow Cumbrians who admired
little but fat cattle and blood horses. He had made a sensation, had
seen wonder and respect in dull eyes, and tasted for a moment that
esteem which he had singularly failed to find elsewhere.

But he had been prudent. The Mr. Gilbert Craster who had been travelling
on secret business in Nithsdale and the Ayrshire moorlands had not been
revealed in the change-house of Newbigging. There he had passed by the
name, long since disused, of Gabriel Lovel, which happened to be his
true one. It was a needful precaution, for the times were crooked. Even
in a Border hamlet the name of Craster might be known and since for the
present it had a Whig complexion it was well to go warily in a place
where feeling ran high and at an hour when the Jacobites were on the
march. But that other name of Lovel was buried deep in the forgotten
scandal of London by-streets.

The gentleman late re-christened Lovel had for the moment no grudge
against life. He was in the pay of a great man, no less than the lord
Duke of Marlborough, and he considered that he was earning his wages. A
soldier of fortune, he accepted the hire of the best paymaster; only he
sold not a sword, but wits. A pedant might have called it honour, but
Mr. Lovel was no pedant. He had served a dozen chiefs on different
sides. For Blingbroke he had scoured France and twice imperilled his
life in Highland bogs. For Somers he had travelled to Spain, and for
Wharton had passed unquiet months on the Welsh marches. After his
fashion he was an honest servant and reported the truth so far as his
ingenuity could discern