it. But, once quit of a great man's service, he
sold his knowledge readily to an opponent, and had been like to be out
of employment, since unless his masters gave him an engagement for life
he was certain some day to carry the goods they had paid for to their
rivals. But Marlborough had seen his uses, for the great Duke sat loose
to parties and earnestly desired to know the facts. So for Marlborough
he went into the conclaves of both Whig and Jacobite, making his
complexion suit his company.

He was new come from the Scottish south-west, for the Duke was eager
to know if the malcontent moorland Whigs were about to fling their blue
bonnets for King James. A mission of such discomfort Mr. Lovel had never
known, not even when he was a go-between for Ormonde in the Irish bogs.
He had posed as an emissary from the Dutch brethren, son of an exiled
Brownist, and for the first time in his life had found his regicide
great-grandfather useful. The jargon of the godly fell smoothly from his
tongue, and with its aid and that of certain secret letters he had found
his way to the heart of the sectaries. He had sat through weary sermons
in Cameronian sheilings, and been present at the childish parades of the
Hebronite remnant. There was nothing to be feared in that quarter, for
to them all in authority were idolaters and George no worse than James.
In those moorland sojournings, too, he had got light on other matters,
for he had the numbers of Kenmure's levies in his head, had visited
my lord Stair at his grim Galloway castle, and had had a long midnight
colloquy with Roxburghe on Tweedside. He had a pretty tale for his
master, once he could get to him. But with Northumberland up and the
Highlanders at Jedburgh and Kenmure coming from the west, it had been a
ticklish business to cross the Border. Yet by cunning and a good horse
it had been accomplished, and he found himself in Cumberland with the
road open southward to the safe Lowther country. Wherefore Mr. Lovel had
relaxed, and taken his ease in an inn.

He would not have admitted that he was drunk, but he presently confessed
that he was not clear about his road. He had meant to lie at Brampton,
and had been advised at the tavern of a short cut, a moorland
bridle-path. Who had told him of it? The landlord, he thought, or the
merry fellow in brown who had stood brandy to the company? Anyhow, it
was to save him five miles, and that was something in this accursed
weather. The path w