, and did good service in Scotland. It was quite worthy
of you. You remind me not to be a sluggard, Gashford, when the vineyard
is menaced with destruction, and may be trodden down by Papist feet. Let
the horses be saddled in half-an-hour. We must be up and doing!'

He said this with a heightened colour, and in a tone of such enthusiasm,
that the secretary deemed all further prompting needless, and withdrew.

--'Dreamed he was a Jew,' he said thoughtfully, as he closed the bedroom
door. 'He may come to that before he dies. It's like enough. Well! After
a time, and provided I lost nothing by it, I don't see why that religion
shouldn't suit me as well as any other. There are rich men among the
Jews; shaving is very troublesome;--yes, it would suit me well enough.
For the present, though, we must be Christian to the core. Our prophetic
motto will suit all creeds in their turn, that's a comfort.' Reflecting
on this source of consolation, he reached the sitting-room, and rang the
bell for breakfast.

Lord George was quickly dressed (for his plain toilet was easily made),
and as he was no less frugal in his repasts than in his Puritan attire,
his share of the meal was soon dispatched. The secretary, however, more
devoted to the good things of this world, or more intent on sustaining
his strength and spirits for the sake of the Protestant cause, ate
and drank to the last minute, and required indeed some three or four
reminders from John Grueby, before he could resolve to tear himself away
from Mr Willet's plentiful providing.

At length he came downstairs, wiping his greasy mouth, and having paid
John Willet's bill, climbed into his saddle. Lord George, who had been
walking up and down before the house talking to himself with earnest
gestures, mounted his horse; and returning old John Willet's stately
bow, as well as the parting salutation of a dozen idlers whom the rumour
of a live lord being about to leave the Maypole had gathered round the
porch, they rode away, with stout John Grueby in the rear.

If Lord George Gordon had appeared in the eyes of Mr Willet, overnight,
a nobleman of somewhat quaint and odd exterior, the impression was
confirmed this morning, and increased a hundredfold. Sitting bolt
upright upon his bony steed, with his long, straight hair, dangling
about his face and fluttering in the wind; his limbs all angular and
rigid, his elbows stuck out on either side ungracefully, and his whole
frame jogged and