pbell,' said Redgauntlet, 'is it to be peace or
war? You are a man of honour, and we can trust you.'

'I thank you, sir,' said the general; 'and I reply, that the answer to
your question rests with yourself. Come, do not be fools, gentlemen;
there was perhaps no great harm meant or intended by your gathering
together in this obscure corner, for a bear-bait or a cock-fight, or
whatever other amusement you may have intended, but it was a little
imprudent, considering how you stand with government, and it has
occasioned some anxiety. Exaggerated accounts of your purpose have
been laid before government by the information of a traitor in your own
counsels; and I was sent down post to take the command of a sufficient
number of troops, in case these calumnies should be found to have any
real foundation. I have come here, of course, sufficiently supported
both with cavalry and infantry, to do whatever might be necessary; but
my commands are--and I am sure they agree with my inclination--to make
no arrests, nay, to make no further inquiries of any kind, if this good
assembly will consider their own interest so far as to give up their
immediate purpose, and return quietly home to their own houses.'

'What!--all?' exclaimed Sir Richard Glendale--'all, without exception?'

'ALL, without one single exception' said the general; 'such are my
orders. If you accept my terms, say so, and make haste; for things may
happen to interfere with his Majesty's kind purposes towards you all.'

'Majesty's kind purposes!' said the Wanderer. 'Do I hear you aright,
sir?'

'I speak the king's very words, from his very lips,' replied the
general. '"I will," said his Majesty, "deserve the confidence of my
subjects by reposing my security in the fidelity of the millions who
acknowledge my title--in the good sense and prudence of the few who
continue, from the errors of education, to disown it." His Majesty will
not even believe that the most zealous Jacobites who yet remain can
nourish a thought of exciting a civil war, which must be fatal to their
families and themselves, besides spreading bloodshed and ruin through
a peaceful land. He cannot even believe of his kinsman, that he would
engage brave and generous though mistaken men, in an attempt which must
ruin all who have escaped former calamities; and he is convinced,
that, did curiosity or any other motive lead that person to visit this
country, he would soon see it was his wisest course to retu