t least, he had completely atoned for this negligence by the
trouble which he had taken for Sir Geoffrey Peveril and his son, whose
liberation he looked upon not only as an excellent good deed in itself,
but, in spite of the grave rebuke of Ormond, as achieved in a very
pardonable manner, considering the difficulties with which he was
surrounded. He even felt a degree of satisfaction on receiving
intelligence from the city that there had been disturbances in the
streets, and that some of the more violent fanatics had betaken
themselves to their meeting-houses, upon sudden summons, to inquire, as
their preachers phrased it, into the causes of Heaven's wrath, and into
the backsliding of the Court, lawyers, and jury, by whom the false
and bloody favourers of the Popish Plot were screened and cloaked from
deserved punishment.

The King, we repeat, seemed to hear these accounts with pleasure, even
when he was reminded of the dangerous and susceptible character of those
with whom such suspicions originated. "Will any one now assert," he
said, with self-complacence, "that I am so utterly negligent of the
interest of friends?--You see the peril in which I place myself, and
even the risk to which I have exposed the public peace, to rescue a man
whom I have scarce seen for twenty years, and then only in his buff-coat
and bandoleers, with other Train-Band officers who kissed hands upon the
Restoration. They say Kings have long hands--I think they have as much
occasion for long memories, since they are expected to watch over and
reward every man in England, who hath but shown his goodwill by crying
'God save the King!'"

"Nay, the rogues are even more unreasonable still," said Sedley; "for
every knave of them thinks himself entitled to your Majesty's protection
in a good cause, whether he has cried God save the King or no."

The King smiled, and turned to another part of the stately hall, where
everything was assembled which could, according to the taste of the age,
make the time glide pleasantly away.

In one place, a group of the young nobility, and of the ladies of
the Court, listened to the reader's acquaintance Empson, who was
accompanying with his unrivalled breathings on the flute, a young siren,
who, while her bosom palpitated with pride and with fear, warbled to the
courtly and august presence the beautiful air beginning--

"Young I am, and yet unskill'd,
How to make a lover yield," &c.

She performed her task in