r guard, was soon
in a condition to make Ned smoke for it. Out of the island he came with
little advantage for having entered it; when, by some means--for
the devil, I think, stands ever his friend--he obtained information
concerning a messenger, whom her old Majesty of Man had sent to London
to make party in her behalf. Ned stuck himself to this fellow--a raw,
half-bred lad, son of an old blundering Cavalier of the old stamp, down
in Derbyshire--and so managed the swain, that he brought him to the
place where I was waiting, in anxious expectation of the pretty one I
told you of. By Saint Anthony, for I will swear by no meaner oath, I
stared when I saw this great lout--not that the fellow is so ill-looked
neither--I stared like--like--good now, help me to a simile."

"Like Saint Anthony's pig, an it were sleek," said the young lord; "your
eyes, Chiffie, have the very blink of one. But what hath all this to do
with the Plot? Hold, I have had wine enough."

"You shall not balk me," said Chiffinch; and a jingling was heard, as
if he were filling his comrade's glass with a very unsteady hand.
"Hey--What the devil is the matter?--I used to carry my glass
steady--very steady."

"Well, but this stranger?"

"Why, he swept at game and ragout as he would at spring beef or summer
mutton. Never saw so unnurtured a cub--Knew no more what he ate than an
infidel--I cursed him by my gods when I saw Chaubert's _chef-d' oeuvres_
glutted down so indifferent a throat. We took the freedom to spice his
goblet a little, and ease him of his packet of letters; and the fool
went on his way the next morning with a budget artificially filled with
grey paper. Ned would have kept him, in hopes to have made a witness of
him, but the boy was not of that mettle."

"How will you prove your letters?" said the courtier.

"La you there, my lord," said Chiffinch; "one may see with half an
eye, for all your laced doublet, that you have been of the family of
Furnival's, before your brother's death sent you to Court. How prove the
letters?--Why, we have but let the sparrow fly with a string round his
foot.--We have him again so soon as we list."

"Why, thou art turned a very Machiavel, Chiffinch," said his friend.
"But how if the youth proved restive?--I have heard these Peak men have
hot heads and hard hands."

"Trouble not yourself--that was cared for, my lord," said
Chiffinch--"his pistols might bark, but they could not bite."

"Most exquisite Ch