, he might have kept it for him and his.
It had been a rare thing to have had a little kingdom--made laws of
my own--had my Chamberlain with his white staff--I would have taught
Jerningham, in half a day, to look as wise, walk as stiffly, and speak
as silly, as Harry Bennet."

"You might have done this, and more, if it had pleased your Grace."

"Ay, and if it had pleased my Grace, thou, Ned Christian, shouldst have
been the Jack Ketch of my dominions."

"_I_ your Jack Ketch, my lord?" said Christian, more in a tone of
surprise than of displeasure.

"Why, ay; thou hast been perpetually intriguing against the life of
yonder poor old woman. It were a kingdom to thee to gratify thy spleen
with thy own hands."

"I only seek justice against the Countess," said Christian.

"And the end of justice is always a gibbet," said the Duke.

"Be it so," answered Christian. "Well, the Countess is in the Plot."

"The devil confound the Plot, as I believe he first invented it!" said
the Duke of Buckingham; "I have heard of nothing else for months. If one
must go to hell, I would it were by some new road, and in gentlemen's
company. I should not like to travel with Oates, Bedloe, and the rest of
that famous cloud of witnesses."

"Your Grace is then resolved to forego all the advantages which may
arise? If the House of Derby fall under forfeiture, the grant to
Fairfax, now worthily represented by your Duchess, revives, and you
become the Lord and Sovereign of Man."

"In right of a woman," said the Duke; "but, in troth, my godly dame owes
me some advantage for having lived the first year of our marriage with
her and old Black Tom, her grim, fighting, puritanic father. A man might
as well have married the Devil's daughter, and set up housekeeping with
his father-in-law."[*]

[*] Mary, daughter of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, was wedded to the Duke of
Buckingham, whose versatility made him capable of rendering
himself for a time as agreeable to his father-in-law, though a
rigid Presbyterian, as to the gay Charles II.

"I understand you are willing, then, to join your interest for a heave
at the House of Derby, my Lord Duke?"

"As they are unlawfully possessed of my wife's kingdom, they certainly
can expect no favour at my hand. But thou knowest there is an interest
at Whitehall predominant over mine."

"That is only by your Grace's sufferance," said Christian.

"No, no; I tell thee a hundred times, no," said the Duke, ro