e them before they can do any mischief?" I asked.

"First, Mr. Mallock," he said, "because we have not enough positive
evidence--at any rate not enough to hang them all; and next we must
catch the small fry--the desperate little ones who will themselves
attempt the killing. It is now that I should be ready for a visit from
your friend Rumbald, if I were you. They can have no suspicion that you
have done anything but betray them in the way they intended: they have a
great weapon, they think, in you, to continue carrying false news. Now,
Mr. Mallock, is the very time come of which you once spoke to me--the
climax, when they will feign to reveal everything to you, and then make
their last stroke. You have seen my Lord Essex again?"

"Not a sight of him. I had only a very guarded note, two days ago, but
very friendly: saying that the designs were fallen through for the
present."

"Precisely what I have been saying," observed Mr. Chiffinch. "No, Mr.
Mallock, you must not stir from town. I am sorry for your pretty cousin,
and Christmas, and the rest: but you see for yourself that we must leave
no loophole unguarded. His Majesty must not die out of his bed, if we
can help it."

There, then, I was nailed until more should happen. I dared not ask my
cousins to come to town; for God only knew what mischief my Cousin Tom
might not play; and I had not eyes on both sides of my head at once. I
wrote only to Dolly; and said that once more I was disappointed; but
that I would most certainly see her soon, if I had to ride two nights
running, from town and back.

I accomplished this, but not until Christmas was well over, and indeed
Lent begun. During those weeks, certainly nothing of any importance
happened to me, though my Lord Essex kept me in touch with him, and I
even was present at one very dismal meeting with him and Mr. Ferguson,
when it was deplored, in my presence, that the "demonstration"--as they
still called it--of the seventeenth of November had been so adroitly
prevented; and my Lord Shaftesbury's death--which had taken place
(chiefly, I think, from disappointment) that very week--was spoken of
with a certain relief. I think they were pleased to have matters
entirely in their own hands now. However they proposed no immediate
action, which more than ever persuaded me that this was what they
intended. Yet the days went by: and no more news came, either from them
or from Mr. Chiffinch--so I took affairs into my own han