ill
would avail me."

"Well, we shall have a glorious opportunity to-morrow night!" answered
the first speaker; "that is, if it does not rain so infernally as it
does this night; but we shall have a watch of many hours, I dare say."

"That matters but little," replied the other conspirator; "nor even if,
night after night, the same vigil is renewed and baffled, so that it
bring its reward at last."

"Right," quoth the first; "I long to be at it!--ugh! ugh! ugh!--what a
confounded cough I have! it will be my death soon, I'm thinking."

"If so," said the other, with a solemnity which seemed ludicrously
horrible, from the strange contrast of the words and object, "die at
least with the sanctity of a brave and noble deed upon your conscience
and your name!"

"Ugh! ugh!--I am but a man of colour, but I am a patriot, for all
that, my good friend! See, the violence of the rain has ceased; we
will proceed;" and with these words the worthy pair left the place to
darkness and Mr. Brown.

"O Lord!" said the latter, stepping forth, and throwing, as it were, in
that exclamation, a whole weight of suffocating emotion from his chest,
"what bloody miscreants! Murder his Majesty's ministers!--'shoot them
like pigeons!'--'d--d pretty shot!' indeed. O Lord! what would the late
Lady Waddilove, who always hated even the Whigs so cordially, say, if
she were alive? But how providential that I should have been here! Who
knows but I may save the lives of the whole administration, and get
a pension or a little place in the post-office? I'll go to the prime
minister directly,--this very minute! Pish! ar'n't you right now,
you cursed thing?" upbraiding the umbrella, which, half-right and
half-wrong, seemed endued with an instinctive obstinacy for the sole
purpose of tormenting its owner.

However, losing this petty affliction in the greatness of his present
determination, Mr. Brown issued out of his lair, and hastened to put his
benevolent and loyal intentions into effect.

CHAPTER LXXXV.

When laurelled ruffians die, the Heaven and Earth,
And the deep Air give warning. Shall the good
Perish and not a sign?--ANONYMOUS.

It was the evening after the event recorded in our last chapter: all
was hushed and dark in the room where Mordaunt sat alone; the low
and falling embers burned dull in the grate, and through the unclosed
windows the high stars rode pale and wan in their career. The room,
situated at the back of the house,