altered Charles le Chemineau; and behold, beneath his coxcombry and his rather arrogant air of authority, he remained the same. She could not know that many persons, including Mr Hanaper and Solomon Abney, would have been vastly surprised to hear him now. And is it poor Jack too? he asked. The girl merely nodded, as if his instant grasp of all her present troubles was the most natural thing in the world. And then she came back to the present, and remembered, and stared at him with dismay and dawning suspicion. defined by lexicographers as a large array or number of persons, or, for an alternative, an organisation in groups. In that plaguey great palace of yours, Ann, several regiments could be hid. You might even pack a small one into a room. Any room will serve. Do you think I shall explore the place? Faith, no! I never loved work. And as for that black beetle of a Clerk, damme! I gave him a fair start to run and warn you. I protest I took pains to loiter on the way. I and Barling-he is my coxswain, a dumb, faithful kind of fellow, and now waiting at "What do you know of your gate,-I and Barling have "Time for what?" "Why, for the regiment to be hid, for Mr Hanaper to recover his breath, and for brother Jack himself to stroll out and greet me like a gentleman of leisure." Ann's face was as white as her neck. Her large eyes darkened, and she clenched her hands convulsively. Words came breathlessly from her. “Oh, do you mean?-How can you? What do you mean? What is the regiment? And what is Mr Hanaper to us?" "Or we to Mr Hanaper?" the Captain supplemented. "I wonder. A regiment," he continued, solemnly oracular, "is spent near half an hour acquainting ourselves with the High Street of Shayle. We have refreshed our knowledge of architecture, somewhat rusty after six months at sea, and we have exchanged courtesies with Methusalem, whom I mistook for Noah, and who proved in the end to be Solomon. By his own account, he has fought in every sea-fight since Lepanto. ... No, Ann, I cannot reproach myself. Half an hour should have been ample. 'Twas superfluous strategy in Jack to send you forth, like a forlorn hope, to delay me further here." He stood looking down at the girl with a smile that was at once sardonic and melancholy. It seemed to reveal yet a new Charles le Chemineau. Ann, for her part, was speechless. She flushed and paled, and flushed again. On her expressive face fear fled before friend, as you have just declared. And between such there are neither spyings nor conspirings." "Nor are they for women neither!" Ann said with sudden scorn-whether of herself or others it was hard to determine. "We must hold our peace, and leave such grave affairs to men, who are so well fitted to manage them." "Men are babies, my dear," said le Chemineau, "as you should know better than I. They will have their toys. Here is a fine toy "-he waved a hand largely over the ornamental landscape. "Why the devil cannot Jack content himself with it? Because he is Jack, you will say. He was always to be led, poor lad. Even I led him, and, Lud! I'm the laziest of men. If I but stirred a finger, he came running like a dog on a string. And one of your busy, mischievous, tinkering fellows, with an axe to grind, might do his "We are old friends, Ann, are we not ? " She nodded silently. "Say, 'We are old friends, will with Jack-and with all Charles.' this wealth. I could put a name to one or two such at this moment. Which, to be brief for once, is why I am here." Ann turned troubled eyes to his. "How much do you know? Why are you here?" "How much do you know, Ann" he returned. She hesitated; and then, as if determined to stake all upon her long proved trust in him, "Everything!" she said"everything! And nothing! I have eyes, ears, and even wits-though that's a secret; girls are not permitted wits!but I am held to be blind and deaf and little better than an idiot, to be shoo'd from the room when grave mysteries grave mysteries are discussed. Oh!" she cried, with a flush and a spurt of temper that le Chemineau found mightily becoming, "they madden me, Jack and his friends, with their plottings and whisperings and politics. Politics! I hate the word! Envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness!-that's poli tics! Playing with dice for others' lives and happiness.... All this "-she flung out her small hand in unconscious imitation of his gesture-"all this has been a curse to Jack and me. Because he now has wealth and influence, poor Jack, they are after him like a pack of wolves. And I could love it, would they but let well alone. What are their places and pensions and ribands and silly kings to us? She checked herself, flushed and breathless, more lovely than ever in her animation; but her candid eyes had clouded, and she shot him a startled look. "I forgot," she stammered, "I should not have talked so, even to you. Oh, why have you come, Charles? Tell me ! " "To pull Jack's chestnuts out of the fire for him," the Captain answered, smiling at her in open admiration. "Faith, Ann, you're a trump!" he added with unwonted energy. "Talk so, indeed! You have talked more sense in ten seconds than all the plotters since Harmodius and Aristogeiton, which are the earliest I can remember. Gad, all the silly pack of 'em should hear you! Don't look so troubled, child; I agree with every word, and could not have put it near so well myself. High politics are tomfoolery at the best; and in times like these, for a man of substance with a weak head, they are so much gunpowder and lightning. And I'm here to prove it to Master Jack, and if he won't hark I'll make him. Though I'll warrant he's heard of it from you!" He chuckled again, and then, more soberly, "Listen to me, Ann," he resumed; "you've cleared the decks like a Trojan, and I will expound to you the precise why and wherefore of my playing Providence here with a frigate and my own wits. But you must trust me, as I trust you, child." "I do trust you, Charles," she said earnestly. As they started anew on their slow walk round the pond she still trembled with the conflict of her emotions, but confidence in her friend welled again like a flood, and with it a great relief warmed her heart. To give the devil his due," le Chemineau began, "it was Nunks's idea." "Nunks?" Ann repeated. "Oh, do you mean my Lord Tewkesbury?" "No less." "But"She stopped and shrugged. "Well, his Lordship has not honoured us of late. shrugged. You have I think I have thought he failed to approve of the company we keep." "Faith, so he does!" le Chemineau agreed with a grin. "He disapproves most heartily! A festering nest of traitorous vipers is the mildest term I have heard him use of this house. Nunks was always a crusted old Whig- and a damned crusty one, too, these days. But he ever had a warm spot for you, Ann-aye, and even for Jack, though he calls him an embellished young fool. ... Well, his Lordship is at Plymouth, as you may know. I put in there two days since for water and news, after six months in the Mediterranean; and there was the old boy, storming about the arsenal like Boanerges, demanding the moon, and as full of oaths as Satan. It seems this county is stripped of powder and shot, and without a cockboat to defend it-the heart of Britain, says Nunks, and monstrously neglected. I told him I never knew the heart was situated just below the epidermis. In the end, when he had borrowed a 4-pounder or two from Cornwall or the Scillies, I hauled him away and we dined together; and after his third bottle he mellowed somewhat, and grew maudlin and confidential, in particular about Shayle, and Jack, and a peck of troubles brewing here. By the same token, Ann, who is this Sir Bevil Rainborough ?" Ann's slight start at the name, and her instinctive glance at the great house, did not escape her companion's watchfulness. "He is a near neighbour," she answered calmly enough, "and a friend of Jack's." "And of yours, eh?” Her eyes met his frankly, and she shrugged. "No," she said thoughtfully. "No; never a friend. I have pitied him, but I have mistrusted him always. And now "And now," le Chemineau continued for her, "he is the head and forefront of the present discontents. That is Nunks's version. Half the old boy told me was lies, no doubt, and another fourth pure Oporto, but I extracted a modicum of sense and what I take to be truth. It was all news to me, and vastly interesting. But it is serious, Ann, damned serious! What with this rising in Scotland, and Ormonde over the water, the Government's woke up, and they're after blood. His Lordship let out more than he was ever meant to, I'll be bound. In vino veritas-and yet, I wonder? He's not the fool he seems, as he was good enough to remark of me. And he let fall a pearl of wisdom very pat at the end, like a lady's postscriptum. 'Look'e, Charles,' said he, when I had pulled his head out of a dish of nuts, 'you've a good ship under you, and brains in your head, though you hide 'em well. Put into Shayle, and see what you can make of this cursed pickle. Ann's a good girl, and a pretty one his own words-' and I don't want young Jack hanged. Knock some sense into him before it's too late. The Government' says he, between hiccups intends making examples this time. But mum's the word, boy! 'Tis unofficial -strictly unofficial.' And with that he fell asleep again, or pretended, and I went aboard, somewhat fuddled, and weighed within the hour." Ann drew a sharp breath through her clenched teeth. "Hanged!" she whispered, turning a white stricken face to his; hanged! Oh, Charles! how much do they know ?" "Between you and me," he said gently, "I think they know all. Or all that matters. Some one has blabbed. Some one always blabs-'tis the infallible touchstone of a ripe workmanlike plot. There are yet one or two points that I hope, strictly unofficially, to clear up for myself; but the essence of the affair, by Nunks's account, has been common knowledge at Whitehall for a fortnight since. "Twas from London he got his first news of it, with a rap over the knuckles because he had not smelt it out himself. Leaders, accomplices, date, place, and strategy the old boy had 'em all by rote. Your Judas is a thorough fellow, Ann. Can you put a name to him?" Who "No, no!" she cried. can it be? Did-did his Lordship name him? " "Well, he dropped a hint for my further guidance. But we had best leave it at that, for I know none of these gentlemen except Jack, and who am I to sow scandal and dissension among a happy family? Let them eat, drink, and be merry, like good little Jacobites, for to-morrow" He ended with a shrug. The girl understood that on this subject he would say no more. So far, indeed, their discussion had been most remarkable for what they left unsaid. Each had dealt in allusions, taking for granted the other's comprehension. This was a habit of a generation bred to caution in a world where political plotting and spying was as much a part of the general order of things as eating and drinking. It penetrated family life and every stratum of society. Neighbours, friends, kinsfolk - all must be handled gingerly, like many explosives. There might be among them a Fenwick or a Ferguson, a Ker of Kersland or a Simon Fraser, an Atterbury or a Bolingbroke. In such an atmosphere curiosity was the worst manners, and from a chance expression of opinion disgrace or ruin might ensue. Nor, since all plots were of one kind, was there any cause for Ann and her old playmate to be more explicit. After 1688, a plot meant a Jacobite plot, and no more about it need be said. There was now between the pair a tacit agreement to play the game according to the rules: on her part to refrain |