Evening Star Newspaper, July 10, 1897, Page 19

— “SHREWSBURY.” BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN. (Copyright, 18¥7, by Stanley J. Weyman.) Continued From Last Saturday. “I should be sorry to deny the last, Sir Winston,” his companion answered, smil- ing, for whom at the moment, blind bat as I was, I had no eyes, seeing in him oply a handsome youth, two or it might be three years older than myseif, whereas I hung on the justices’ nod. “But here is your ease,” he continued, turning to us and ®peaking in a pleasant voice. “And a hard case one of them is,” the Justice answered, jollily, as he turned to us and singled out the constable. “That is you, Dyson!" he exclaimed. “One of those I have been telling you of, my lord. A im singer in the troubles, sergeant in rd Gray's regiment, and ran away, with better men than himself, at Cropredy Bridge. Today he damns a whig, and goes to bed drunk every 28th of May.” “Having a good example, your honor,” the constable answered, grinning. “Aye, to be sure. And why don’t you follow it also?’ Sir Winston continued, turning to the schoolmaster. “But crop- eared you were and crop-eared you are; ene of Shaftesbury’s brisk boys, my lord! And ought to be fined for a ranter eve! Monday morning, if all had their deserts!” “Then I am afraid that your theory does not apply to him, Sir Winston,” the young man said with a smile. “Here is one martyr already, and if one martyr, why mot many?” “Martyr?” the justice answered, with half a dozen oaths. “He? No one less! He goes to church as you and I do, and does not smart to the tune of a penny! It is true he pulls a solemn face and ab- hors mince pies and plum pudding. But why? Because he keeps a school, and the righteous, or what are left of them, who are just such hypocrites as.himself, resort tnto his company with boys and guineas! Resort unto his company, eh, D——?" the justice repeated gleefully. “That is the phrase, isn’t it? Oh, I have chopped Scrip- ture with old Noll in my time. And so it pays, do you see? When it does not he'll damn the whigs and turn Tantivy er abhorrer. or something that does. And so it is with all; they are loyal. Never were Englishmen but what are my lord.” re whigs who do not keep the young lord, after a . and why?” Sir Winston . in high good humo: “Because we are all trimmers to the wind, but some trim too late and some too soon. And those are your whigs. Never you turn whig, my lord, whatever you do, or you will die in a Dutch garret, like Tony Shifts- bury! And if any one could have made whizgery pay nowadays he would have. Here's his health, but I doubt he is in hell these eight months.” And Sir Winston, going to the table, filled and drank off a bumper of claret. Then fille: gain. “The king- od bless him—is not very well, I hear, said he winking at the young lord. “So I will ive you another toast. His highn ealth and confusion to all who would im And now what is this bi Who ts the lad? doing?” ble began to explain, but be- ad uttered many words the bar- whose last draught had more than a mudd 5 S . but I have not acted,” the young wered. sakes, but you shall act now! B is it? Broke and entered, eh? Then t is a hanging matter, and a hound should always be blooded. I am off! My 1 will do Dyson. My lord will do it And the justice lurched out of the win- dow so quickly, not to say unsteadily, that he was gone hefore his companion could remonstrate. The young lord, thus aban- doned. looked at first at a tonplus, and seemed more than half inclined to follow. But, changing his mird, and curious, I am willing to believe. to hear the case of a prisoner so much out of the common as I must have appeared, he turned to us, and adopting a certain stateliness, which came easily to him even tken, told the constable he would hear him. Then it was that, harging fer my life on the sigrs of intelligence that from time to time fell from him and lifted the con- stable out of the slough of verbiage in which he floundered, I dared again to hope, and noting with eyes sharpened by terror the cast of his gravely handsome features, and the curve of a mouth sensitive as a woman's, yet wondrously under control, saw a prospect of life. For a time, indeed, I had nothing more substantial on which to build than such signs, so damning seemed the tale that branded me as taken in the act and on the scene of my crimes. But when the young peer, after eyeing me seriously. asked if they had found n-oney on me, and the constable answered no, and my lord retorted, “Then where was it?’ and got no answer, end again when he in- quired as to the Icck on the door and the height of the window, and who had aided me to enter, and learned that a girl was suspected and no ore else, I feit the blood beat hotly in my head, and a mist come be- fore my eyes “An aecompl Pooh, there must be an accomplic quoth he. “The girl, may it please your lordship,” the co. able answered. “The girl? Then why should she leave him be taken? How did he enter?” “By a ladder, it is supposed, my lord.” “It is s able scratched his head. “Per- “Write!” He Commanded. haps they were surprised, please your lord- ship.” But the boy was found in the room at 7, dolt. And the sun is up before 4. What was he doing all. those hours? Surprised, poo Well, I don't know as to that, my lord,” the man answered, sturdily, “but only that the prisoner was found in the room, in which he had not ought to be, and the money was gone from the room, where it ought to be.” “And the bureau was broken open,’ Mr. D. cried, eagerly. “And, what is has never denied it, my lord! Neve At that. ana at sight of the changs that came over my lord's face, the hope that had risen in me died, and I saw again the grim prospect of the prison and the gibbet; and to be led from one to the other, dumb, one of a drove, unregarded; and, it coming upon me strongly that ii a moment it would be too la‘e, I found my voice and cried to him, “Ob, my lord, help me! Help me. for the sake of Go: Whether my words moved him, or he had not yet given up my case, he looked at me attentively, and with a shade as of recol- a on his face. Then he asked what was. “Usher in a school, my lord.” “Poor devil!” he exciaimed at that. And n easily: “Here, you! Withdraw a little passage, will you? I would speak with him alone. The constable cpened his mouth to de- mur, but the peer would not suffer it, say- ing, with a fine alr, which there was no 5: “Pooh, man, I am Lord Shrews- bury. I will be responsible for him.” And with that, he got them out of the room, Chapter IX. I know now that there never was a man in whom the natural propensity to ,side with the weaker party was, by custom and exercise, more highly developed than in my late lord, in whose presence I then stood for the first time; who, indeed, car- ried that virtue to such an extent that if any fault could be found with his public Hfe and carriage—which I am very far from admitting, but cnly that such a color might be given to some parts of it by his enemies—the flaw was attributable to this excess of generosity. Yet he has since told me that on this occasion of our first meet- Ing it was neither my youth nor my misery —in the main, at any rate—that induced him to take so extraordinary a step as that of seeing me alone, but a strange and puz- zling reminiscence which my . features aroused in him, and whereto his first words when we were left together bear witness. “Where, my _ lad,” said he, “have I seen you before?” As well as I could, for the dread of him in which I stood, I essayed to clear my brain and think; and in me also, as I look- ed at him, the attempt woke a recollection, as if I had somewhere met him. But I could alight on one place only where it was possible I might have seen a man of; his rank; and so stammered thet perhaps | at the Rose Inn at Ware, in the gaming room, I might -have met him. His lip curling. “No,” he said: “I have honored the groom porter at Whitehall once and again by leaving my guineas with him. But at the Rose Inn at Ware— never! And, heavens, man,” he continued, THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY taken, do not look to me.” He suited the action to the words by turning his back on me and beginning to search in a bureau that stood beside him. But so sudden ard so unexpected was the Proposal he made that though he had said distinctly “Go! Go!” I doubt if, apart from the open window, I should have understood his purpose. it was. came to it slowly—so slowly that he lost patience, and with his head still buried among the Pigeon holes, swore at me. : “Are you going!” he said. “Or do you think it is nothing I am doing for you? Do you think it is nothing that I am going to tell a lie for such as you? Hither go or hang, my lad!” I heard no more. A moment eariter nothing had been further from my ‘thoughts than to attempt to escape. But the impulse of his will pointed my waver- ing resolution, and with set teeth and a beating heart, I passed through the win- dow. Outside I turned to the left along a cool, green alley fenced by hedges of yew, and espying the stable yard before me, walked boldly across it. By luck the grooms and helpers were at sup- per, and I saw only one man standing at a door. He stared at me, but said nothing, and in the twinkling I had left the curti- lage behind me and had the park fence and gate in sight. Until I reached this, not knowing whose “EITHER GO OR HANG, MY LAD! what in a tone of contemptuous wender, brought such as you in that place? In shame, and aware, now it was too late, that I had said the worst thing in the world to commend myself to him, I stammered that I had yune thither with a friend. “A woman?” he said quickly. I allowed that it was. “The same that led you into this?” But to that I made no answer; whereon, with sternness, he bade me remember where I stood and that in a few minutes it would be too late to sp2ak. ou can trust me, fellow, I suppose?" id, with a fine scorn, ‘that I shall e evidence against you. By being therefore, you may nake thing: er, but can hardly make them worse.” hereon it has been matter for a life rejoicing that I not proof against his kindness, but without more ado, sobbing over some parts of my tale, told him my | whole story from the first meeting I had had with my temptress—so I may truly call her—to the final moment when, the money gone, and the ladder removed, 1 awoke to find myself in prison. I told it, I have Teagon to believe, with feeling, and in words that carried conviction; the more as, though skilled in literary composition and in writing secundum artem, I have little imagination. Be that as it may, when I had done and quavered off into a half coherent and wholly piteous appeal for mercy, he looked at me with a heat of in- dignation in cheek and eye that strangely altered him. 5 “Good God!” he cried, “what a Jezébel!” And in words which I will not repeat, he said what he thought of her. True as the words were (and I knew that after what I had told him nothing else was true of her) they forced a groan from me. “Poor devil,” he sald at that. And then, again, “Poor devil! For it is a shame! It is a black shame, my lad,’ he continued warmly, “and I would like to see madam at the cart tail; and that is where she will be before she is done! I never heard of such a Jezebel! But for you,” and on the word he paused and looked at me—‘you did it, my friend, and I do not see your way out of it.” “Then must I hang?” I cried. He did not answer. “My lord! My lor I urged—for I be- gan to see whither he was tending, and I could have shrieked in terror—‘you can do anything.” “Ir he said. “Yes! if you would but speak to the judge, my lord.” He laughed, but without mirth. “He would whip you instead of hanging you,” he said contemptuously. “To the king, then.” “You would thank me for nothing,” he answered, and then with a kind of con- temptuous suavity, “My friend, in your Ware academy—where nevertheless you seem to have had your diversions—you do rot know these things. But you may take it from me, that I am more than suspected of belonging to the party whose existence Sir Baldwin denies—I mean the whigs, and the suspicion alone is enough te damn any request of mine.” On that, after staring at him a moment, I did a thing thai surprised him, and had he known me better, would have surprised him mere. Fer the courage to do it, and to show myself in colors so unlike my own, I had to thank, I believe, neither despair nor fear, though both were present, but a kind of rage that seized me, on hearing him speak in a tone above me, and as if, having heard my story, he was satisfied with tke curiosity of it, and would dismiss the subject, and forsooth I might go to the gallows. 1 know now that in so speak- ing he had no unkindly intent; that on the contrary, brought up short by the cer- tainty of my guilt and the impasse as to helping me, in which he stood, he took that mode of repressing the emotion he felt. But I did not understand this, so with a bitterness born of the misconception, and in a voice that sounded harsh, and any one’s rather than my own, I burst into a torrent of reproaches, asking him if it was only for this he had seen me alone, and to make a tale. “To make a tale,” I cried, “and a jest? One that with the same face, with which you send me out to hang and rot, aye, and with the same smile, you'll tell, my lord, after sup- per, to Sir Baldwin and your like. Oh, for shame, my lord, for shame!” I cried pas- sionately, and losing in my indignation all fear of him. “As you may some day be in trouble yourself—for great heads fall as well as low ones in these days, and as little pitied—if you have bowels of com- passion, my lord, and a mother— He turned on me so swiftly at that that my anger quailed before his. “Silence!” he cried fiercely. “How dare you, such as you, mention—but there, fellow, be silent!” I caught the ring of pain as well as anger in his tone, and obeyed; though I could not discern what I had said to touch him so sorely. He, on his side, glowered at me a moment, and so we stood while hope died within me, and I grew afraid of him again, and a shadow fell on the room as it had already fallen on his face. I waited for nothing now, but the word that should send me from his presence, and thought nothing so certain as that I had—how I did not understand—flung away what slender chance remained to me. It was with a start that when he broke the silence | was aware of a new sound in his voice. “Listen, my lad,” he said, in a constrain- ed tone. “You are right in one thing. If I meant to do nothing for you, I had no right to your confidence. I do’ not know what it was in your face induced me to see you. I wish I had not—I wish to hea- ven I had not. But since I have I must do what I can to save you; and there is only one way. Mind you, fellow,” he eon- Unued, in a sudden burst of anger, “I do not like it! And I do it out of regard for myself, not for you.” “Oh, my lord!” I cried, ready to fall down and worship him. “Be silent,” he said, coldly. “And when may back is turned, go through that win- eyes were on me, I had the presence of mind to walk, though cold shivers ran down my back and my hair crept, and every second I fancied—for I was too nerv- ous to look back—that I felt Dyson's hand fall on my collar. Arriving safely at the gate, however, and the road turning out by good luck ‘to be empty, I took to my heels and ran a quarter of a mile along it; then, leaping the fence that bounded it on the right, I started recklessly across coun- try, my aim being to strike the Little Parndon highway, to which my lord had referred, at a point beyond the crossroads and so avoid passing the latter. I am aware that this mode of escape, this walking through a window and run- ning off unmolested, sounds bald an@ com- | Monplace, and that if I could import into m story some touch of romance or wo- manish disguise, such as—to compare great things with small—marked my Lord Niths- dale’s escape from the Tower three years ago, I should cut a better figure. Where- as, in a flight across the fields on a quiet afternoon, with the sun casting long shad- ows on the meadows, and for my most in- stant alarms, the sudden whirring up ot partridge or plover before me, few 4will find anything heroic. But let them place themselves for a moment in my skin and remember that as I sweated and panted and stumbled, and rose again, as I splash- ed in reckless haste through sloughs and ditches and tore my way through great blackthorns, I had death always at my heels! Let them remember that in the long shadows that crossed my path I saw the gallows, and again the gallows, and again the gallows, and fled more quickly, and that it needed but the distant bark of a dog or the shout of a boy scaring birds to persuade me that the hue and cry was ccming, and to fill me with that extremity of fear. I believe that the adventurer, and the knight of the road, when it falls to their lot to be so hunted—as must often happen— though more commonly such a one is taken securus et ebrius in the arms of his mis- tress, find some mitigation of their pains in the anticipation of conflict, and in the stern joy which the resolve to sell his life dearly imparts to the man of action. But I was unarmed, and worn out by my exer- tions: no soldier and with no heart to fight. My flight, therefore, across thé quiet fields was pure terror, the torture of unmitigated fears. Fear spurred me and whipped me: and yet had I known it, I might have spar- ed my terrors. For darkness ‘found me weak and exhausted, but still free, in the neighborhood of Epping, in Essex, where I passed the night in the forest; and before ncon next day, believing that they would watch for me on the Tottenham road, I had found courage to slink into London, by way of Chingford, and im the heart of that great city, whose magnitude exceeded all my expectations, had safely and effectually, lost myself. Chapter X. At this point, I mean my arrival in Lon- don, it becomes me to pause. I set out, the reader will remember, to furnish such a narrative of the events attending my first meeting with my honored patron, as, taken with a brief account of myself, might en- able all to pyrsue with insight, as well as advantage, the details of my later connec- tion with him. And this now being done, and bearing in mind that Sir John Fen- wick did not suffer from his conspiracy un- til 1697, and that consequently a period of thirteen years divided the former events, which I have related, from those which follow, and which have to do, as I inti- mated at the outset, with my lord's alleged ecgnizance of that conspiracy, some may, and with impatience, look to me to proceed at once to the gist of the matter, which I Propose to do, but first to crave the read- er’s indulgence while, in a very hasty and perfunctory manner, I trace my humble fortunes in the interval, whereby I think that time will in the end be saved. ‘at, arriving in London, as I have r lated, fugitive, penniless and homeles: I contrived to keep out of the beadle’s hands, and was neither whipped for a vagrant at Bridewell, nor starved outright in the streets, I attribute to most singular good fortune, which not only rescued me, statim, from a great and instant danger that all but engulfed me, but within a few hours found for me honest and constant Aro ecrysm and that of an uncommon ind. It so happened that, perplexed by the clamor of the great city, wherein all faces were new to me and all ways alike, I came to a stand about noon in the neighborhood of Newgate Market, where, confident that, in the immense and never-ceasing tide of life that ebbs and flows in that quarter, I was safe from recognition, I ventured to sell an undergarment in a small shop in an alley, and, buying a loaf with the price, satisfied my hunger. But the return of strength was accompanied by no return of hope; rather, my prime necessity supplied, I felt the forlornness of my position more acutely. In which condition, having no re- source but to wander aimlessly from one street to another while the daylight lasted —and after that no prospect at all except to pass the night in the same manner—I came presently into Little Britain and stopped, as luck would have it, before one of the book shops that crowd that part. A number of persons were poring over the books, and I joined them. But I had not stood a moment, idly scanning the backs of the volumes, before one of my neighbors touched my elbow, and when I turned and met his eyes, nodded to me. “A. scholar?” he said, smiling pleasantly through a pair of faery “Ah, how aoe: the muse re- quite her worshipers. From thi my friend?” Seige epi ck ae I was, and, to be a man well on in years, clad in go broadcloth, and of a sober, substantial as- << Pg teed ae abjectly. “To sure.” he said, again noddin; cheerfully, “And a stranger to the towm I expect?” “Yes,” I sald. “And a reader? A reader? Ah, how ill seeing him aia the mete ts dealy. off the names of several of the volumes before me. I “You do your sch@olmaster credit, my lad. Such a man should not want, and yet you_look—frankly, are you in need of employment?! = i oie He asked the question with so much benevolence, and lodk “Indeed, indeed,” « must do what I can!’ And/ first, you may quoth he. “Well, I do me a small service, which in any casi shall not go unrequited. Come this way. Without waiting for an answer he led me into the mouth of a court, hard by, where we were less open to observation. There, pointing to a shop at a little dis- tance from that at which he had found me, he explained that he wished to. pur- chase a copy of Selden’s “Baronage” that stood at the front of the stall, but that the tradesman knew hi! and would over- chargé him. “So do you go and-buy it-for me, my friend,” he continue@, chuckling at his innocent subterfuge, with = = ity that took with me immensely. “It ue be aaah eee ties ea——" and he lugs one out. “‘ the book and bring the changé to me, ad it shall be something in yor : by ih bar there that the muse should bé so g0, go, my lad,” he continued, “and re- Member Selden’s ‘Baronage;’ half a guin Delighted with the luck that had found me such @ patron, and anxious to acquit myself to the best advantage, I hurried to do his bidding, first making sure that I knew where to find"him. The shop he had pointed out, which was surmounted with the sign of a gun, and appeared to enjoy no small share of public favor, was full of persons reading and talking; but almost the first book on which my eyes alighted was Selden’s ‘Baronage,’ and the trades- man, when I applied to him, made no diffi- culty about the price, saying at once that it was half a guinea. I handed him my money, and, without breaking off his talk with a customer, he was counting the change, when something in my aspect struck him, aad he looked at the guinea. On which he muttered an oath and thrust ‘| it back into my hand. “Tt will not do,” he said angrily. I was quite taken aback, the more as several persons looked up from their books, and his immediate companion, a meager. dry-looking man in a snuff-colored suit, ‘fell to staring at me. “What do you mean?” I stammered. “You know very well,” the tradesman answered me roughly. ‘And had better begone! And more, I tell you, if you want a hemp collar, my man, you are in the way to get one.” quoth the dry-looking man, “New clipped and bright at the edges,” the bookseller answered. “Now, go, my man, and be thankful I don’t send for a constable.” At that I shrank away, two or three cus- tomers coming to the door to see me out, and watch whick way I turned. This, I pose, though 1 was then and for a little time longer in doubt about him, was the reason why I could see nothing of my charitable friend when I returned to the place where I had left him. I looked this way and thit, but he was gone; and though not, knowing what else to do, and still having the guinea in my-possession, I lingered about the mouth sf the court for an hour or more, he fild ndt return: At the end of that time the meager, dry man whom I had seen in the shop passed with a book under his‘armt/and, seeing me, after a moment's hesitation, stood and spoke to me. ‘How now, my friend?” said he, looking hard at me. “Are you waiting for the halter?” I told him civilly no; but the gentleman who had given me the guinea to change had bidden me return’ to Him there. “And he is not here?” he said with a sneer. - “No,” I said. 3 He stared at me, < suppose at the sim- plicity of my answer; and then: “Well, you are either the biggest fool or the biggest knave within the bills!”, he exclaimed. “Are you straight from Gotham?” “No.” I told him, “From the north.” And that I wanted employment. . “You are likely to, get it—at the planta- tions!” he answered, saxagely, taking snuff. I remarked that pejther his.hands nor his linen were of the cleanest, and that the former were stained with ink. “What are you?” he continued, in the same snappish, churlish tone. I told him a schoolmaster. “Exempli gratia,” he answered, quickly, turning to the nearest stall and indicating the title page of a book. “Read me that, Master Schoolmaster.” I did so. He grunted, and then: “You write? Show me your hand.” I said I had no paper or ink there, but if cried, he would take me— “Pooh, man, are you a fool?” he impatiently. “Show me your right hand, middle finger, and I will find you scribit or non scribit. So! And you want work?” “Yes,” I said. “Hard work and little pay?” I said I wanted to make my living. “Ay, and perhaps the first time you come to me you will cut my throat and rob my desk,” he answered gruffiy. “Hm! That touches you home, does it? However, ask for me tomorrow at 7 in the forenoon—Mr. Timothy Brome, at the sign of the Black Boy in Fleet street.” Now I was overjoyed, Indeed. With such @ prospect of employment it seemed to me a small thing that I must stop in the streets, but even that I escaped. For when he was about to part from me, he asked ine what money I had. “None,” I told him, “except the clipped guinea.” “And I sup- pose you expect me to give you a shilling earnest?” he answered, irascibly. ‘‘But no, no, Timothy Brome is no fool. See here,” he continued, slapping his pocket and look- ing shrewdly at me, “that guinea is not worth a groat to you, except to hang you:' “No,” I said, ruefully. “Well, I will give you five shillings for it —as gold, mind you; as gold, and not to pass. Are you content?” “It is not mine,” I said, doubtfully. “Take it or leave it,” he said, screwing up his eyes, and so plainly pleased with the bargain he was driving that I had no inkling of the kind heart that underlay. that crabbed manner. ‘Take it or leave it, my man.” Thus pressed, and my mind retaining no real doubt of the knavery of the man who had intrusted the guinea to me, I handed it to my new friend, and received in re- turn a crown. And this being my last and final disposition of money not my own, I think it is a fit season to record that from that day to this I have been enabled, by God's help and man’s kindness, to keep the Eighth Commandment, and earning honest- ly what I have spent, have been poor in- deed, but never a beggar. In gratitude for which, and both those good men being now dead, I here conjoin the names of Mr. Timothy Brome of Fleet street, newsmonger and author, whose sharp tongue and morose manners ¢loaked a hundred benefactions, and of Charles, Duke of Shrewsbury, my: honored patron, who nevér gave but ‘his Smile doubled the gift which his humahity dictated. The reader will Welieve! that punctually on the morrow I weit with joy and thank- fulness to my new miastér, whom I found up three pairs of stairs fn a room barely furnished, but heaped in every ‘part with piles of manuscripts‘and dog’s-eared books, all so covered with' dust that type and script were alike Mtegibte. He wore a dingy dressing gown and Wad laid aside his wig, but the air of tnpertance with which he nodded to me, ar@ a soft of dignity that ckthed him as he walked@!2o and fro on the ink-stained floor, niighti#g Impressed: me, and drove me to wonder what sort of trade was carried on here.: He continued for some minutes afteriI: entered to declaim one fine sentence dfterSanother, rolling the long words over ‘his tongue with a great appearance of enjoyment; a process which he onty interrupted ¢o pdint me to.a stool and desk, and cry with averted eyes—lest he should cut the thread'of his thoughts— “Write!” On my hesitating, “Write!” he repeated, in the tone of one commanding a thousand troopers. And then he spoke thus, and as he spoke I wrote: “This day his gracious majesty, whose health appears to be completely restored, accompanied by the French ambassador and a brilliant company, took the air in the mall. Dispatches from Holland say that the Duke of Monmouth has arrived at The Hague and has been well received. Letters from the west say that the city of Bristol, having & well-founded confidence in the royal clemency, -has hastened to lay its charter at his majesty’s feet. The 30th of tre month began the sessions at the Old Bailey, and held the first and second of this, where seventeen persons received the “Brilliant as Diamonds" is the effect of every of Lib! it Glass, The genaloc has tals Cie soa at on The g bottom, weLy can:read?” he mewhat sud- I said I could, endo convince him read 10, 1897-24 PAGES. arn at eae, pened gtr pte seven transported, ordered to be whipped. Yesterday, or this day, & commission was sealed, appointing the Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys—" Chapter XI. In & word, my master was a writer news letters, and in that capacity pos- sessed of so excellent a style and so great &@ connection In the western counties that, as he was wont to boast, there was hardly & squire or rector from Bristol to Dawlish that did not owe what he knew of his ma- Jesty’s gout, or Mr., Dryden's last play, to his weekly epistles. The popish plot on the one hand, which had cost the lives of Lord Stafford and so many of his suasion, and the Rye house plot on Yee other, which, by placing the whigs at the mercy of the government, had at the sam of found himself unable to cope with it. In this unsettled condition and meditating changes which should belittle Sir Roger and oust print from the field, he fell in with me, and where another man wouid have selected a bachelor whose cassock and scarf might commend him at Wills’ or Child’s, his eccentric kindness snatched me from the gutter, and set me on a tall stool, there to write all day for the de- Jectation of country houses and mayors’ parlors. I remember that at first it seemed to me 80 easy a trick (this noting the news of the day in plain round hand) that I wondered they paid him to do it, more than another. But besides that I then had knowledge of one side of the business only, I mean the framing the news, but none of the man- ner in which it was collected at Garra- way’s and the Cockpit, the sessions house and the gallery at Whitehall. 1 presently learned that even of the share that fell to my lot I knew only as much as the dog that turns the spit, of the roasting of meat. For when my employer, finding me docile and industrious—as I know I was, being thankfui for such a haven, and crushed in spirit not only by the dangers through I had passed, but also hy my mis- tress’ treachery—when I say he left me one day to my devices, merely skimming through a copy and leaving me to multiply it, with my guide, the list of places to which the letters were to go, as Bridge- water, whig; Bath, tory; Bridport, tory Taunton, whig; Frome, whig; Lyme, whi; and so on, I came very far short of su cess. True, when he returned in the even- ing I had my packets neatly prepared for the mail, which then ran to the west thrice a week and left next morning, and I had good hopes that he would send them un- touched; but great was my dismay when he fell into a rage over the first he picked up, and asked me bluntly if I was quite a fool. I stammered some answer, and asked in confusion what was the matter. “Everything,” he said. “Here, let me see. Why, you dolt and dunderkead, you have sent letters in identical terms to Frome and Bridport.” “Yes,” I said, faintly. “But the one is whig and the other is torry!” he cried. “But the news, sir," I made bold to an- swer, “is the same.” - “Is it!” he cried, in fine contempt. “Why, you are a natural! J thought you had Jearned something by this time. Here, where is the Frome letter? ‘The London Gazette announces that his majesty has been graciously pleased to reward my Lord Rochester's services at the treasury board by raising him to the dignity of lord president of the council, an eieva- tion which renders necessary his resigna- tion of his seat at the board.’ Tut, tut, that is the court tone. Here, out with it and write: “The Earl of Rochester's removal from the treasury board to the presidency otf the councii, which is announced in the Gazette, is very well understeod. His lord- ship made-what resistance he could, but the facts were plain, and the king could do no otherwise. Rumor has it that the sum lost to the country in the manner already hinted at exceeds 50,000 guineas.’ “There, what ccmes next? ‘Letters from tke continent have it that strong recom- mendations have been made to the court at The Hague to dismiss the D— of M—, and it is corfidently expected thet the next packet will bring the news of his depari- ure.’ Pooh, out with it. Write this: “The D— of M— is stil at The Hague, where he is being surptuously entertained. Much is made of his majesty’s anger, but the D— is well surplied with money from an unknown source, which some take to be significant At a ball given by their highnesses on the 11th he danced an En- f lish country dance with the Lady Mary, pectiecelnn nis. grace and skill won all hearts.’ a “That is better. And now what next? “This day an ambassador from the King of Siam in the East Indies waited on aol e8] marks of majesty with great h, sisie Umph! Well, leave !t, but add, *. ‘oplus.” Preknd then, “There are rumors that his majesty intends to call a parliament shortly, in which plan he is hindered only the state of his gout.” XOut with that and write this: ‘In the city is much murmuring that a parliament is not called. Though his majesty has not played lately at tennis, he showed him- self yesterday in Hyde Park, so that some who maintain his health to be the cause deserve no weight. In bis company were his highness the Duke of York and the French ambassador.’ “There, you fool,” my master continued, flinging two-thirds of the packets back to me. “You will have to amend these, and another time you will know better.” Which showed me that I had still some- thing to learn, and that, as there are tricks in all trades, so Mr. Timothy Brome did not enjoy the reputation of the most popular news vender in London without reason. But as I addressed myself to the business with zeal, I presently began to acquire a mastery over his methods, and, my knowledge of public affairs growing with each day's work, as in such an em- ployment it could not fail to grow, I was able before very long to take the composi- tion of the letters almost entirely off his hands, leaving him free to walk Change alley and the coffee houses, where his snuff-colored suit and snappish wit were as well known as his secret charity was litile suspected. He. was, indeed, of so honest a disposi- tion in private, his faults of temper not- withstanding, as to cause me at first some surprise; since I fancied an incompatibility between this and the laxity of his public views, which he carried to such an ex- treme that he was not only a political skeptic himself, but held all others to be the same, maintaining that the best public men were only of this or that color be- cause it suited their pockets or ambitions, and that, of all, he respected most Lord Halifax and his party, who at least trim- med openly, and never cried loudly for either extreme. But as his actions in other matters bet- tered his professions, so I presently found that in this, too, he belied himself, as was made clear when he came to the test. For, ‘the death of King Charles II occurring soon after I came to serve him—so soon that I still winced when my former life was probed, and hated a woman and trem- bled at the sight of a constable, and won- dered sometimes if this were really I who went to and fro daily from my garret in Bride lane to St. Dunstan’s—the death, I say, of that king occurring just at that time, we were speedily overwhelmed by the rush of events so momentous, and fol- lowing so quickly one on another that they very shortly threw off its balance the old see-saw of court and country, and upset with it the minds of many who had hither- to clung firmly to a party. For the king had scarcely laid very quietly in his grave and the Duke of York been proclaimed by the title of James II, when those who had fled the country in the last reign, either after the Rye House plot or later with Monmouth, returned and kindled two great insurrections, that of the Marquis of Ar- gyle in the north, and that of the Duke of Monmouth in the west. Occurring almost simultaneously, it was wonderful to see how, in spite of the cry of a popish king and the Protestant religion in rT, which the rebels everywhere raised, they rallied all prudent folk to the king, whose popularity never, before or afterward, stood so high as on the day of the battle of Sedgmoor. And doubtless he might have retained the confidence and affection of his people, and by these means attain to the utmost of his legitimate wishes—I mean the relief of tne papists from all penal clauses if not all civil disabilities—had he gone about it discreetly and with the moderation which so delicate a matter required. But in the very outset the severity with which the western rebels were punished, both by <he military after the rout and by the lord chief justice of the Assizes which followed, gave check to his popularity, and thence- forth for three years all went one way. The test acts abrcgated at the first in a case here ard there (yet ominously in such in particular as favored the admission of papists to the army) were presently nulli- fied, with other acts of a like character, by a general declaration of indulgence, may Lords and Clarendon, the king’s brothers-in-law, from all their placcs because, as was everywhere rumored, they would not resign the creed in which they were born. It were long to recount all the like errors into which the king fell, but I place highest the dissolution of a most loyal parliament it would not legalize his measures, the open and shameless attempt to pack its successor, the corruption of the judges, and the trial of the seven bishops for sedi- tion. It were shorter and equally to the point to say that an administration con- ducted for three years on these lines suf- ficed not only to sap the patient loyalty of the nation, but to rouse from its sluggish rest the political conscience of my em- ployer. Who, after much muttering and many snappish corrections and alterations, all tending, as I socn perceived, to whig- gery, gave up on the day the fellows of Magdalen were expelled his time-honored system of duplicity, and thenceforward, until the end, issued but one letter to tory squire and whig borough alike. What was more remarkable, and, had the king known it, might have served his ob- stinate majesty for a warning, he lost no patrons by the step, but rather increased his readers, the whole nation by this time being of one mind. When, therefore, the end came, and in arswer to the famous in- vitation signed by the seven, the deliverer, as the whig party still love to call him, landed at Torbay, and with scarcely a blow and no life lost entered London, there were few among those who ruffied it in his train as he rede to St. James’, who had done more to bring him to his throne than my master; thovgh he, good man, wore nelther spurs nor sword and stood humbly afoot in the mouth of an alley to see the show pass. (To be continued.) ae HOW THE FRENCH DEPUTIES VOTE. They Need Not Ne Present and They Vote fer Each Other. Paris Letter in London Daily News. Absenteeism in the chamber of deputies is becoming a more and more serious evil, and it is hard to say whether the French system of voting by proxy does not rather increase it than minimize it. The word “absenteeism” I do not mean to use in a literal sense. The members are in the Palais Bourbon, but they are in the lobbies, the Mbrary, the committee rooms, the bar rooms drinking free glasses of beer. Be- fore leaving the chamber they tell a col- league, “If anything happens you may vote in my stead. In writing for English papers we talk of the chamber of deputies dividing on a bil This is but a convenient interpretation o! what takes place. Deputies do not divide, but vote in ordinary matters by a show of hands; and when the result of this test is challenged by a ballot vote each member has in his desk packs of blue and of white cards bearing his nam latter color To vote by a member simply puts his friends cai in the box along with his own. A member will sometimes vote of his own accord for a colleague whom ke ni Sometimes three or four will each go and vote for the same person. Among the good stories of the chamber of deputies it is related that on several occasions the num- ber of votes recorded was greater than a full house. Mistaken votes are a daily oc- currence, ow to a member's opinions on a bill being misunderstood by a colleague. In that case the person who has been made to vote wrongly drops a line to the presi- dent and a notification is sent to the Jour- nal Official. Yesterday the question of proxy voting came up incidentally. The socialist deputy Viviani was making some remarks about the Bank of France charter when he noticed that the chamber was empty, and he moved that the sitting be adjourned for an hour. This drastic proposal was {ll- received, it being usual in such a case to send out whips without stopping proceed- ings. M. Brisson, before putting the res- olution to the vote, endeavored to sub- stitute a milder one. He asked Viviani to allow him to adjourn the sitting, put to open it again as soon as there was a quorum. But the socialist member insisted en his resolution being moved. One of his friends, Marcel Habert, remarked that there were not 50 members present, but that more than 500 voting cards would be found in the boxes. M. Viviani's motion was put, and lost by 391 to 126. This literal fulfillment of M. Habert’s prophecy was re- ceived with jeers on the extreme left. Cer- tainly, if the system of voting by proxy had not already been brought to the low- est depths of discredit, this result would do it. But members are not likely to do away with the system. I am told one of the reasons there was such a small hovse was that deputies have run over to Lon- don for the jubilee. ————_-2-_____ Californ: Asphalt Fields. Los Angeles Letter to the New York Sun. The plant of the California Asphalt Com- pany at Ventura, Ventura county, is being rapidly pushed to completion. Its output will be about 300 barrels of refined asphalt per day. The asphalt beds of California are beginning to attract much attention. An officer of the state mining bureau, who has been examining the asphalt beds of the Sisquoc country, San Luis Obispo coun- ty, says they form one of the largest fields ever discovered. California asphalt is now being tested on the streets of Paris and of Glasgow to compare it with the supply from other sources It is an asphaltic sandstone, while that from Trinidad is an asphaltic lHmestone, which is said to be much inferior to the California product, as it cracks when used for paving. The total value of the output of asphaltic products in California last year was $485,000. A Conjecture. Brown—‘T haven't seen much of Major Jones of late. That rich widow he married used to keep him dancing attendance on her everywhere. 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