lar to say to the latter personage, and such a parade did he make of the absence of all sinister design in this little arrangement, that his palpable and clumsy finesse created the very surmises it was intended to prevent, the servants wondering what their masters could have to say that required so much secrecy, and the guests naturally distrusting their exclusion from full confidence, when they were all partisans in the same perilous undertaking.

The worthy Baronet, however, who thought he had accomplished a truly Machiavelian manœuvre, returned to Sir William winking, and looking as cunning and as knowing as the frank and open honesty of his countenance would allow him. "There they go! there they go!" exclaimed he: "The simple rogues little think how finely I have bamboozled them. I played the old fox, and gave them a touch of the deep one there, did n't I?"-Here he laid his finger on one side of his nose, and made such an irresistible attempt to twist his blunt features into a sly expression, that Sir William could not refrain from a smile.

"Adzooks!" cried Sir John, "I'm right glad to see ye snigger, for you have been looking as woe-begone as Praise-God Barebones, the canting leatherseller of Fleet-street. Psha! man; every thing is going on well. We have killed one red-faced Noll to-day, and if I get within stone's throw of the other, I will not let him off so cheap as I did before."

"Before!" exclaimed his companion, "what are you alluding to ?"

"Why, hark ye, Sir William, it's a secret I wouldn't imprudently divulge to any one, because it might occasion me to lose my head; but you have, doubtless, heard long ago of his carriage being broken by a brick-bat, thrown at him from the top of a house in the Strand, as he was returning from a grand dinner, at Grocers' Hall, on an AshWednesday."

"I remember the occurrence," said Sir William, "and the great hubbub it excited, but I believe they never discovered the author of the insult."

"If they had," continued Sir John, "I should not now be riding through Ashdown forest, for 'twas I who gave him that dessert, by way of letting him know that he should fast instead of feasting on an Ash Wednesday. I could not help it, upon my soul, Sir William. I was lying sick in bed, as who could help being sick in such distempered times, when I was disturbed by the noise of his returning procession; and hurrying to the window to learn the cause, I could not resist the temptation of throwing a brick-bat at the rascal's head. You could not yourself have resisted it, Sir William, I am sure you could not."

"I rather think I should," replied his auditor, calmly; "but how did you escape discovery?"

"Suspicion luckily attached itself to the next house, and when the two or three officers who came

to the sick gentleman's apartment, as mine was termed, found me ill in bed, and received my assurance that not a soul had entered my room, they very obligingly took their departure, and I heard no more of the matter."

"I recommend you, however," said Sir William, "neither to repeat your experiment nor your present confession, for both might be equally dangerous, if the Protector"

"A fico for the Roundhead rogue!" interrupted Sir John." I hope he will soon be in our power. He has had one tumble from his seat while riding in his coach and six round Hyde Park, with his wife Joan* beside him, and his secretary Thurloe in the boot; and I hope we shall presently overset him from the car of government, and make him ride in a different vehicle to Tyburn, that we may verify the Ballad-'

'Every day and hour hath show'd us his power,

But now he hath show'd us his art;

His first reproach was a fall from his coach,
His next will be from a cart.'

When the old King's statue was thrown down from the gallery at St. Paul's, it alighted, I remember,

* Such was the nick-name invariably bestowed by the Cavaliers upon Cromwell's wife, though her real name was Elizabeth. The accident alluded to occurred in July 1654. The pistol, which the Protector always carried in his pocket, went off, but with his usual good fortune he escaped all injury.

VOL. I.

6*

upon its feet, which was accepted as a good omen that his family should still stand firm to the last ; but if this pestilent image of a king be once fairly tumbled down, I will take good care that he shall not fall upon his feet;—and I hope, before we hunt another of his red-nosed namesakes, that we shall have hauled down the original by a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether."

Sir John now informed his companion, who was a steady listener, though a shy talker, that by the latest accounts from St. Malo's, the King was quite ready to embark with an army under the Count de Marsin, the Prince de Conde's general, who has been lately honoured with the order of the Garter; -that Colonel Russel, Mr. Mordaunt, and the principal Royalists, as well as the chief citizens of London, were prepared to rise the moment a landing should be effected; that the Usurper, as he termed him, could not depend upon the support of his own army, beyond two or three regiments; and finally, that the prospects of the King and the Royalists never looked more pleasant and promising. His imagination carrying the sanguine baronet to the successful consummation of their enterprise, and the celebration of their victory over a cup of hippocras or Gascoigne wine, he began to express his triumph in the usual way, by singing with a lusty

voice :

"Now we 're met in a knot, let's take t' other pot,
And chirp o'er a cup of nectar ;

Let's think on a charm, to keep us from harm,
From the fiend and the foul Protector.

"Heretofore at a brunt, a cross would have done 't, But now

There he abruptly broke off in the middle of his song, and as suddenly stopped his horse upon hearing the distant report of a piece of ordnance. After a minute's interval, a second sounded, when his face, which had been all the time gradually reddening, coloured up to a most fiery and portentous glow, as he ejaculated," Ud's Sacrament! it's the two falconets a-top of Brambletye !"

"It did indeed sound like two drakes, or some of those smaller pieces of artillery," observed Sir William-" but what of that? they may be exercising the troops at East Grinstead."

66

"East devil!" exclaimed Sir John petulantly,— "it came from Brambletye; I can swear to the sound of the falconets, and I ordered them to be fired only in case of discovery, or of any sudden attack upon the house."

"God be good unto us!" cried Sir William,--"then we are betrayed-I was always afraid of this ;" and he turned as pale as his companion was crimson.

"We may still be in time to lend a helping hand," cried Sir John. So saying, he clapped spurs to his steed, and galloped forwards, followed by the appalled Sir William, who was rather anxious to