that his spirits became instantly exhilarated, and he strolled rather farther than he had at first contemplated, feeling no small confidence in his mendicant rags, and humming to himself, as he snapped his fingers at the thought of the king's soon landing with an army,

יין

11

Sing Vive le roi!"

Either to suit the action to the word, or to give his stiffened legs a more vigorous relaxation, he was practising a hop, step, and jump along the grass, when he obscurely perceived a dark figure moving rapidly away from him, and at the same time heard the well-known accents of the black ghost, as he termed her, ejaculating. "The Lord shall deliver up the ungodly into the hands of the enemy - Startled by this unexpected apparition, and deeply feeling the necessity of concealment, his first impulse was to retire; but reflecting for a moment that the party, whoever it might be, had probably been near enough to discover him from his voice, he resolved to make one more effort at securing the form that thus perpetually haunted him, and endeavour to clear up the mystery of its appearance. For this purpose he rushed rapidly forwards in the direction it had taken: but the darkness had now deepened; nothing was to be seen or heard, and the object of his pursuit eluded his grasp as easily as it had done upon former occasions. Had he been at all disposed to indulge the notion of supernatural visitants, the circumstances might well have warranted him; but he felt persuaded he was dogged by some persevering spy, although he could not account for the facility of its escape; and in this belief he saw the necessity of immediately decamping from his present lair, and making the best of his way to some other part of the country.

Availing himself therefore of the darkness, and without waiting the appearance of Groombridge, he returned to the hovel, filled his wallet with such viands as were left, secreted some broad pieces of money in the lining of his leathern gambadoes, took a stout staff which had been provided for him, and trudged briskly through the forest in the direction of the coast. When the morning broke, he found himself a good many miles distant from Peppingford Warren and its sorry tenement, and deeming it advisable to travel as little as possible in the day-time, he laid himself down in a lonely gravel-pit, and slept soundly till the afternoon. As soon as he awoke, he applied himself to the contents of his wallet, and as his appetite, which never failed him, had been little accustomed to restraint, he thought not of husbanding his resources, but despatched all his store at one breakfast. He had some small money, however, in his pocket, for procuring a new supply, which he thought might more safely be accomplished in the evening; atwhich time accordingly he ventured for the first time upon the high road, hoping to encounter some village shop or alehouse that might furnish him with what he wanted.

After having proceeded a few hundred yards, looking up and down with a scrutinizing eye, he observed a pedler, with a box at his back, and a pipe in his mouth, who had, apparently, struck into the highway from a cross

road behind, and was advancing at a stout pace, that threatened soon to overtake him. Not over-anxious to enter into colloquy with any one, and particularly with a man whose station in life, so nearly similar to that which he had himself assumed, would not only warrant his opening a conversation, but might perhaps enable the stranger to discover that he was conversing with an impostor, Sir John mended his pace, hoping to outstrip and distance his follower. But the sturdy fellow stepped out with such a vigorous stride, that he soon saw it would be impossible to avoid being overtaken, unless he fairly took to running, which might only excite suspicion, and not the better enable him to carry his point. To dart out of the high road, which he had for a moment meditated, was liable to the same objection; and he therefore resolved to slacken his pace, affect nonchalance, and give this resolute tramper an opportunity of passing him. Happening to recollect a fragment of a song that was applicable to his present ostensible calling, he carelessly trolled, just as he heard the footsteps behind him

"I am never the better, which side gets the battle,
The Tubs or the Crosses, what is it to me?
They'll never increase my goods or my cattle,
But a beggar's a beggar, and so he shall be.
To the wedding, the wedding, the wedding go we;
To the wedding a begging, a begging all three."

"Hey! my merry master of the wallet," cried the pedler, coming up, "art crowing the sun to bed instead of to rise? I thought songs were out of fashion now-a-days; but an you're for tagging ballads, I'll top you till the moon rises, -ay, and like yourself, in the way of my own trade.

'Come buy, you lusty gallants,
These simples which I sell ;
In all our days are none like these,
For beauty, strength, and smell.
Here's the king-cup, panzy, violet,
The rose that loves the shower,
The wholesome gilliflower,
Both the cowslip, lily,

And the daffodilly,

With a thousand in my power.'

And so now, my chirping chum, tune up another stave, and a whiff of tobacco! for the act against ballad-singers."

Well pleased with the merry humour of the pedler, but not at all disposed to encourage a familiarity which might be attended with dangerous results, Sir John declared, with as forbidding an expression as he could assume, that he had no more songs to sing; and that, if he had, he felt no inclination to bandy them with a stranger.".

"Nay, comrade," cried the pedler, "never look so glum, but let us crow while we can:

for it's hard the cock may not stretch his throat to-day, when he is liable to have his neck twisted to-morrow."

Not a little alarmed at this suspicious remark, of which, however, he determined to take no notice, Sir John preserved silence, and slackened his pace, hoping that his companion, who had previously appeared to be in such a hurry, would move on. In this expectation he was disappointed: the pedler lounged along by his side, apparently quite at his ease, and stood

still when the baronet did the same, as if determined not to be shaken off. "Hark ye, friend," he at length exclaimed to Sir John, in a half whisper, "if you are lagging hereabout upon the sly, and wish to mill a gentry cove's ken, or curb any snappings, such as a large of dudes, a margery prater, or a tib of the buttery, you may as well take me for your warpe, for I know of a sterling ken hereabouts, where we may get some rar ruff-peck, and plenty of rome-bowse.*

"I understand nothing of your pickpockets' cant," said Sir John indignantly.

"What! a beggar, and not understand your own dictionary!" replied the pedler.

"The late times have made many such," continued Sir John, "who were never born to that condition, and are consequently unversed in its mysteries."

"True, indeed!" ejaculated the pedler with a deep sigh, at the same time fixing his eyes upon the ground, and appearing to be lost in a profound reverie, a temporary abstraction of which Sir John availed himself to dart forward once more, with a velocity that almost amounted to a run. But his tormentor was presently again at his side, exclaiming "Nay, if you are for a match, here goes for a quart of ale, and we will cheer the way with a song. How runs the cld catch?

"The monk then threw his cowl

From off his shaven poll,

And he tuck'd up his frock, Sir John, Sir John;

If you wish to run a race,

Be this the starting-place,

And the devil take the hindmost, Sir John, Sir John."

"Pester me no longer, sirrah pedler, with your saucy Sir Johns," cried the baronet, stopping short, and looking fiercely at his companion, "trudge one way or another, good-man gallows-bird, and leave me to myself, or I may chance to switch your shoulders with my sapling, which, as you may see, can leave a pretty legible mark."

"Nay, I did but carol an old song," cried the pedler, "and why should we not trudge on quietly together; for you are bound, as I suspect, to the

coast."

Starting and colouring deeply at this broad insinuation that he was discovered, Sir John determined to try at an escape by a ruse de guerre, and accordingly exclaimed with a feigned astonishment-"The coast! then the lying knave of an innkeeper has misdirected me: I am bound for Tunbridge, and find I am wandering from my way!" So saying, he faced to the right-about, when the pedler did the same, declaring that "all places were alike to him, and that he had long intended to visit Tunbridge, where there was generally a good demand for his commodities." In this manner he kept teasing and tormenting his victim for some time, without being explicit enough to allow him a plausible pretext for shaking him off or knocking him down; just as one sometimes sees a gad-fly almost goading an ox to madness, by so directing its attacks as to be beyond the reach of either its tail or its horns.

Driven at length to a stand, and putting himself in a menacing posture, the wrathful Sir John roared out-"Sblood! fellow-" when the pedler, calmly interrupting him, exclaimed ""Sblood is an oath, and you are

*Signifying in the thieves' slang of that day—"If you wish to rob a gentleman's house, or pilfer any goods, such as a buck of clothes, or a hen, or a goose, let me be your spy, for I know of a receiving house for our plunder, where we may get bacon and wine."

liable to a penalty under the act for the better preventing and suppressing of the detestable sins of profane swearing and cursing."

"And if it be," rejoined Sir John, thrown off his guard by the cool assurance of his companion, "I have paid my twenty shillings before now for the same offence, and care not if I live to do it again."

"Twenty shillings!" ejaculated the pedler -"why a lord forfeits but thirty, a baronet or a knight twenty, an esquire ten, a gentleman six and eightpence, and all inferior persons three and fourpence; the whole to be doubled for the second offence: so runs the act. Zooks! you are not a baronet, are you?"

Convinced of his being discovered from the sly look and ironical tone that accompanied this question; Sir John now prepared to try conclusions with his beleaguerer, and see whether he could not part company by throwing him fairly into the ditch; when the pedler stepped back, and assuming a more dignified manner, exclaimed with a smile, "Forgive me, my dear Compton, for such I instantly knew you to be by your bluff and hearty voice-forgive me for thus trifling with your feelings, but I was anxious to ascertain the security of my disguise, and prove whether these pedler's trappings and my borrowed slang would effectually supersede the quondam Marquess of Ormond."

"My Lord of Ormond!" cried Sir John, scrutinizing him with his eyes "Body o' me! and so it is! who would have thought it? And yet I should have presently found you out, but for your feigned voice."

"Which may show you the necessity, Sir John, of disguising your own. You must take up the beggar's whine as well as his wallet, and quote Lazarus and scraps of Scripture if you look for alms and broken victuals.

They now retired to a hollow copse, unexposed to observation froin the high road, where the marquess stated that he had been sent over by the king to take the command of the intended rising, but that, as soon as he had learned the detection of the conspiracy, he had disguised himself and left London, not expecting the Protector would be complaisant enough to give him a second opportunity of escaping.* He proceeded to inform Sir John that a proclamation had been issued, ordering all royalists within a circle of twenty miles round London, to withdraw themselves; and among other numerous arrests, told him that his kinsman Sir William Compton, and his neighbour Sir William Clayton, had both been sent to the Tower. "What, old Clayton nabbed!" cried the baronet, "in spite of all his crafty plans and preparations; why then, since the wary fox falls into the pit when the blind buzzard blunders over it, there may be some chance of my own escape."--He was dejected, however, at the intelligence, and still more so at learning that the king would doubtless abandon the projected landing, now that the plot had so unfortunately exploded in England. From public affairs they proceeded to discourse of their own, and both agreeing that their sole chance was to make for the coast, where a few pieces of gold would, in all probability, get them conveyed in a fishing-boat to France, they determined to travel on together, Sir John shrewdly remarking that two heads were better than one, especially such a one as his own.

Unfortunately the marquess was in a still worse plight than Sir John as to provisions, having tasted nothing that day, and complaining, as he started up to proceed, that he found the rope across his chest, and the pedler's box at the end of it, not quite so light or pleasant to carry as the blue ribbon and George to which he had been accustomed. - -"Zooks "" cried the good-natured baronet, "let me then have a spell of it, for I have had a

* Upon a former occasion, when the marquess was in London plotting for the king, Cromwell was generous enough to send him word by Lord Broghill, that he knew of his being in town. as well as the objects of his visit. The marquess took the hint as it was intended, and made his escape.

hearty breakfast; and as to the weight, I have made little of carrying a buck across my shoulders before now." So saying, and without listening to the marquess's protestations, he hastily relieved him from his burden, which he slung at his own back, giving his stout staff in exchange; and thus accoutred they regained the highway, for the pressing and indispensable object of replenishing their exhausted larder.

Scarcely, however, had they proceeded two hundred paces, when, upon a sudden turn of the road, they unexpectedly came upon a straggling party of dragoons, whose leader had no sooner caught a glimpse of them than he clapped spurs to his horse, gallopped up, and hastily dismounting, seized Sir John roughly by the collar, crying out "So ho, my lord pedler, have we found you at last? Here is the blue box at his back and the bunch of roses painted upon the lid, exactly as it was described to us. I know you, my Lord of Ormond, and I arrest you in the name of his highness the Lord Protector. And who is this shabby chough by your side? another of the plotters and malignants?"

With a promptitude of thought, rather in unison with the generous kindness of his heart than the customary singleness of his apprehension, Sir John had determined, while his antagonist was making this speech, to favour the mistake by substituting himself for the marquess, and adopt a line of conduct which might at least enable one of them to escape. Before the latter, therefore, could make any attempt at explanation, he exclaimed to the officer-"I surrender myself, Captain, and demand civil treatment and safe escort to London. This sturdy bumpkin with the bludgeon had already discovered and made me his prisoner, in expectation, I suppose, of the reward, but as he threatened to expose me to some of his fanatical crew at Lewes, to which place he was conducting me, I am not sorry to fall into better hands."

The remainder of the party, who had now rode up, not in the least desiring a participator either in the honour or probable profit of the arrest, drew their swords, and refusing to hear one word that the marquess had to utter, drove him away with many opprobrious epithets; after which they hastily mounted Sir John behind one of their body, and set off with their prisoner at a brisk pace.

Nothing could exceed the astonishment of the marquess, accustomed as he was to all the strange turns and vicissitudes of war, at his own marvellous escape in this unexpected adventure, and the adroit promptitude of Sir John, which indeed seemed much more surprising than the magna nimity of the action. That he should desert one who had just made such a noble sacrifice for his safety, was utterly inconsistent with the character of the Marquess of Ormond; he determined, therefore, to abandon his first design of making for the sea, and remain concealed in the country, with the intention of offering himself to the Protector in exchange for Sir John, should the latter be ultimately brought to trial, or exposed to any serious jeopardy.