AT THE DEANERY OF WESTMINSTER
Wogan finished the work of adorning his person, and stepped into the
street. The night was serene, with a full moon, the air still, the
pavements were clean as the deck of his ketch. He thought that he
would walk from his rooms to the Dean's by way of St. James's Park,
and consequently he passed through Ryder St. and in front of Mr.
Kelly's new lodgings. Just as he came to Mr. Kelly's lodgings, the
door opened. A gentleman came forth; the moonlight was full on his
face. Mr. Wogan muffled his face in his cloak, and stepped stealthily
back.
The gentleman was Colonel Montague. He bade the chairmen carry him to
Queen's Square; Mr. Wogan heard the word of command with an
inexpressible confusion of dismay. He had hardened his heart to
encounter the enemy whose life, in a youthful indiscretion, he had
saved at the risk of his own, but what was the Colonel doing in
Kelly's lodgings?
By this time the warrior and his chair had turned the corner, and Mr.
Wogan abandoned himself to meditation. Up and down Ryder Street he
paced, puzzling over the Colonel's visit to Kelly, whom, at all
events, he could not have found at home. Was he Was he carrying a
cartel to his predecessor in Lady Oxford's heart? In that case it was
all the more necessary to meet him and play the part of Dr. Franklin's
kite, which had not at that time been flown, but is now making talk
enough for the learned. On this point Mr. Wogan's mind was constant.
Should he question Mrs. Kilburne, he asked himself? Mr. Wogan crossed
the road. But the Colonel was little likely to have told her a word of
his business. Mr. Wogan stopped.
There was another point: for whatever reason the Colonel had called at
George's lodgings, George must be told of the visit. Here was
something which pressed, without question. Mr. Wogan marched towards
the Dean's house in Westminster, where the Bishop of Rochester lay. He
knew the road very well, being himself an old Westminster boy. It was
but seven years since he had run away to join his brother Charles and
raise the North for King James. He could not tell, at this moment,
whether he had deserted his studies for King James's sake, or to
escape his dull task of writing out my Lord Clarendon's weary history
in a fair hand.
As he entered the precincts, Wogan felt much like a truant boy, and it
was as if Time had stood still while _he_ ran. Nothing was changed,
except that the new dormitory, which Bishop Atterbury had just built,
shone white among the black old stones. There were lights in the
windows that suddenly went out: the lads were abed. Wogan looked up at
the blank windows, and thought of seven years agone, and of his life
since then, an unprofitable contemplation, which his mind gladly
deserted. He marched up under the arch, through the darkling cloister,
and tapped, gently but firmly, at the Dean's door. He must see Mr.
Kelly. As it chanced, and by the merest accident in the world, Wogan
timed his taps thus: 1--2, 3, 4, 5, 6--7.
There were stealthy steps within, with a movement of yellow light, and
then a voice that Mr. Wogan knew very well came through a judas.
'Is it my father's knock?'
'Is it your granny's knock, Sam?' asked Wogan through the judas. The
voice was that of Sam Wesley, a young usher in Wogan's time, one whom
he had always liked and tormented.
The steps moved away, and the light.
'Sam!' whispered Mr. Wogan, very loud for a whisper, through the
judas. 'Sam, you remember me. Nick Wogan.'
The steps were silent.
'Sam, remember Lord Clarendon! Remember Nick, who kicked the bully for
beating your little brother Jack.'
The steps shuffled back to the door.
'You have not the password,' said the voice through the judas.
'Damn the password,' whispered Wogan. 'I want George Kelly. I must see
him in the name of the Blackbird. Hawks are abroad.'
'It is clean against all rules,' came the voice from within.
'Open, in the name of the cobbler's wax I once put on your chair, or
I'll break the windows. You know me, Sam!'
Mr. Wesley knew Mr. Wogan. He undid the lock, Mr. Wogan smuggled
himself within, and nearly choked Mr. Wesley in his embrace.
'It is a giant!' said Mr. Wesley, putting up his candle to Wogan's
face. The wind blew on the light that flickered in the absolute
darkness, all the house being hung with black for Mrs. Atterbury's
death.
'A son of Anak, Sam, who would have battered down your old door in a
minute.'
'I verily believe you would, Nick,' said Sam, leading the way up the
black stairs to a den of his own, where he was within call of the
Bishop. On tiptoe he marched, placing his finger on his lips.
When they were got among Sam's books and papers of the boys'
exercises, the usher said, 'It is a very extraordinary thing, purely a
Providence.'
'I deserve one; the purity of my life deserves one,' said Mr. Wogan.
'But wherein do you see the marvel?'
'You did not know it, but you gave my father's knock,' said Sam
in a voice of awe. 'It is Old Jeffrey's doing--directed, of
course--directed.'
'Old Jeffrey? Is it a cant name for an honest man?'
'For a very honest spirit,' said the usher, and explained to Mr. Wogan
that the particular knock and the passwords to follow (which Mr. Wogan
did not know) were his own invention. His father's house at Epworth,
in the year 1716, had been troubled, it seems, by an honest goblin
that always thumped and routed with a particular malevolence when the
Elector was prayed for as 'the King.' Old Mr. Wesley's pet knock,
though, the sprite could not deliver. Mr. Wesley had a conceit that
the goblin might be the ghost of some good fellow who died at Preston.
'He keeps his politics in the next world,' said Mr. Wogan.
'Wit might say much on that head, wisdom little,' whispered the usher,
wagging his kind head. 'You have special business with Mr. Johnson?'
he asked. 'He is with my Lord, hard by. The Bishop's voice was raised
when Mr. Johnson entered. I caught angry words, but now for long they
have been quiet.'
'Mr. Johnson has a way with him,' said Wogan, who had learned from
Goring that the reverend Father in God was of a hasty temper. 'How
doth his Lordship?'
'Very badly. I never saw him in a less apostolic humour. I know not
what ill news he has had from France, or elsewhere, but he has been
much troubled about Mr. Johnson's dog, Harlequin. The poodle has been
conveyed out of town as craftily as if he were the Chevalier, I know
not why, and is now skulking in the country, I know not where.'
It was, indeed, Mr. Wesley's part to know nothing. He was the Bishop's
man, and as honest as the day, but had no more enterprise than another
usher.
Wogan, he has said, knew Harlequin, second of that name, and had seen
him coddled by Mrs. Barnes. He was cudgelling his brains for
Harlequin's part in the Great Affair, when a silver whistle sounded,
thin and clear.
Mr. Wesley beckoned to Wogan to be still, crept out of the room, and
returned on tiptoe with Kelly. The Parson's elegant dress was a trifle
disarranged; his face and hands were somewhat stained and blackened as
with smoke, but the careful man had tucked up his Alencon ruffles
beneath his sleeves. On seeing Wogan George opened his eyes and his
mouth, but spoke never a word. He carried a soft bundle wrapped in a
tablecloth, and when the door was shut he handed this to Mr. Wesley.
'You have the key of the Dean's garden?' he whispered.
'Yes; but wherefore?' answered Sam.
'His Lordship bids me ask you to have the kindness to bury the
contents of this--'
'I know not what is in the bundle,' said Mr. Wesley, with an air of
alarm.
'And you need not be told,' said George. 'But can you let me and my
friend Mr. Hilton--'
'Mr. Hilton?' gasped Sam, as Kelly put his hand out to Wogan.
'I must present you to Mr. Hilton,' George said, and Wogan bowed and
grinned.
'I was about to entreat you, Mr. Wesley, while you are playing the
sexton, to permit me and Mr. Hilton the convenience of a few moments
of privacy in your chamber.'
'With all my heart,' said the puzzled Sam, hospitably opening a
cupboard in his bookcase, whence he lugged out glasses and a bottle of
Florence. Then he put list shoes over his own, and stole forth on his
errand like a clerical cat.
All this while Wogan had said not one word to Kelly, nor Kelly to
Wogan.
Mr. Wogan had sat down to sample the bottle, and Kelly stared at him.
'How did you make your way in here?' he asked at length.
'Old Jeffrey,' said Wogan airily. 'I drink Old Jeffrey's health,
wherever he is.'
'I believe you are the devil himself. That password is known to no
mortal but Mr. Wesley and me. The Bishop does not know it. His
servants never see me come or go--only Sam. Whence got you the word?'
Mr. Wogan very gently tapped 1--2, 3, 4, 5, 6--7 on the table.
'I know many things,' he said. 'But, George, what do _you_ know?'
'I know you should be aboard, Nick, and down to the waterside you step
from this house.'
'I am already promised,' said Mr. Wogan with an air of fashion. 'I sup
with Lady Oxford.'
'You are mad.'
'Nay, _you_ are mad. I know many things. When you were carried hither
in your chair, you knew nothing. George, what did the Bishop tell you?
Why was he wroth with you? In brief, George, what do you know?'
'The Bishop angry with me! Nick, you know too much. You are the
devil.'
'I want to know a great deal more. Come, unpack, and then it is my
turn. But first step into Mr. Wesley's bedchamber and wash these
hands, which go very ill with silver shoulder-knots; and pour the
blackened water out of window. Any man or messenger could see that you
have been burning a mort of papers.'
Mr. Kelly hastily adopted Mr. Wogan's precautions. When he entered the
room again the conspirator had vanished, the clerical beau remained.
'Now,' said Wogan, 'you are fit to carry out your worldly design of
pleasure, and I shall not be ashamed to sup in your company at Lady
Oxford's.'
'I have changed my mind; I shall not go. But, Nick, how did you know
my mind? 'Twas the last of minds you expected to take me in.'
'I am the devil. Have you not guessed it yourself?' replied Mr. Wogan,
who was enjoying himself hugely. Perhaps it was the Florence, coming
a-top of the Burgundy. He was quite easy about the discovery. 'But
unpack,' he said. 'What befell you with the Bishop?'
'He received me oddly. The room was as dark as a wolf's mouth, being
hung with black bombazine. There was a low fire in a brazier, that
shone red on his Lordship's polished poll, for he wore no perruque.
His eyes blazed, his teeth grinned white. I was put in mind of a
fierce old black panther in the French King's gardens.'
'Remote from the apostolic,' said Mr. Wogan.
'So were his first words,' said Kelly:
'"You Irish dog, come here!" quoth the Bishop.
'I offered a conjecture that, in the mournful light, his Lordship did
not precisely see whom he was addressing. On that the little old man
sprang out at me, seized me by the collar, and then fell back on his
couch with a groan that was a curse. I put a cordial that stood by him
to his lips, and was about to call Mr. Wesley, when he forbade me with
his eyebrows, and cried:
'"Answer me this question before we part for ever. Did you despatch my
letters of April 20 to the King and the others?"
'"My Lord," I said, "my duty to you ended with that episcopal laying
on of hands, and with that expression which you were pleased to use
when I entered."
'He groaned, and said:
'"I apologise. I am mad with pain" (which was plainly true), "and
grief, and treachery. I beg your pardon, Mr. Kelly, as a Christian and
a sick old man."
'"My Lord, you honour me. I enclosed the letters, as you directed, in
a packet addressed to Mr. Gordon, the banker in Boulogne, and I sent
them by the common post, your Lordship not having forbidden the
ordinary course."
'"Then, damn it, sir, you have ruined us!" said the sick old
Christian. "Did I not bid you write to Dillon that nothing of
importance should go by the post?"
'"But your Lordship did not seem to reckon these letters of
importance, for you did not discharge me from sending them in the
common course."
'The Bishop groaned again more than once, and there was a whole
Commination Service in the sounds. You know Harlequin, Wogan?'
Mr. Wogan nodded and wondered.
''Tis Harlequin has ruined us,' said Kelly; 'Harlequin and the Duke of
Mar.'
'I am devilish glad to hear it,' said Mr. Wogan.
'Glad to hear it!' exclaimed Kelly, rising from his chair. 'You are
told of the discovery of the Great Affair, and the probable ruin of
the Cause, and the danger of your friends and yourself, and you are
glad to hear it!'
'Faith, I am,' replied Wogan easily, 'for I knew of the discovery
before you told me, but I put it down to a lady of your acquaintance.'
The Parson very slowly sat himself down again on his chair.
'In Heaven's name, why?' he asked, with a certain suspense.
'Tell your tale first, then I'll tell mine. This is very excellent
Florence.'
'The tale is too long, but the short of it is this: The Bishop had by
him a letter of Mar's, dated May 11, in which Mar, addressing the
Bishop as Illington, denounced him as plainly to anyone who read the
piece as if he had used the Bishop's own style and title. He condoled
on Mrs. Illington's recent death, he referred to Mr. Illington's high
place in the Church, and to his gout. The three circumstances combined
left no doubt as to who Illington is. There was no need such a letter
of pure compliment should be written at all, except for the purpose of
being opened in the post, and fixing the Bishop as Illington. Then,'
Kelly went on, 'I remembered a letter of Mar to myself, of last week,
in which he spoke of the dog Harlequin as Mrs. Illington's. If these
letters were opened in the post,--and the Bishop knows for certain
that they were opened,--a blind man could see that Rochester and
Illington are the same man, and own the same dog. The beast saved my
life, but he has lost the Cause,' said Kelly with a sigh. 'Mar has
sold us. It is known he holds a pension from the Elector. The Bishop
knows it in a roundabout way, through Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and
so the Bishop and I have burned his papers in the brazier. Sam is
interring their ashes in the garden.'
Mr. Wogan poured out another glass of Florence.
'Was there anything very pressing in these same letters of April 20,
George? Was there anything to put fear on the Elector's Ministers? Did
they say, for instance, that the Blow was to be dealt, you and I know
when?'
'Not a word of that,' replied Kelly, and his face lightened. On the
other hand, Wogan's fell, which Kelly no doubt remarked, for he
continued eagerly, 'D'ye see, there is a chance still, for the Cause,
for us, if the Blow be struck quickly. We must strike quickly. So may
we retrieve Mar's treachery. The Bishop in his letter made excuses to
the King for the delay of any blow. He is not in favour of anything
immediate, and in the letters he made his disposition plain. The
letters only compromised his Lordship in general, they did not
reveal--the Blow.'
Mr. Wogan, however, only shook his head.
''Faith, now, I'm sorry to hear that,' said he.
'You are glad and sorry on very strange occasions,' said Kelly,
sourly. 'First you are pleased that Mar sold us, and then you are
displeased that he did not sell the last secret.'
Mr. Wogan leaned his elbows on the table, and bent across towards his
friend.
'I am sorry because the last secret has been sold, and it was not Mar
that sold it. Therefore somebody else sold it; therefore I am at the
pain of being obliged to suspect a lady who probably knows her late
lover's cypher.'
Mr. Kelly blanched.
'And how do you know that the last secret is sold?'
'As any man would know who had not lain abed all the day. George, the
Park is full of soldiers. The Tower regiment that we thought Layer had
bought is there with the rest under canvas. Ministers would not make
an encampment in the Park because they knew that the Bishop had
advised the King that nothing was to be done. Therefore Mar is not the
only traitor.'
'And why should my Lady Oxford be the Judas?'
'Mainly to punish a certain nonjuring clergyman, for whose sake she is
the burden of a ballad, and sung of in coffee-houses.'
'A ballad? Of what sort?'
'Of the sort that makes a good whipping-post for a fine lady. Ridicule
is the whip, and, by the Lord, it is laid on unsparingly. Perhaps you
would like to hear it,' and Mr. Wogan recited, in a whisper, so much
of the poem as he judged proper. It closed thus:--
'Oh, happy ending to my rhymes,
Consoled for all his woes,
The Parson flies to foreign climes,
And dwells--beneath the Rose!'
Mr. Kelly swore an oath and took a turn across the room. He came to a
stop in front of Sam's bookcase. 'Rose,' said he, in a voice of
tenderness, 'sure they might have left the little girl out of it.'
'The barb was venomed, you see,' said Mr. Wogan. 'It was not enough to
make a scoff of the lady. She must be stripped of that last
consolation, the belief that the discarded Parson wastes in despair.
Now she knows that the Parson is consoled. There was spark to powder.
The Parson may be putting on flesh. There's an insult to her beauty.
Faith, but she must feel it in her marrow, since she risks her Lord's
neck for the pleasure of requiting it.'
'No,' said Kelly, 'she could do what she would, for her Lord's neck is
not in this noose. Oxford had withdrawn before.'
This was news to Mr. Wogan, who had been concerned only with the
actual plan of attack, and sufficiently concerned to have no mind for
other matters.
'Oxford withdrawn,' he cried rising and coming across to the Parson.
'Damn him, 'twas pure folly to trust him. Do you remember what Law
said that night in Paris? He would trust him no further than he would
trust a Norfolk attorney.'
Kelly was silent for a moment, thoughtfully drawing a finger to and
fro across the backs of Sam's books.
'I have good reason to remember that night,' he said very sadly. 'Have
you forgotten what I said? "May nothing come between the Cause and
me!" Why, it seems the Cause goes down because of me, and with the
Cause my friends, and with my friends, Rose.'
Mr. Wogan had no word to say. Whatever excuses rose to his tongue
seemed too trivial for utterance.
Kelly's finger stopped on one particular book, travelled away and came
back to it. Wogan saw that the book was a Bible. The Parson took it
from the shelf and turning over the leaves read a line here and there.
Wogan knew very well what was passing through his mind. His thoughts
had gone back to the little country parsonage and the quiet life with
no weightier matter to disturb it than the trifling squabbles of his
parish.
'You warned me, Nick,' he said, 'you warned me. But I was a fool and
would not heed. Read that!' and with a bitter sort of laugh he handed
the open Bible to Mr. Wogan, pointing to a verse. 'There's a text for
the preacher.'
The Bible was open at the Book of Proverbs, and Mr. Wogan read. 'The
lips of a strange woman drop as a honey-comb and her mouth is smoother
than oil. But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged
sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps take hold on hell.'
Mr. Wogan read the text aloud.
'The strange woman, Nick,' said Kelly, 'the strange woman,' and then
in a fierce outburst, 'If I live the man who wrote that ballad shall
rue it.'
'They give it to Lady Mary.'
'She never wrote it. Nick, who wrote the ballad? How did you get hold
of it?'
'I found the Crow, quite tipsy, singing it to Tyrell, at Burton's, in
the little room upstairs.'
'And where did the Crow get the ballad?'
'That is another uncomfortable circumstance. You know Talbot?'
'An honest man, and a good officer, at Preston or in Spain, but a
sponge for drink. A pity he was ever let into the plot!'
'Well, he got the ballad from someone with whom he had been drinking
at the Little Fox under the Hill, not a fashionable resort.'
'Did he name his friend?'
'He was drunk enough to begin by calling him Mr. Pope.'
'Mr. Pope, the poet?'
'He took that back; and said the poetry put Mr. Pope into his head.
The man's real name, he remembered, was Scrotton. I can't guess who he
was, friend or spy, but we may take it that he knows what the Crow
knows.'
'Thank God for that!' cried Kelly.
'You rejoice on very singular occasions, and are grateful for very
small mercies,' said Mr. Wogan, who found it his turn to be surprised.
'What are you so thankful for?'
'Thankful that a woman need not have done this thing, and that
my folly may not be the cause of this disaster. Another knew
everything--Pope--Scrotton--the ballad! Who wrote the ballad? Who of
our enemies knew a word about Rose? Are you blind? Who was at Avignon,
spying on me, when I first met Rose? Who hates Lady Oxford no less
than he hates me? Whose name was the unhappy tippler trying to
remember? Scrotton? Pope?'
'Scrope!' cried Wogan, cursing his own stupidity. 'Scrope it must have
been, and the Crow swore that the man told him about the plot, and
often talked it over.'
'That means, of course, that Scrope made him talk. The old curse of
the Cause, that lost us Edinburgh Castle in the Fifteen, when the
Scots stopped at the tavern to powder their hair. Our curse, Nicholas.
Wine!'
'And Woman,' Mr. Wogan thought, but George ran on,
'Scrope it was who wrote the ballad, for no enemy but Scrope knew what
the writer knew. Lady Mary is a friend. Lady Oxford is innocent, thank
God--I say it with a humble heart--and I am not the cause of the
ruin.'
George's eyes shone like those of a man reprieved. Wogan shook his
friend's hand; his own eyes were opened.
''Tis you are the devil,' he said. 'Scrope has hit everyone he hates,
and blown up the plot.'
'His time will come,' said Kelly; 'but I hear Sam on the stair.'
Mr. Wesley, tapping lightly, entered his room.
'Gentlemen,' he said, 'the outer door is open.'
Mr. Wesley's anxiety was plainly to be read in his face.
The two gentlemen bade him farewell, with many thanks for his
hospitality. He accompanied them to the door, and they heard the bolt
shot behind them as they stood in the cloister.
'Whither should they go?' both men reflected, silent.
Mr. Wogan has remarked on a certain gaiety and easiness of mind caused
on this occasion, he considers, by Mr. Wesley's Florence coming after
his own Burgundy at supper. He was also elated by George's elation,
for to find innocence in one whom he had suspected elevated Mr.
Kelly's disposition. They were betrayed, true, but the bitterness of a
betrayal by the woman he had loved left him the lighter when the
apprehension of it had passed.
One little point rankled in Mr. Wogan's mind in spite of all. Why had
Lady Oxford bidden both of them to her rout?
He came at an answer by a roundabout road.
'I must hurry home and burn my papers,' said Kelly, as soon as they
were out in the cloister, with the door of the Dean's house shut
behind them.
Mr. Wogan, who had other notions, gripped his arm.
'By the way, did you burn my lady's invitation to her rout to-night?
What did she say, George? Why did she invite you? And did you burn the
note?'
Mr. Kelly smote his hand on his brow. 'My wits were wool-gathering.'
'On Cupid's hedges,' said Wogan.
'But I locked the note up.'
'With the rest of the lady's letters in my dispatch box?'
''Faith, Nick, you are the devil. How did you know that?'
'Oh, I have divined your amorous use of my box.'
'But you are wrong. I had the box with the dangerous papers of the
plot open on the table when I was reading the letter. Mrs. Kilburne
knocked at the door. I did not know who it might be. I slipped the
letter in on the top of the papers of the Plot, and locked the box
before I opened the door.'
'There it remains then? Well, her Ladyship's note is in the better
company. But what did she say? Did she give a reason for your
meeting?'
'The chief thing, after the usual compliments, was that she had most
important news, that might not be written, to give me about Mr.
Farmer's affairs. Probably she may have had an inkling of the
discovery and wished to warn me.'
'We must see her,' said Wogan, whose curiosity was on edge from the
first about this party of pleasure.
'But my papers--I must burn my papers.'
'George, you are set, or you are not set. If you had been set the
messengers would have been at your lodgings before I went thither; in
fact, before you were out of bed. Therefore, either you have the whole
night safe or, going home now, you go into a mousetrap, as the French
say, and your papers are the cheese to lure you there. Now, they
cannot know of my lady's invitations, and if they by any accident did
know, a Minister would hardly take a man at a lady's house. That were
an ill use for the hostess.'
'That's true,' said Mr. Kelly, after reflecting. 'Nicholas, I knew not
that you had so much of the syllogism in your composition.'
'Another thing, and an odd thing enough,' added Wogan. 'Perhaps
nothing is laid against _you_ at all. Did Scrope lay information when
he found us at Brampton Bryan?'
'No!' cried Kelly. 'And at Avignon, when a proper spy would have
stopped the Duke's gold, he was content with the sword in his own
hand.'
'Precisely,' said Wogan; 'Scrope has blown the plot, that's business;
but he deals with you himself, that's pleasure. He tried to meet you
at Brampton Bryan--he did not have us laid by the heels. He nearly did
for you at Avignon, while he let the Duke's business alone, quite
content. Now you are alive and he wants a meeting, 'tis clear he did
not inform on you, otherwise the messengers would have been with you
when the soldiers began the camp in the morning. 'Faith, you may meet
Mr. Scrope tonight in St. James's Park. He is a kind of gentleman, Mr.
Scrope! But we must see her ladyship first; sure, nothing's safer.'
'Nicholas, thou reasonest well,' said the Parson.
Mr. Wogan towed off his prize, and the pair moved out of the dark,
musty cloister into the moonlight.