a slight one, of success, but I regard it as an act of folly, to throw away a life when no good can come of it."

Still, Sir Marmaduke never ceased to regret that Lynnwood was not one of the houses that had been defended, to the last, against the enemies of the king. At the Restoration he went, for the first time in his life, to London, to pay his respects to Charles the Second. He was well received, and although he tired, in a very short time, of the gaieties of the court, he returned to Lynnwood with his feelings of loyalty to the Stuarts as strong as ever. He rejoiced heartily when the news came of the defeat of Monmouth at Sedgemoor, and was filled with rage and indignation when James weakly fled, and left his throne to be occupied by Dutch William.

From that time, he became a strong Jacobite, and emptied his glass nightly "to the king over the water." In the north the Jacobites were numerous, and at their gatherings treason was freely talked, while arms were prepared, and hidden away for the time when the lawful king should return to claim his own. Sir Marmaduke was deeply concerned in the plot of 1696, when preparations had been made for a great Jacobite rising throughout the country. Nothing came of it, for the Duke of Berwick, who was to have led it, failed in getting the two parties who were concerned to come to an agreement. The Jacobites were ready to rise, directly a French army landed. The French king, on the other hand, would not send an army until the Jacobites had risen, and the matter therefore fell through, to Sir Marmaduke's indignation and grief. But he had no words strong enough to express his anger and disgust when he found that, side by side with the general scheme for a rising, a plot had been formed by Sir George Barclay, a Scottish refugee, to assassinate the king, on his return from hunting in Richmond Forest.

"It is enough to drive one to become a Whig," he exclaimed. "I am ready to fight Dutch William, for he occupies the place of my rightful sovereign, but I have no private feud with him, and, if I had, I would run any man through who ventured to propose to me a plot to assassinate him. Such scoundrels as Barclay would bring disgrace on the best cause in the world. Had I heard as much as a whisper of it, I would have buckled on my sword, and ridden to London to warn the Dutchman of his danger. However, as it seems that Barclay had but some forty men with him, most of them foreign desperadoes, the Dutchman must see that English gentlemen, however ready to fight against him fairly, would have no hand in so dastardly a plot as this.

"Look you, Charlie, keep always in mind that you bear the name of our martyred king, and be ready ever to draw your sword in the cause of the Stuarts, whether it be ten years hence, or forty, that their banner is hoisted again; but keep yourself free from all plots, except those that deal with fair and open warfare. Have no faith whatever in politicians, who are ever ready to use the country gentry as an instrument for gaining their own ends. Deal with your neighbours, but mistrust strangers, from whomsoever they may say they come."

Which advice Charlie, at that time thirteen years old, gravely promised to follow. He had naturally inherited his father's sentiments, and believed the Jacobite cause to be a sacred one. He had fought and vanquished Alured Dormay, his second cousin, and two years his senior, for speaking of King James' son as the Pretender, and was ready, at any time, to do battle with any boy of his own age, in the same cause. Alured's father, John Dormay, had ridden over to Lynnwood, to complain of the violence of which his son had been the victim, but he obtained no redress from Sir Marmaduke.

"The boy is a chip of the old block, cousin, and he did right. I myself struck a blow at the king's enemies, when I was but eight years old, and got my skull well-nigh cracked for my pains. It is well that the lads were not four years older, for then, instead of taking to fisticuffs, their swords would have been out, and as my boy has, for the last four years, been exercised daily in the use of his weapon, it might happen that, instead of Alured coming home with a black eye, and, as you say, a missing tooth, he might have been carried home with a sword thrust through his body.

"It was, to my mind, entirely the fault of your son. I should have blamed Charlie, had he called the king at Westminster Dutch William, for, although each man has a right to his own opinions, he has no right to offend those of others--besides, at present it is as well to keep a quiet tongue as to a matter that words cannot set right. In the same way, your son had no right to offend others by calling James Stuart the Pretender.

"Certainly, of the twelve boys who go over to learn what the Rector of Apsley can teach them, more than half are sons of gentlemen whose opinions are similar to my own.

"It would be much better, John Dormay, if, instead of complaining of my boy, you were to look somewhat to your own. I marked, the last time he came over here, that he was growing loutish in his manners, and that he bore himself with less respect to his elders than is seemly in a lad of that age. He needs curbing, and would carry himself all the better if, like Charlie, he had an hour a day at sword exercise. I speak for the boy's good. It is true that you yourself, being a bitter Whig, mix but little with your neighbours, who are for the most part the other way of thinking; but this may not go on for ever, and you would, I suppose, like Alured, when he grows up, to mix with others of his rank in the county; and it would be well, therefore, that he should have the accomplishments and manners of young men of his own age."

John Dormay did not reply hastily--it was his policy to keep on good terms with his wife's cousin, for the knight was a man of far higher consideration, in the county, than himself. His smile, however, was not a pleasant one, as he rose and said:

"My mission has hardly terminated as I expected, Sir Marmaduke. I came to complain, and I go away advised somewhat sharply."

"Tut, tut, man!" the knight said. "I speak only for the lad's good, and I am sure that you cannot but feel the truth of what I have said. What does Alured want to make enemies for? It may be that it was only my son who openly resented his ill-timed remarks, but you may be sure that others were equally displeased, and maybe their resentment will last much longer than that which was quenched in a fair stand-up fight. Certainly, there need be no malice between the boys. Alured's defeat may even do him good, for he cannot but feel that it is somewhat disgraceful to be beaten by one nearly a head shorter than he."

"There is, no doubt, something in what you say, Sir Marmaduke," John Dormay said blandly, "and I will make it my business that, should the boys meet again as antagonists, Alured shall be able to give a better account of himself."

"He is a disagreeable fellow," Sir Marmaduke said to himself, as he watched John Dormay ride slowly away through the park, "and, if it were not that he is husband to my cousin Celia, I would have nought to do with him. She is my only kinswoman, and, were aught to happen to Charlie, that lout, her son, would be the heir of Lynnwood. I should never rest quiet in my grave, were a Whig master here.

"I would much rather that he had spoken wrathfully, when I straightly gave him my opinion of the boy, who is growing up an ill-conditioned cub. It would have been more honest. I hate to see a man smile, when I know that he would fain swear. I like my cousin Celia, and I like her little daughter Ciceley, who takes after her, and not after John Dormay; but I would that the fellow lived on the other side of England. He is out of his place here, and, though men do not speak against him in my presence, knowing that he is a sort of kinsman, I have never heard one say a good word for him.

"It is not only because he is a Whig. There are other Whig gentry in the neighbourhood, against whom I bear no ill will, and