I told him that same night—­not indeed all that happened to me; but enough of it to satisfy him.  I said that I had been a good deal at the Jesuits’ lodgings; and at the trial of the three; and that a fellow had attempted to follow me home; but that I had thrown him off.

Cousin Tom had the pipe from his mouth and was holding it in his hand, by the time I had done.

“Now, Cousin,” I said, “if you think I am anything of a danger to the house, you have but to say the word, and I will be off.  On the other hand, I and my man might be of some small service to you if it came to a brawl.”

“You threw him off?” asked Cousin Tom.

“It was at Whitehall—­” I began; and then I stopped:  for I had not intended to speak of the King.

“Oho!” said Cousin Tom.  “Then you have been at Whitehall again?”

“Why, yes,” I said, trying to pass it off.  “I have been there and everywhere.”

Cousin Tom put the pipe back again into his mouth.

“And there is another matter,” I said (for Hare Street suited me very well as a lodging, and I had named it as such to His Majesty).  “It is not right, Cousin Tom, that you should keep me here for nothing.  Let me pay something each month—­” (And I named a suitable sum.)

That determined Cousin Tom altogether.  My speaking of Whitehall had greatly reassured him; and now this offer of mine made up his mind; for he was something of a skinflint in some respects. (For all that I did for him when I was here, in the fields and at the farm, more than repaid him for the expense of my living there.) He protested a little, and said that between kinsfolk no such question should enter in; but he protested with a very poor grace; and so the matter was settled, and we both satisfied.

* * * * *

So, once more, the time began to pass very agreeably for me.  Here was I, safe from all the embroilments of town, in the same house with my Cousin Dorothy, and with plenty of leisure for my languages again.  Yet my satisfaction was greatly broken up when I heard, on the last day of January that all that I had feared was come about, and that of the three men whom I had seen condemned at the Old Bailey, two—­Mr. Ireland and Mr. Grove—­had been executed seven days before:  (Mr. Pickering was kept back on some excuse, and not put to death until May).  The way I heard of it was in this manner.

I was in Puckeridge one day, on a matter which I do not now remember, and was going to the stable of the White Hart inn to get my horse to ride back again, when I ran into Mr. Rumbald who was there on the same errand.  I was in my country suit, and very much splashed; and it was going on for evening, so he noticed nothing of me but my face.

“Why, Mallock,” he cried—­“It is Mr. Mallock, is it not?”

I told him yes.

He exchanged a few words with me, for he was one of those fellows who when they have once made up their minds to a thing, do not easily change it, and he was persuaded that I was of his kind and something of a daredevil too, which was what he liked.  Then at the end he said something which made me question him as to what he meant.