thought little about the matter.  But, on the evening of the fourteenth of February, he received a visit from a person whose testimony he could not treat lightly.  This was a Roman Catholic gentleman of known courage and honour, named Pendergrass.  He had, on the preceding day, come up to town from Hampshire, in consequence of a pressing summons from Porter, who, dissolute and unprincipled as he was, had to Pendergrass been a most kind friend, indeed almost a father.  In a Jacobite insurrection Pendergrass would probably have been one of the foremost.  But he learned with horror that he was expected to bear a part in a wicked and shameful deed.  He found himself in one of those situations which most cruelly torture noble and sensitive natures.  What was he to do?  Was he to commit a murder?  Was he to suffer a murder which he could prevent to be committed?  Yet was he to betray one who, however culpable, had loaded him with benefits?  Perhaps it might be possible to save William without harming Porter?  Pendergrass determined to make the attempt.  “My Lord,” he said to Portland, “as you value King William’s life, do not let him hunt tomorrow.  He is the enemy of my religion; yet my religion constrains me to give him this caution.  But the names of the conspirators I am resolved to conceal; some of them are my friends; one of them especially is my benefactor; and I will not betray them.”

Portland went instantly to the King; but the King received the intelligence very coolly, and seemed determined not to be frightened out of a good day’s sport by such an idle story.  Portland argued and implored in vain.  He was at last forced to threaten that he would immediately make the whole matter public, unless His Majesty would consent to remain within doors during the next day; and this threat was successful.666

Saturday the fifteenth came.  The Forty were all ready to mount, when they received intelligence from the orderlies who watched Kensington House that the King did not mean to hunt that morning.  “The fox,” said Chambers, with vindictive bitterness, “keeps his earth.”  Then he opened his shirt; showed the great scar in his breast, and vowed revenge on William.

The first thought of the conspirators was that their design had been detected.  But they were soon reassured.  It was given out that the weather had kept the King at home; and indeed the day was cold and stormy.  There was no sign of agitation at the palace.  No extraordinary precaution was taken.  No arrest was made.  No ominous whisper was heard at the coffeehouses.  The delay was vexatious; but Saturday the twenty-second would do as well.

But, before Saturday the twenty-second arrived, a third informer, De la Rue, had presented himself at the palace.  His way of life did not entitle him to much respect; but his story agreed so exactly with what had been said by Fisher and Pendergrass that even William began to believe that there was real danger.