"Her ladyship pa.s.sed me quite close," he explained, speaking in a low, somewhat apologetic voice. "I was standing in the door of-er-the parlour, and she graciously nodded to me as she pa.s.sed."

"Yes! yes! get on, man," quoth Sir Humphrey, impatiently.

"The door was open, your Honour," continued Master Mittachip in a weak voice, "there was a draught; her ladyship's cloak flew open."

He paused a moment, noting with evident satisfaction the increasing interest in Sir Humphrey's face.

"Beneath her cloak," he continued, speaking very slowly, like an actor measuring his effects, "beneath her cloak her ladyship was holding a bundle of letters, tightly clutched in her hand."

"Letters, eh?" commented Sir Humphrey, eagerly.

"A bundle of them, your Honour. One of them had a large seal attached to it. I might almost have seen the device: it was that of..."

"Charles Edward Stuart, the Pretender?"

"Well! I could not say for certain, your Honour," murmured Master Mittachip, humbly.

There was silence for a few moments. Sir Humphrey Challoner had produced a silver tooth-pick, and was using it as an adjunct to deep meditation. Master Mittachip was contemplating the floor with rapt attention.

"Harkee, Master Mittachip," said Sir Humphrey at last. "Lady Patience is taking those letters to London."

"That was the impression created in my mind, your Honour."

"And why does she take those letters to London?" said Sir Humphrey, bringing his heavy fist crashing down upon the table, and causing gla.s.ses and dishes to rattle, whilst Master Mittachip almost lost his balance. "Why does she take them to London, I say? Because they are the proofs of her brother's innocence. It is easy to guess their contents. Requests, admonitions, upbraidings on the part of the disappointed rebels, obvious proofs that Philip had held aloof."

He pushed his chair noisily away from the table, and began pacing the narrow room with great, impatient strides.

But while he spoke Master Mittachip began to lose his placid air of apologetic deference, and a look of alarm suddenly lighted his meek, colourless eyes.

"Good lack," he murmured, "then my Lord Stretton is no rebel?"

"Rebel?-not he!" a.s.serted Sir Humphrey. "His sympathies were thought to be with the Stuarts, but he went south during the rebellion-'twas I who advised him-that he might avoid being drawn within its net."

But at this Master Mittachip's terror became more tangible.

"But your Honour," he stammered, whilst his thin cheeks a.s.sumed a leaden hue, and his eyes sought appealingly those of his employer, "your Honour laid sworn information against Lord Stretton ... and ... and ... I drew up the papers ... and signed them with my name as your Honour commanded..."

"Well! I paid you well for it, didn't I?" said Sir Humphrey, roughly.

"But if the accusation was false, Sir Humphrey ... I shall be disgraced ... struck off the rolls ... perhaps hanged..."

Sir Humphrey laughed; one of those loud, jovial, laughs which those in his employ soon learnt to dread.

"Adsbud!" he said, "an one of us is to hang, old scarecrow, I prefer it shall be you."

And he gave Master Mittachip a vigorous slap on the shoulder, which nearly precipitated the lean-shanked attorney on the floor.

"Good Sir Humphrey..." he murmured piteously, "b ... b ... b ... but what was the reason of the information against Lord Stretton, since the letters can so easily prove it to be false?"

"Silence, you fool!" said his Honour, impatiently, "I did not know of the letters then. I wished to place Lord Stretton in a perilous position, then hoped to succeed in establishing his innocence in certain ways I had in my mind. I wished to be the one to save him," he added, muttering a curse of angry disappointment, "and gain _her_ grat.i.tude thereby. I was journeying to London for the purpose, and now..."

His language became such that it wholly disconcerted Master Mittachip, accustomed though he was to the somewhat uncertain tempers of the great folk he had to deal with. Moreover, the worthy attorney was fully conscious of his own precarious position in this matter.

"And now you've gained nothing," he moaned; "whilst I ... oh! oh! I..."

His condition was pitiable. His Honour viewed him with no small measure of contempt. Then suddenly Sir Humphrey's face lighted up with animation. The scowl disappeared, and a shrewd, almost triumphant smile parted the jovial, somewhat sensuous lips.

"Easy! easy! you old coward," he said pleasantly, "things are not so bad as that.... Adsbud! you're not hanged yet, are you? and," he added significantly, "Lord Stretton is still attainted and in peril of his life."

"B ... b ... b ... but..."

"Can't you see, you fool," said Sir Humphrey with sudden earnestness, drawing a chair opposite the attorney, and sitting astride upon it, he viewed the meagre little creature before him steadfastly and seriously; "can't you see that if I can only get hold of those letters now, I could _force_ Lady Patience into accepting my suit?"

"Eh?"

"With them in my possession I can go to her and say, 'An you marry me, those proofs of your brother's innocence shall be laid before the King: an you refuse they shall be destroyed.'"

"Oh!" was Master Mittachip's involuntary comment: a mere gasp of amazement, of terror at the enormity of the proposal.

He ventured to raise his timid eyes to the strong florid face before him, and in it saw such a firm will, such unbendable determination, that he thought it prudent for the moment to refrain from adverse comment.

"Truly," he murmured vaguely, as his Honour seemed to be waiting for him to speak, "truly those letters mean the lady's fortune to your Honour."

"And on the day of my marriage with her, two hundred guineas for you, Master Mittachip," said Challoner, very slowly and significantly, looking his man of business squarely in the face.

Master Mittachip literally lost his head. Two hundred guineas! 'twas more than he earned in four years, and that at the cost of hard work, many kicks and constant abuse. A receiver of rents has from time immemorial never been a popular figure. Master Mittachip found life hard, and in those days two hundred guineas was quite a comfortable little fortune. The attorney pa.s.sed his moist tongue over his thin, parched lips.

The visions which these imaginary two hundred guineas had conjured up in his mind almost made his attenuated senses reel. There was that bit of freehold property at Wirksworth which he had long coveted, aye, or perhaps that partnership with Master Lutworth at Derby, or...

"'Twere worth your while, Master Mittachip, to get those letters for me, eh?"

His Honour's pleasant words brought the poor man back from the land of dreams.

"I? I, Sir Humphrey?" he murmured dejectedly, "how can I, a poor attorney-at-law...?"

"Zounds! but that's your affair," said his Honour with a careless shrug of his broad shoulders, "Methought you'd gladly earn two hundred guineas, and I offer you a way to do it."

"But how, Sir Humphrey, how?"

"That's for you to think on, my man. Two hundred guineas is a tidy sum.

What? I have it," he said, slapping his own broad thigh and laughing heartily. "You shall play the daring highwayman! put on a mask and stop her ladyship's coach, shout l.u.s.tily: 'Stand and deliver!' take the letters from her and 'tis done in a trice!"

The idea of that meagre little creature playing the highwayman greatly tickled Sir Humphrey's fancy, for the moment he even forgot the grave issues he himself had at stake, and his boisterous laugh went echoing through the old silent building.

But as his Honour spoke this pleasant conceit, Master Mittachip's thin, bloodless face a.s.sumed an air of deep thought, immediately followed by one of eager excitement.

"The idea of the highwayman is not a bad one, Sir Humphrey," he said with a quiet chuckle, as soon as his patron's hilarity had somewhat subsided, "but I am not happy astride a horse, and I know nought of pistols, but there's no reason why we should not get a footpad to steal those letters for you. 'Tis their trade after all."