A Jacobite Exile | Page 7

it. It is just the sort of
thing it is well to know, but I expect there is no harm in it, one way or
the other. Of course, he must have known your father before he came to
us, and may have business of some sort with him. He may have a
brother, or some other relation, who wants to take one of your father's
farms. Indeed, there are a hundred things he might want to see him
about. But still, I am glad you have told me."

In his own mind, Charlie thought much more seriously of it than he
pretended. He knew that, at present, his father was engaged heart and
soul in a projected Jacobite rising. He knew that John Dormay was a
bitter Whig. He believed that he had a grudge against his father, and the
general opinion of him was that he was wholly unscrupulous.
That he should, then, be in secret communication with a servant at
Lynnwood, struck him as a very serious matter, indeed. Charlie was not
yet sixteen, but his close companionship with his father had rendered
him older than most lads of his age. He was as warm a Jacobite as his
father, but the manner in which William, with his Dutch troops, had
crushed the great Jacobite rebellion in Ireland, seemed to him a lesson
that the prospects of success, in England, were much less certain than
his father believed them to be.
John Dormay, as an adherent of William, would be interested in
thwarting the proposed movement, with the satisfaction of, at the same
time, bringing Sir Marmaduke into disgrace. Charlie could hardly
believe that his cousin would be guilty of setting a spy to watch his
father, but it was certainly possible, and as he thought the matter over,
as he rode back after escorting Ciceley to her home, he resolved to keep
a sharp watch over the doings of this man Nicholson.
"It would never do to tell my father what Ciceley said. He would
bundle the fellow out, neck and crop, and perhaps break some of his
bones, and then it would be traced to her. She has not a happy home, as
it is, and it would be far worse if her father knew that it was she who
had put us on our guard. I must find out something myself, and then we
can turn him out, without there being the least suspicion that Ciceley is
mixed up in it."
The next evening several Jacobite gentlemen rode in, and, as usual, had
a long talk with Sir Marmaduke after supper.
"If this fellow is a spy," Charlie said to himself, "he will be wanting to
hear what is said, and to do so he must either hide himself in the room,
or listen at the door, or at one of the windows. It is not likely that he
will get into the room, for to do that he must have hidden himself

before supper began. I don't think he would dare to listen at the door,
for anyone passing through the hall would catch him at it. It must be at
one of the windows."
The room was at an angle of the house. Three windows looked out on
to the lawn in front; that at the side into a large shrubbery, where the
bushes grew up close to it; and Charlie decided that here, if anywhere,
the man would take up his post. As soon, then, as he knew that the
servants were clearing away the supper, he took a heavy cudgel and
went out. He walked straight away from the house, and then, when he
knew that his figure could no longer be seen in the twilight, he made a
circuit, and, entering the shrubbery, crept along close to the wall of the
Muse, until within two or three yards of the window. Having made sure
that at present, at any rate, no one was near, he moved out a step or two
to look at the window.
His suspicions were at once confirmed. The inside curtains were drawn,
but the casement was open two or three inches. Charlie again took up
his post, behind a bush, and waited.
In five minutes he heard a twig snap, and then a figure came along,
noiselessly, and placed itself at the window. Charlie gave him but a
moment to listen, then he sprang forward, and, with his whole strength,
brought his cudgel down upon the man's head. He fell like a stone.
Charlie threw open the window, and, as he did so, the curtain was torn
back by his father, the sound of the blow and the fall having reached
the ears of those within.
Sir Marmaduke had drawn his sword, and was about to