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 mark