ried the man with him next morning, and presented him to
the duke at his landing, who received him courteously, and walked
aside in conference near an hour, none but his own servants being at
that hour near the place, and they and Sir Ralph at such a distance,
that they could not hear a word, though the duke sometimes spoke, and
with great commotion, which Sir Ralph the more easily perceived,
because he kept his eyes always fixed upon the duke; having procured
the conference, upon somewhat he knew, there was of extraordinary; and
the man told him in his return over the water, that when he mentioned
those particulars, which were to gain him credit, the substance
whereof he said he durst not impart to him, the duke's colour changed,
and he swore he could come by that knowledge only by the devil, for
that those particulars were known only to himself, and to one person
more, who, he was sure, would never speak of it.

'The duke pursued his purpose of hunting, but was observed to ride all
the morning with great pensiveness, and in deep thoughts, without any
delight in the exercise he was upon, and before the morning was spent,
left the field, and alighted at his mother's lodgings at Whitehall,
with whom he was shut up for the space of two or three hours, the
noise of their discourse frequently reaching the ears of those who
attended in the next rooms and when the duke left her, his countenance
appeared full of trouble, with a mixture of anger: a countenance that
was never before observed in him in any conversation with her, towards
whom he had a profound reverence, and the countess herself was, at the
duke's leaving her, found overwhelmed in tears, and in the highest
agony imaginable; whatever there was of all this, it is a notorious
truth, that when the news of the duke's murder (which happened within
a few months) was brought to his mother, she seemed not in the least
degree surprized, but received it as if she had foreseen it, nor did
afterwards express such a degree of sorrow, as was expected from such
a mother, for the loss of such a son.'

This is the representation which lord Clarendon gives of this
extraordinary circumstance, upon which I shall not presume to make any
comment; but if ever departed spirits were permitted to interest
themselves with human affairs, and as Shakespear expresses it, revisit
the glimpses of the moon, it seems to have been upon this occasion: at
least there seems to be such rational evidenc