there a daring scheme to be
executed, a foolhardy exploit to be performed--life and limb to be risked
without a question--who so ready and so reckless as "handsome Ned
Meredith"?

In the course of their secret meetings and cabals he became slightly
acquainted with Sir Hugh Horsingham; and, with the inexplicable
infatuation peculiar to a man in love, he look a pleasure in being
near one so closely connected with Lucy, although that one was the
very person who had deprived him of all he valued on earth. So it fell
out that Sir Hugh Horsingham and Ned Meredith were supping at the Rose
and Thistle in close alliance, the table adjoining them being occupied
by those staunch Hanoverians, Colonel Bludyer and Mr. Thornton.

"Here's 'The Blackbird,'"* said Cousin Edward, tossing off a huge
goblet of Bordeaux, and looking round the room with an air of defiance
as he proposed so well-known a toast. Sir Hugh was a man of a certain
grim humour, and as he drained his goblet and nodded to his companion,
he added, "May the rats dance to his whistle, and the devil--that's
_you_, Ned--take the hindmost!"

* One of the many passwords by which the adherents of the Chevalier
distinguished that ill-fated Prince.

Colonel Bludyer rose from his chair, placed his cocked hat on his
head, and turned the buckle of his sword-belt in front. "The King!" he
shouted, raising his hat with one hand and filling a bumper with the
other. "The King!" he repeated, scowling fiercely at his two
neighbours.

"Over the water!" roared Ned Meredith; and the Colonel, turning
rapidly round and mistaking his man, flung his cocked hat right in Sir
Hugh Horsingham's face.

Swords were out in a second--thrust, parry, and return passed like
lightning, but the bystanders separated the combatants; and Meredith,
determining for the sake of Lucy that Sir Hugh should encounter no
unnecessary danger, took the whole quarrel on himself, and arranged a
meeting for the following morning with the redoubtable Colonel
Bludyer. Thus it was that while Lucy and her boy were basking in the
summer sunshine, Cousin Edward was exhausting all his knowledge of
swordsmanship in vain endeavours to get within that iron Colonel's
guard. The duel was fought on the ground now occupied by Leicester
Square, Sir Hugh and Mr. Thornton officiating as seconds, though, the
latter being disabled from the effects of a recent encounter, they did
not, as was usual in those days, fight to the deat