ach so well as Dr. Atterbury," says he, "I don't know,
gentlemen, what may happen to me. I spoke very hastily, my lords, last
night, and ask pardon of both of you. But I must not stay any longer,"
says he, "giving umbrage to good friends, or keeping pretty girls away
from their homes. My lord bishop hath found a safe place for me, hard by
at a curate's house, whom the bishop can trust, and whose wife is so ugly
as to be beyond all danger; we will decamp into those new quarters, and I
leave you, thanking you for a hundred kindnesses here. Where is my
hostess, that I may bid her farewell? to welcome her in a house of my own,
soon I trust, where my friends shall have no cause to quarrel with me."

Lady Castlewood arrived presently, blushing with great grace, and tears
filling her eyes as the prince graciously saluted her. She looked so
charming and young, that the doctor, in his bantering way, could not help
speaking of her beauty to the prince; whose compliment made her blush, and
look more charming still.

Chapter XII. A Great Scheme, And Who Balked It

As characters written with a secret ink come out with the application of
fire, and disappear again and leave the paper white, so soon as it is
cool, a hundred names of men, high in repute and favouring the prince's
cause, that were writ in our private lists, would have been visible enough
on the great roll of the conspiracy, had it ever been laid open under the
sun. What crowds would have pressed forward, and subscribed their names
and protested their loyalty, when the danger was over! What a number of
Whigs, now high in place and creatures of the all-powerful minister,
scorned Mr. Walpole then! If ever a match was gained by the manliness and
decision of a few at a moment of danger; if ever one was lost by the
treachery and imbecility of those that had the cards in their hands, and
might have played them, it was in that momentous game which was enacted in
the next three days, and of which the noblest crown in the world was the
stake.

From the conduct of my Lord Bolingbroke, those who were interested in the
scheme we had in hand, saw pretty well that he was not to be trusted.
Should the prince prevail, it was his lordship's gracious intention to
declare for him: should the Hanoverian party bring in their sovereign, who
more ready to go on his knee, and cry "God save King George"? And he
betrayed the one prince and the other; but exactly at the wrong time. When
he