at
you are abroad I will write to Master Fleming to arrange with his
correspondents, whether in France or Holland, as you may chance to be,
to pay the money regularly into your hands. You will, I suppose, take
Jacob with you?"

"Assuredly I will," Harry said. "He is attached and faithful, and
although he cares not very greatly for the King's cause, I know he will
follow my fortunes. He is sick to death of the post which I obtained for
him after the war, with a scrivener at Oxford. I will also take William
Long with me, if he will go. He is a merry fellow, and has a wise head.
He and Jacob did marvelously at Edinburgh, when they cozened the
preachers, and got me out of the clutches of Argyll. With two such
trusty followers I could go through Europe. I will ride over to Oxford
at once."

As Harry anticipated, Jacob was delighted at the prospect of abandoning
his scrivener's desk.

"I don't believe," he said, when he had learned from Harry that they
were going to the king at Hampton, "that aught will come of these
plottings. As I told you when we were apprentices together, I love
plots, but there are men with whom it is fatal to plot. Such a one,
assuredly, is his gracious majesty. For a plot to be successful, all to
be concerned in it must know their own minds, and be true as steel to
each other. The King never knows his own mind for half an hour together,
and, unfortunately, he seems unable to be true to any one. So let it be
understood, Master Harry, that I go into this business partly from love
of you, who have been truly a most kind friend to me, partly because I
love adventure, and hate this scrivener's desk, partly because there is
a chance that I may benefit by the change."

Harry bade him procure apparel as a sober retainer in a Puritan family,
and join him that night at Furness Hall, as he purposed to set out at
daybreak. William Long also agreed at once to follow Harry's fortunes.
The old farmer, his father, offered no objection.

"It is right that my son should ride with the heir of Furness Hall," he
said. "We have been Furness tenants for centuries, and have ever fought
by our lords in battle. Besides, Master Harry, I doubt me whether
William will ever settle down here in peace. His elder brother will have
the farm after me, so it matters not greatly, but your wars and
journeyings have turned his head, and he thinks of arms and steel caps
more than of fat beeves or well-tilled fields."

The next mornin