(as I say) he was
supposed to stand. He spoke of it to those who loved him with a gentle
pleasantry, which made it the more touching. To Mr. Henry he used it as
a cruel weapon of offence. I remember his laying his finger on the clean
lozenge of the painted window one day when we three were alone together
in the hall. "Here went your lucky guinea, Jacob," said he. And when Mr.
Henry only looked upon him darkly, "O!" he added, "you need not look
such impotent malice, my good fly. You can be rid of your spider when
you please. How long, O Lord? When are you to be wrought to the point of
a denunciation, scrupulous brother? It is one of my interests in this
dreary hole. I ever loved experiment." Still Mr. Henry only stared upon
him with a glooming brow, and a changed colour; and at last the Master
broke out in a laugh and clapped him on the shoulder, calling him a
sulky dog. At this my patron leaped back with a gesture I thought very
dangerous; and I must suppose the Master thought so too, for he looked
the least in the world discountenanced, and I do not remember him again
to have laid hands on Mr. Henry.

But though he had his peril always on his lips in the one way or the
other, I thought his conduct strangely incautious, and began to fancy
the Government--who had set a price upon his head--was gone sound
asleep. I will not deny I was tempted with the wish to denounce him; but
two thoughts withheld me: one, that if he were thus to end his life upon
an honourable scaffold, the man would be canonised for good in the minds
of his father and my patron's wife; the other, that if I was anyway
mingled in the matter, Mr. Henry himself would scarce escape some
glancings of suspicion. And in the meanwhile our enemy went in and out
more than I could have thought possible, the fact that he was home again
was buzzed about all the country-side, and yet he was never stirred. Of
all those so-many and so-different persons who were acquainted with his
presence, none had the least greed--as I used to say in my annoyance--or
the least loyalty; and the man rode here and there--fully more welcome,
considering the lees of old unpopularity, than Mr. Henry--and,
considering the free-traders, far safer than myself.

Not but what he had a trouble of his own; and this, as it brought about
the gravest consequences, I must now relate. The reader will scarce have
forgotten Jessie Broun; her way of life was much among the smuggling
party; Captain Crai