egotiations which he was conducting,
and of his intimacy with great personages in both countries. Leicester,
on the other hand, was kept in the dark. To him Grafigni made no
communications, but he once sent him a dish of plums, "which," said the
Earl, with superfluous energy, "I will boldly say to you, by the living
God, is all that I have ever had since I came into these countries." When
it is remembered that Leicester had spent many thousand pounds in the
Netherland cause, that he had deeply mortgaged his property in order to
provide more funds, that he had never received a penny of salary from the
Queen, that his soldiers were "ragged and torn like rogues-pity to see
them," and were left without the means of supporting life; that he had
been neglected, deceived, humiliated, until he was forced to describe
himself as a "forlorn man set upon a forlorn hope," it must be conceded
that Grafigni's present of a dish of plums could hardly be sufficient to
make him very happy.

From time to time he was enlightened by Sir Francis, who occasionally
forced his adversaries' hands, and who always faithfully informed the
Earl of everything he could discover. "We are so greedy of a peace, in
respect of the charges of the wars," he wrote in April, "as in the
procuring thereof we weigh neither honour nor safety. Somewhat here is
adealing underhand, wherein there is great care taken that I should not
be made acquainted withal." But with all their great care, the
conspirators, as it has been seen, were sometimes outwitted by the
Secretary, and, when put to the blush, were forced to take him into
half-confidence. "Your Lordship may see," he wrote, after getting
possession of Parma's letter to the Queen, and unravelling Croft's
intrigues, "what effects are wrought by such weak ministers. They that
have been the employers of them are ashamed of the matter."

Unutterable was the amazement, as we have seen, of Bodman and Grafigni
when they had suddenly found themselves confronted in Burghley's private
apartments in Greenwich Palace, whither they had been conducted so
mysteriously after dark from the secret pavilion--by the grave Secretary
of State, whom they had been so anxious to deceive; and great was the
embarrassment of Croft and Cobham, and even of the imperturbable
Burghley.

And thus patiently did Walsingham pick his course, plummet in hand,
through the mists and along the quicksands, and faithfully did he hold
out signals to his c