ll this be true,' said I, 'and if your mission is indeed as you
have said, why did you even now propose to make for France?'

'Aptly asked, and yet the answer is clear enough,' he replied; 'sweet
and ingenuous as are your faces, I could not read upon them that ye
would prove to be Whigs and friends of the good old cause. Ye might have
taken me to where excisemen or others would have wanted to pry and peep,
and so endangered my commission. Better a voyage to France in an open
boat than that.'

'I will take you to my father,' said I, after a few moments' thought.
'You can deliver your letter and make good your story to him. If you
are indeed a true man, you will meet with a warm welcome; but should you
prove, as I shrewdly suspect, to be a rogue, you need expect no mercy.'

'Bless the youngster! he speaks like the Lord High Chancellor of
England! What is it the old man says?

"He could not ope
His mouth, but out there fell a trope."

But it should be a threat, which is the ware in which you are fond of
dealing.

"He could not let
A minute pass without a threat."

How's that, eh? Waller himself could not have capped the couplet
neater.'

All this time Reuben had been swinging away at his oars, and we had made
our way into Langston Bay, down the sheltered waters of which we were
rapidly shooting. Sitting in the sheets, I turned over in my mind
all that this waif had said. I had glanced over his shoulder at the
addresses of some of the letters--Steadman of Basingstoke, Wintle
of Alresford, Fortescue of Bognor, all well-known leaders of the
Dissenters. If they were what he represented them to be, it was no
exaggeration to say that he held the fortunes and fates of these men
entirely in his hands. Government would be only too glad to have a valid
reason for striking hard at the men whom they feared. On the whole it
was well to tread carefully in the matter, so I restored our prisoner's
knife to him, and treated him with increased consideration. It was
well-nigh dark when we beached the boat, and entirely so before we
reached Havant, which was fortunate, as the bootless and hatless state
of our dripping companion could not have failed to set tongues wagging,
and perhaps to excite the inquiries of the authorities. As it was, we
scarce met a soul before reaching my father's door.

Chapter V. Of the Man with the Drooping Lids

My mother and my father were sitting in their