Montague, however, did not immediately carry it to Mr. Wogan. He stood on the pavement of King Street for a little, biting his thumb in a profundity of thought; then he hurried to the stable where he kept his horses, and gave a strict order to his groom. From the stable he set out for Queen's Square, but on the way he bought a Flying Post, and stopped in St. James's Park to see what sort of account it gave of Mr. Kelly's arrest.
'The Plot concerning which they write from Paris,' it began, 'hath brought the Guards into the Park, and a reverend and gallant non-juror within danger of the Law. The Messengers that were essaying to take Mr. Kelly needed reinforcement by a file of musquets before his reverence's lodgings could be stormed. It is said that a loyal Colonel of the Guards who lodges in the same house in Ryder Street was discovered with Mr. Kelly when the soldiers forced their way in, and that by his interference many valuable papers have been saved, which would otherwise have been destroyed. It appears that Kelly was intent upon burning certain cyphers and letters, and had, indeed, burnt two or three of them before the loyal Colonel interrupted him.'
The loyal Colonel took off his hat to Grub Street for this charitable interpretation of his conduct. Lady Oxford, he reflected, must be in a fine flutter, for assuredly she would have sent for the news-sheet the first thing.
Montague tapped the pocket in which were her ladyship's letters, and smiled. Her anxieties would be very suitable to a certain plan of his own.
He walked straight to Queen's Square and knocked at the door. It seemed to him purely providential that the man who opened the door was the big lackey whom he had seen in Ryder Street the night before. Montague looked him over again and said, 'I think that I saw you last night in Ryder Street.'
He had some further conversation with the lackey, and money passed between them. But the conversation was of the shortest, for her ladyship, in a fever of impatience, and bearing every mark of a sleepless night, ran down the stairs almost before Colonel Montague had finished. She gave her hand to him with a pretty negligence, and the Colonel bent a wooden face over it, but did not touch the fingers with his lips. Then she led the way into the little parlour, and her negligence vanished in a second. She was all on fire to know whether her letters had been seized or no; yet even at that moment it was not in her nature to put a frank question when a devious piece of cajolery might serve.
'Corydon!' she said in a whisper of longing, as though Montague was the one man her heart was set upon, as though she had never brought Mr. Kelly into this very room on a morning of summer two years ago. 'My Corydon!' she said, and sighed.
'Madam,' said Montague, in a most sudden enthusiasm, 'I think there is no poetry in the world like a nursery rhyme.'
Her ladyship could make nothing of the remark.
'A nursery rhyme?' she repeated.