"It was with no thought of that kind that I spoke," I declared earnestly. "I pray your Majesty to believe me."
But Lord Bolingbroke broke in upon my protestations.
"This steward is with you at Commercy? Then, if it please your Majesty, I would advise that we see the man here, and question him closely face to face. For Mr. Jervas Rookley——" And he filled the gap of words with a shrug of significance.
"You distrust him?" asked the King; "yet it appears his loyalty has cost him an estate."
"It is that perplexes me; for I know these country gentlemen," and his voice sharpened to the bitterest sneer. "At night, over their cups, they are all for King James; then they consult their pillows, and in the sober morning they are all for King George. Oh, I know them! A sore head makes a world of difference in their politics."
The words seemed to me hot and quick, with all the memories of his defeated labours during those last six years of Queen Anne's reign, and I fancied the King himself was inclined to discount their value on that account.
"Yet," he urged, "these letters speak in no uncertain terms."
"They speak only of a disposition towards your Majesty," rejoined his minister. "It is a very tender, delicate, and unsatisfactory thing, a disposition. What we would have is their resolve. Are they resolved to drive on with vigour, if matters tend to a revolution? Will they support the revolution with advantage, if it spins out to a war? It is on these points your Majesty needs to be informed; and it is on these points they keep so discreet a silence. We ask them for their plan, as Marshall Berwick asked them time out of mind, and we get the same answer that he received. How many troops will his most Christian Majesty land? How many stands of arms? how many thousand crowns? Not one word of a definite design; not one word of a precise statement of their resources."
He walked about the room as he spoke, with every mark of discouragement in his gestures and expression, while the King listened to him in an uneasy impatience, as though he was rather irritated than impressed by Bolingbroke's doubts.
"Very well," said the King, tapping his foot on the floor, "we will examine Mr. Clavering's steward;" and he bade me go and fetch Ashlock into the room. But search as I might, nowhere could I find a trace of him. He had stayed no more than five minutes in the house, the people of the inn informed me. I hurried to the stables, thinking perchance to find him there. I questioned the ostlers, the drawers, even the wench who had boxed my ears. No one had knowledge of his whereabouts, and since it would be an idle business to go hunting for him through the unfamiliar streets of Commercy, I left a sharp word that he should come up the moment he returned, and so got me back chapfallen to Lord Bolingbroke's apartment.