To carry off a spouse that moped too much,
And cured her of the vapours in a trice;
· · · · ·
For now the husband—playing Vulcan’s part,—
... started in hot pursuit
To catch the lovers, and came raging up;
Cast then his net, and call’d neighbours to see
The convicts in their rosy impudence.
The victim of this plot was now in his sixtieth year. Whatever may have been the sins of his youth, there was obvious risk in a contrivance to extort money by telling such a tale as that, about a man the fever of whose blood must needs have abated; even had he not been already broken down under cumulative weight of the sorrow and hunger of the heart. |The Conspiracy of Wilcox and Stevenson against Sir R. Cotton.| The intended victim, too, was a man with troops of friends. But the conspirators, it is evident, thought that Sir Robert’s known disgrace at Court would tell as a good counterpoise in their favour. A man already in circumstances of peril would, they thought, be likely to open his pursestrings rather than incur the burden of a new accusation.