"I profess I begin to think so." Colonel Boyce frowned. "Lud, Harry, stop your ranting. What brought you here?"
"You, sir, you. Your faithful striving to do my Lord Sunderland's murders for him. Imprimis, that work of grace. But, finally, some good soldiers who assured me I was the man my lord wanted to murder."
"You came here with the Pretender?"
Harry laughed and began to sing a catch:
"'Tis nothing to you if I should do so,
And if nothing in it you find,
Then thank me for nothing and that will be moe
Than ever I designed."
"What a pox are you doing in his clothes, sirrah?" Colonel Boyce cried.
"Faith, I try to keep them on me. Which is more difficult than you suppose. If I were to stand up in a hurry, my lord, we should all be shamed."
"The lad is an idiot," said Sunderland, with a shrug.
"Come, Harry, you have fooled it long enough. I had a guess of this mad fancy of yours. But the game is up now, lad. King George is king to-day, and his friends have all power in their grip. There's no more hope for your Jacobites. Tell me now—the Pretender is in your clothes, I see—where did you part from him?"
"Why, don't you know?" Harry stared at him. "Oh, faith, that's bitter for you. You who always know everything! And your friends 'with all power in their grip,' Oh, my dear lord, I wonder if there's those who don't trust you?"