"Sir, I will. It is for that I am here." Then without more ado he said hastily, "The worthy trader has been warned from a friend, a countryman of ours, who is connected, or attached, so to speak, to the Scotch Secretary of State's Orifice, that he may very possibly be cast into durance should he remain there," and he jerked his thumb at Lord Fordingbridge's house as he spoke; "whereon, seeing that precaution is the better part of valour, the worthy trader has removed himself from the hospitable roof there," upon which he this time jerked his head instead of his thumb towards the house, "and has sought another shelter which, so to speak as it were, is not in this part of the town, but more removed. But, being a man of foresight and precaution, also hath he gone to warn two gallant gentlemen residing at a sweet and secluded village on the river to be careful to themselves remove----"
"That," said Douglas, "we have already done. Yet his warning must have got there too late."
"And," continued their garrulous and perspicacious friend, "also did he request and desire me to attend here in the square until a certain fair lady should return from the gallimanteries and ridottos al fresco to which she had that evening been."
"And did the certain fair lady return?" asked Elphinston, unable to repress a smile at his stilted verbiage.
"Return she did. In gay company! Two sparks with her, dressed in the best, though somewhat dishevelled as though with profane dancings and junketings--one had his coat ripped from lapel to skirt--and an elderly man--I fear me also a wassailer!--with a fierce eye. Then I up and delivered the worthy--hem!--trader's message, when, lo! as flame to torch-wood, there burst forth from all a tremendous clamjamfry such as might have been heard up there," and this time he jerked his head towards where Kensington Palace lay.
"As how?" asked the young men together. "Why should they make a clamjamfry?"
"Hech!" answered their eccentric countryman, "'tis very plain ye ken not women--nor, for that matter, the young sparks of London! This is how it went. One certain fair lady--from whom I bring you a wee bit message--wrung her hands and wept, saying, 'Betrayed, betrayed again! The veellain! the veellain!' whereby I think she meant not you; the other fair lady, who is maybe an hour or so older, stormed and scolded and screeched about unutterable scoundrels, yet bade the other cease weeping and seek her house, to which she was very welcome; while the two young men uttered words more befitting their braw though unholy dishevelled apparel, and spake of him," and here the nodding head was wagged over to Fordingbridge's house again, "as though he were Lucifer incarnate--though that was not the name, so to speak as it were. And for the old man with the fierce eye, hech! mon, his language was unbefitting a Christian."
"And the message the lady scrawled. What is it?"
"'Tis here," the other replied. "You must just excuse the hasty writing--" but ere he could finish his remark Bertie had taken a piece of paper from his hand which he brought out from under his cloak, and, striding to where an oil lamp glimmered over a doorway, read what it contained. The few lines ran as follows:
"We are once more betrayed. He has, I know, done this. I leave his house and him for ever from to-night. I pray God you may yet escape. If you ever loved me, fly--fly at once. Lose no moment.--Katherine."