“Then, my lord, you are happy; if man can be happy at the summit of ambition.”
“Pardon me. It is a dizzy height at best; but, were it attained, I trust my head would be strong enough to bear it.”
“Lord Verulam, you know, my lord,” said Mr. Percy, smiling, “tells us, that people, by looking down precipices, do put their spirits in the act of falling.”
“True, true,” said Lord Oldborough, rather impatient at Mr. Percy’s going to Lord Verulam and philosophy. “But you have not yet heard the facts. I am encompassed with enemies, open and secret. Open enemies I meet and defy—their strength I can calculate and oppose; but the strength of my secret enemies I cannot calculate, for that strength depends on their combination, and that combination I cannot break till I know of what it consists. I have the power and the will to strike, but know not where to aim. In the dark I will not strike, lest I injure the innocent or destroy a friend. Light I cannot obtain, though I have been in search of it for a considerable time. Perhaps by your assistance it may be obtained.”
“By my assistance!” exclaimed Mr. Percy: “ignorant, as I am, of all parties, and of all their secret transactions, how, my dear lord, can I possibly afford you any assistance?”
“Precisely by your being unconnected with all parties—a cool stander-by, you can judge of the play—you can assist me with your general knowledge of human nature, and with a particular species of knowledge, of which I should never have guessed that you were possessed, but for an accidental discovery of it made to me the other day by your son Alfred—your knowledge of the art of deciphering.”
Lord Oldborough then produced the Tourville papers, related how they had been put into his hands by Commissioner Falconer, showed him what the commissioner and his son had deciphered, pointed out where the remaining difficulty occurred, and explained how they were completely at a stand from their inability to decipher the word Gassoc, or to decide who or what it could mean. All the conjectures of the commissioner, the cassock, and the bishop, and the gosshawk, and the heraldic researches, and the French misnomers, and the puns upon the coats of arms, and the notes from Wilkins on universal language, and an old book on deciphering, which had been lent to the commissioner, and the private and public letters which Cunningham had written since he went abroad, were all laid before Mr. Percy.
“As to my envoy, Mr. Cunningham Falconer,” said Lord Oldborough, as he took up the bundle of Cunningham’s letters, “I do not choose to interrupt the main business before us, by adverting to him or to his character, farther than to point out to you this mark,” showing a peculiar pencil mark, made on certain papers. “This is my note of distrust, observe, and this my note for mere circumlocution, or nonsense. And here,” continued his lordship, “is a list of all those in, or connected with the ministry, whom it is possible may be my enemies.” The list was the same as that on which the commissioner formerly went to work, except that the name of the Duke of Greenwich had been struck out, and two others added in his place, so that it stood thus: “Dukes of Doncaster and Stratford; Lords Coleman, Naresby, Skreene, Twisselton, Waltham, Wrexfield, Chelsea, and Lancaster; Sir Thomas Cope, Sir James Skipworth; Secretaries Arnold and Oldfield.” This list was marked with figures, in different coloured inks, prefixed to each name, denoting the degrees of their supposed enmity to Lord Oldborough, and these had been calculated from a paper, containing notes of the probable causes and motives of their disaffection, drawn up by Commissioner Falconer, but corrected, and in many places contradicted, by notes in Lord Oldborough’s hand-writing. His lordship marked which was his calculation of probabilities, and made some observations on the character of each, as he read over the list of names rapidly.
Doncaster, a dunce—Stratford, a miser—Coleman, a knave—Naresby, non compos—Skreene, the most corrupt of the corrupt—Twisselton, puzzle headed—Waltham, a mere theorist—Wrexfield, a speechifier—Chelsea, a trimmer—Lancaster, deep and dark—Sir Thomas Cope, a wit, a poet, and a fool—Sir James Skipworth, finance and finesse—Arnold, able and active—and Oldfield, a diplomatist in grain.
“And is this the summary of the history of the men with whom your lordship is obliged to act and live?” said Mr. Percy.