“And tell us, Roger, how you passed your time in prison,” cried Dicky. “In your letters you said you had grown mighty bookish, and your writing was like the town clerk’s.”
Roger blushed a little; he wished Dicky had not let on that his writing and his bookishness was a thing of yesterday.
“I would have gone mad but for books. There were not many Jacobite gentlemen in the prison, scarce one when I left, for the Prince of Orange has a long head, damn him, and seeing that the people have but taken him on his good behavior, he conciliates all parties. But what of the King’s return?” he asked eagerly.
There was a silence, which was broken by Berwick saying,—
“We drink to the King’s return every night; let us do it now, with a hip, hip, hurrah!” which was done in a bowlful of hard liquor, and to a roaring chorus trolled out, with Dicky’s high, clear, flute-like voice soaring above the rest,—
“Though for a time we see Whitehall
With cobwebs hanging on the wall,
Instead of gold and silver bright,
That glanced with splendor day and night,
With rich perfume