Surprised beyond measure that he remembered me, so many years having elapsed, I confessed with emotion that he had.
"Where?" he asked plainly. "I see many people. And I have not old Rowley's memory."
I told him. "Your Grace may not remember it," I said, greatly moved, "but many years ago at Abbot's Stanstead, at Sir Baldwin Winston's----"
"What?" he exclaimed, cutting me short, with a flicker of laughter in his grave eyes. And he looked me over. "Did I flesh my maiden justice-sword on you? Were you the lad who ran away?"
"Yes, my lord--the lad whose life you saved," I answered.
"Well, then we are quits," he had the kindness to answer; and asked me how I had lived since those days.
I told him, naming Mr. Timothy Brome, and saying that he would give me a character. The mention of the news-writer, however, had a different effect from that I expected; his Grace conceiving a hasty idea that he also was concerned with Ferguson, and muttering under this impression that if such men were turning, it was vain to fight against the stream. I hastened to disabuse him of the notion by explaining how I came to fall into Ferguson's hands. On which he asked me what I had done for the plotter, and how he had employed me.
"He would send me on errands," I answered, "and to fetch papers from the printers, and to carry his messages."
"To coffee-houses?"
"Often, your Grace."