As it was, Mr. Brome, within a month, saw so great a change in me that he would have me take a holiday; advising me to go afield either to my relations, or to some village on the Lea, to which neighbourhood Mr. Izaak Walton's book had given a reputation exceeding its deserts. He reinforced the advice with a gift of two guineas, that I might spend the month royally; then in a great hurry added an injunction that I should not waste the money. But I did worse; for I had the simple folly to tell the whole by way of protest and bitter complaint to my other master; who first with a grin took from me the two guineas, and then made himself merry over the increased time I could now place at his disposal.
"And it is timely, Dick, it is timely," he said with ugly pleasantry. "For, the good cause, the cause you love so dearly, Dick, is prospering. Another month and you and I know what will happen. Ha! ha! we know. In the meantime, work while it is day, Dick. Put your hand to the plough and look not back. If all were as forward as you, our necks would be in little peril, and we might see a rope without thinking of a cart."
"Curse you!" I cried, almost beside myself between disappointment, and the rage into which his fiendish teasing threw me. "Cannot you keep your tongue off that? Is it not enough that you----"
"Have taught me to limp!" quoth he winking hideously. "Here's to Louis, James, Mary, and the Prince--L. I. M. P., my lad! Oh, we can talk the deealect. We have had good teachers."
I could have burst into tears. "Some day you'll be caught!" I cried.
"Well?" he said with a grin. "And what then?"
"You'll be hanged! Hanged!" I cried furiously. "And God grant I may be there to see."
"You will that," he answered with composure. "Make your mind easy, my man, for, trust me, if I am in the first cart, you'll be in the second. That is my security, friend Dick. If I go, you go. Who carried to Mr. Warmaky's chambers the letters from France, I would like to know? And who---- But the cause!" he continued, breaking off, "the cause! To business, and no more havers. Here's work for you. You shall go, do you hear me, Richard, to Covent Garden to the Piazza there, in half an hour's time. It will be full dark then. You will see there a fine gentleman walking up and down, taking his tobacco, with a white handkerchief hanging from his pocket. You will give him that note, and say 'Roberts and Guiney are good men'--d'ye take it? 'Roberts and Guiney are good men,' say that, and no more, and come back to me."
I answered at first, being in a rage, and not liking this errand better than others I had done for him, that I would not--I would not, though he killed me. But he had a way with him that I could not long resist; and he presently cowed me, and sent me off.
I had so far fallen into his sneaking habits that though it was dark night when I started, I went the farthest way round by Holborn, and the new fashionable quarter, Soho; and passing through King's Square itself, and before the late Duke of Monmouth's house--the sight of which did not lessen my distaste for my errand--I entered Covent Garden by James Street, which comes into the square between the two Piazzas. At the corner, I had to turn into the roadway to avoid a party of roisterers who had just issued from the Nag's Head coffee-house and were roaring for a coach; and being in the kennel, and observing under the Piazza and before the taverns more lights and link-boys than I liked, I continued along the gutter, dirty as it was (and always is in the neighbourhood of the market), until I was half-way across the square, where I could turn and reconnoitre at my leisure. Here for a moment, running my eye along the Piazza, which had its usual fringe of flower girls and mumpers, swearing porters and hackney coaches, I thought my man with the white handkerchief had not come; but shifting my gaze to the Little Piazza, which was darker and less frequented, I presently espied him walking to and fro under cover, with a cane in his hand and the air of a gentleman who had supped and was looking out for a pretty girl. He was a tall, stout man, wearing a large black peruke and a lace cravat and ruffles; and he carried a steel-hilted sword, and had somehow the bearing of one who had seen service abroad.