trances and posterns about Woodstock, and if I did, I am not free in conscience to communicate with you on this occasion.>>

"We shall do without you, sir,» replied Cromwell, haughtily; « and if ́aught is found which may criminate you, remember you have lost right to my protection. >>

« I shall be sorry,» said Everard, « to have lost your friendship, General; but I trust my quality as an Englishman may dispense with the necessity of protection from any man. I know no law which obliges me to be spy or informer, even if I were in the way of having opportunity to do service in either honourable capacity.>>

r

He

« Well, sir," said Cromwell, « for all your privileges and qualities, I will make bold to take you down to the Lodge at Woodstock tonight, to inquire into affairs in which the State is concerned.-Come hither, Pearson.»> took a paper from his pocket containing a rough sketch or ground-plan of Woodstock Lodge, with the avenues leading to it.— « Look here," he said, << we must move in two bodies on foot, and with all possible silence—thou must march to the rear of the old house of iniquity with twenty file of men, and dispose them around it the wisest thou canst. Take the reverend man there along with you. He

must be secured at any rate, and may serve thee as a guide. I myself will occupy the front

of the Lodge, and thus having stopt all the earths, thou wilt come to me for farther orders-silence and dispatch is all.—But for the dog Tomkins, who broke appointment with me, he had need render a good excuse, or woe to his father's son!-Reverend sir, be pleased to accompany that officer.-Colonel Everard, you are to follow me; but first give your sword to Captain Pearson, and consider yourself as under arrest.»

Everard gave his sword to Pearson without any comment, and with the most anxious presage of evil followed the Republican General, in obedience to commands which it would have been useless to have disputed.

THE little party at the Lodge were assembled at supper, at the early hour of eight o'clock. Sir Henry Lee, neglecting the food that was placed on the table, stood by a lamp on the chimney-piece, and read a letter with mournful attention.

« Does my son write to you more particularly than to me, Doctor Rochecliffe?" said the knight. << He only says here, that he will return probably this night; and that Master Kerneguy must be ready to set off with him instantly. What can this haste mean? Have you heard of any new search after our suffering party? I wish they would permit me to

enjoy my son's company in quiet but for a day."

<< The quiet which depends on the wicked ceasing from troubling,» said Dr Rochecliffe, << is connected, not by days and hours, but by minutes. Their glut of blood at Worcester had satiated them for a moment, but their appetite, I fancy, has revived.»

« You have news then to that purpose?» said Sir Henry.

« Your son,» replied the doctor, << wrote to me by the same messenger: he seldom fails to do so, being aware of what importance it is that I should know every thing that passes. Means of escape are provided on the coast, and Master Kerneguy must be ready to start with your son the instant he appears. >>

« It is strange," said the knight; « for forty years I have dwelt in this house, man and boy, and the point only was how to make the day pass over our heads; for if I did not scheme out some hunting-match or hawking, or the like, I might have sat here on my arm-chair, as undisturbed as a sleeping dormouse, from one end of the year to the other; and now I am more like a hare on her form, that dare not sleep unless with her eyes open, and scuds off when the wind rustles among the fern.>>

« It is strange," said Alice, looking at Doctor Rochecliffe, « that the roundhead steward has told you nothing of this. He is usually com

municative enough of the motions of his party; and I saw you close together this morning.>> « I must be closer with him this evening,» said the doctor, gloomily; « but he will not blab.»

I wish you may not trust him too much,» said Alice, in reply.—«To me, that man's face, with all its shrewdness, evinces such a dark expression, that methinks I read treason in his very eye.»

<< Be assured, that matter is looked to,» answered the doctor, in the same ominous tone as before. No one replied, and there was a chilling and anxious feeling of apprehension which seemed to sink down on the company at once, like those sensations which make such constitutions as are particularly subject to the electrical influence, conscious of an approaching thunder-storm.

The disguised Monarch, apprised that day to be prepared on short notice to quit his temporary asylum, felt his own share of the gloom which involved the little society. But he was the first also to shake it off, as what neither suited his character nor his situation. Gaiety was the leading distinction of the former, and presence of mind, not depression of spirits, was required by the latter.

<< We make the hour heavier," he said, «by being melancholy about it. Had you not better join me, Mistress Alice, in Patrick Carey's jo