The Path of the King

he narrow entry of the Savoy, just west of the Queen's palace of Somerset House. He was a personage of many names. In the register of the Benedictine lay-br

as Nicholas Lovel, was known at Weld House, at the White Horse Tavern, and the town lodgings of my lords Powis and Bellasis, but had you asked for him by that n

A badly dressed peruke concealed his hair. His clothes were the remnants of old finery, well cut and of good stuff, but patched and threadbare. He wore a sword, and carried a stout rusti

fevers, the legacy of a year once spent in the Pisan marshes. He had doped himself with Jesuits' powder got from a

n extreme terror. His lantern-jaw hung as loose as if it had been broken. His lips moved incessantly. He gripped savagely at his

ing patrons. His name was against him, for long before he reached manhood the King had come back to his own, and his grandfather's bones had jangled on a Tyburn gibbet. There was no hope for one of his family, though Heaven knew his father had been a stout enough Royalist. At eighteen the boy had joined the Roman Church, and at twenty relapsed to the fold of Canterbury. But his bread-and-butter lay with Rome, and in his trade few questions were asked about creed provided the work were done. He had had streaks of fortune, for there had been times when

haftesbury's great house in Aldersgate Street. He was there under false colours, being a spy of the other camp, but something in him found itself at home among the patriots. A resolve had been growing to cut loose from his old employers and settle down among the Whigs in com

urious things. The austere Protestant was a friend of the Duke's man, Ned Coleman, and used to meet him at Colonel Weldon's house. This hinted at blackmailable stuff in the magistrate, so Lovel took to haunting his premises in Hartshorn Lane by Charing Cross, but found no evidence which pointed to anything but a prosperous trade in wood and sea-coal

with the Whigs and get to his feet at last. God knew it was time, for the household in the Billingsgate attic was pretty threadbare. His busy brain had worked happily on the plan. He would be the innocent, cursed from childhood with undesired companions, who wo

ult in April at the Duke of York's house. That would have mattered little-indeed the revelation of it was part of Mr. Lovel's plans-but he knew Mr. Lovel's precise connection with it, and had damning evidence to boot. The spy shivered when he remembered the scene in Hartshorn Lane. He had blundered and stuttered and confessed his alarm by his confusion, while the Justice recited what he had fondly believed was known only to the Almighty and some few who

urgent business, and Lovel had followed him up through Covent Garden, across the Oxford road, and into the Marylebone fields. There the magistrate's pace had slack

It may have been compunction, but more likely it was fear. It was also curiosity, for the magistrate's face, as he passed Lovel's hiding-place,

little hedge tavern, to swallow a mouthful of ale, and tell a convincing lie to John Rawson, the innkeeper, in case it should come in handy some day. Then occurred a diversion. Young Mr. Forset's harriers swept past, a dozen riders attended by a ragged foot following. They checked by the path, and in the con

o fear for his chance. But at Tyburn Godfrey struck into the fields and presently was in the narrow lane called St. Martin's Hedges, which led to Charing Cross. Now was the occasion. The dusk was falling, and a light mist was creeping up from Westminster. Lovel quickene

oo. His case was hopeless unless he struck soon. If Godfrey returned to Hartshorn Lane he himself would be in Newgate on the morro

utched his knees. There was a bloody fray inside, in which her husband fought against odds. The watch was no

hin and peered down the precipitous Savoy causeway. Wha

d, and followed h

at last, he was all of a tremble and his breath choked. Only the picture, always horribly clear in his mind, of a gallows dark against a pale sky and the little fire beneath where the entrails of trai

. It was a wretched tenement of wood, two hundred years old, once a garden house attached to the Savoy palace. Lovel scrambled up some rickety steps and found himself on the rotten planks of a long passage, which was lit by a small window giv

ontinued, one hand on the wall on his left. Then a sound broke the silence-a scuffle, and the long grate of something heavy dragged on a rough floor. Presently his fingers felt a door. The noise was inside that door. Th

ntern's light. Lovel knew him for one Bedloe, a led-captain and cardsharper, whom he had himself employed on occasion. The third man stood apart and appeared from his gesticulations to be speaking rapidly. He wore his own sandy hair, and every line of his mean freckled face told of excitement and fear. Him also Lovel recognised-Carstairs, a Scotch informer

y God, I wish I could stick my knife into him-once for Trelawney, once for Frewen, and a

eat man, and Bedloe and Carstairs were the seediest of rogues. He might make favor for himself with the Government if he had them caught red-handed. It would help his status in Aldersgate Street....

light in the street, but the glow from the window of a Court perruquier was sufficient to reveal the features. Lovel saw a gigantic face, with a chin so long that the mouth seemed to be only half-way down it.

ated Salamanca Doctor. He was the man abo

inute agone and I saw that noble Justice, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, lie dead, and h

he purple complexion seemed to go nearly black, and the wide mouth o

ll help." And he turned to a man who had come up and who looked like a city tradesman. "Lead on, honest fellow, and we will see justice d

viour of the nation, and the door of Aldersgate Street open at his knocking. The man Prance produced a lantern, and lighted them up the steps and into the tumbledow

his bandy legs great shoulders, and

gallows. Maark ye, Sir Edmund is the proto-martyr of this new fight for the Praatestant faith. He has died that the people may live, and by his death Gaad has given Engl

saw them here five minutes since, but they have gone to earth. What say

k the lantern from Prance and scrutini

have seen ye before, and I doubt in no goo

e of my Lord Shaftesbury, whom I have t

at like were the villains, then? Jaisuits,

mmon cutthroats w

and.... Ye seem to have a good acquainta

r their capture, and the reason flashed on his mind. The murder had come most opportunely for him, and he sought to lay it at Jesuit doors. It would ill suit his plans if only two common rascals were to swing for it. Far better l

esuits than you. One is just out of Newgate, and the other is a

face me, who alone discovered the Plaat, and dispute with me on high poalicy?... Now I come to

man in a dark peruke, wearing a long coat with a cape

n a sudden fury "I saw him handle t

, who nodded. Then he strode up t

nded at the river stairs and heard of this horrid business. If you say you have ever seen me b

Lovel's fear and with it his prudence. He saw very plainly the game, and

umbly crave pardon. I have never s

gh the laight was dim ye saw the murde

rror for Lovel than Bedloe's truc

e helped later to remember the names for the benefit of his Maa

e, doctor,"

d are already roused to a holy fairvour, and this haarrid craime will be as the paistol flash to the powder caask. But that the craime may have its full effaict on the paapulace 'tis raight to take some trouble with the staging. 'Tis raight so to dispose of the boady that the complaicity of the Paapists wil

ed to conduct himself in this wild business

im, then,"

ers and moved out, while the doctor, gripping Love

use on the east side, and after threading various passages reached a door which opened on a flight of broken steps where it was hard for more than one to pass at a time. Lovel heard the carriers of the dead grunting as they squeezed up with their burden. At the

efy them, to gain the street and give the alarm to honest men. These fellows were going to construct a crime in their own way which would bring death to the innocent.... Mr. Lovel trembled at himself, and had to think hard on his family in the Billingsgate attic

in the corner, and a mass of frails, such as gardeners us

such a Praatestant uprising as will shake the maightiest from his pairch. Wonderful are Goad's ways and surprising His jaidgements! Every ste

e the keys,"

. Captain Bedloe, ye have chairge of the removal. Before dawn by the water-gate, and then a

e Marylebone fie

naight haply-ye will run the boady throu

see no reason in it. The foolishest apothecary

is found with his swaard in his braist. He has killed himself, says the fool. Not so, say the apothecaries. Then why the swaard, asks the coroner. Because

igure that had gone before him in the Marylebone meadows. Then he had been its enemy; now by a queer contortion of the mind he thought of himself as the only protector of that cold clay under the bed-honoured in life, but in death a poor pawn in

the time came for him to offer his evidence. Prance was to go about his peaceful trade till Bedloe gave him the cue. It was a masterly str

Praatestant ye will repeat the laisson I taich you. If not, ye will be set down as one of the villains and the good fawk of this city will t

ended on him. He heard dimly the Doctor g

nts of this place," he said. "Some

ikely fellow among the Queen's household.

e Paape. Ye are worth a score of Praatestants to the good caause, and it will be remaimbered. Be assured it will b

s hounds, and unless we go warily they will give

was spit upon by him at St. Omer, and would waipe out the af

evel voice. "But he is no Frenchman. He is

been his teacher, had saved him from starvation, had treated him with a gentleman's courtesy. Even his crimes had not estranged this friend. Phayre had baptized

all risks avert the killing of another. He perceived very clearly what the decision meant-desperate peril, perhaps ruin and death. He dare not delay, for in a little he would be

gave the alarm. As with quaking heart he ran up the silent stable-yard towards the Strand gate he felt close on him the wind of the pursuit. In the

. . . . . .

arse kerchief and stuffing it into his pocket

d have proved but a saarry witness. Now by the mairciful dispensati

white-livered at that

It must be praam

-gate and in an hour the tide will run.

upward. "Great are the doings of the Laar