"That were, indeed, a way to recover," said Grasp; "but does your honour know of any acceptable service that might do yourself honour and her majesty pleasure?"

"I do," said Neville, "and you can aid me in it; but I warn you, it is attended with danger."

"In aiding you I serve the Queen, it seems," said Grasp, "Is't not so?"

"It is so," said Neville.

"Ergo, it is profitable," said Grasp.

"It is so," said Neville.

"Then am I content to encounter the danger," said Grasp, "since I am well aware that t.i.tles, honours, and profit are not to be gained without some sort of risk; and now tell us, honoured sir, what is to be done."

"To discover a plot and arrest the traitors," said Neville.

"Ah," said Grasp, with alacrity, "that were indeed a circ.u.mstance. An you could find such a matter as a ready-made plot, and light upon a nest of traitors, I should say you were in luck's way, as usual, good Master Neville."

"I can do both, good Grasp," said Neville, "and that not a thousand miles from this town; nay, not a thousand yards from this house."

"Ah, say'st thou," said Grasp, "not a thousand yards from this house? As sure as my name is Grasp, your words point at the strangers who have been for the last two days playing at hide-and-seek at the Checquers. Am I right, good sir?"

"You are," said Neville.

"Now, praise be to my sagacity," said Grasp, "I all along suspected those mysterious men of being evil-doers. There is treason and concealed villany in their very shadows as they glide about. What is the nature of their designs and their intent, good Master Neville? are they emissaries of the Spaniard? or are they----"

"Let it suffice, their intentions are dangerous to the safety of the Queen, and they are secretly drawing into their conspiracy many Catholic gentlemen in this county who are discontented with the present government. Nay, five of them are sworn by the most binding oaths to sacrifice themselves to the service of taking the life of the Queen."

"Oh, the villains!" said Grasp, rubbing his hands with delight at the prospect of being accessory to the discovery of a conspiracy of so much magnitude. "Oh, the caitiffs! a plot to destroy our blessed Queen, and ruin the nation! now that's what I call worth living to hear of. I'm a made man, that's clear."

"Nay, but," said Neville, "we must go warily to work, good Grasp; and I must damp the exuberance of thy glee a trifle, inasmuch as this business is likely to implicate and deprive thee perhaps of a client of thine."

"Ah," said Grasp, his countenance falling a little, "that's rather bad, who is the man?"

"Sir Hugh Clopton."

"Thou hast taken my breath away," said Grasp, recoiling a pace or two.

"Sir Hugh Clopton, whom men call the good Sir Hugh, engaged in such a bloodthirsty and jesuitical plot as this? Are you quite sure, honoured sir, of the correctness of what you utter?"

"I am quite sure that some of those engaged and deeply pledged to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Queen have been in hiding at Clopton Hall within the last two days. Nay, I shall be able to identify several of the best Catholic families in this county, as having been in correspondence with emissaries in Scotland, not only to a.s.sa.s.sinate Elizabeth, but to set the Queen of Scots at liberty, and place the crown upon her head."

"Nay, this is glorious," said Grasp; "the plot does indeed thicken, as the saying is. The fiend take the good Sir Hugh; I would sacrifice fifty such clients, and see them hanged, drawn, and quartered into the bargain, for such a chance as this. And now let us lay our heads together, and consult how to capture these b.l.o.o.d.y-minded conspirators with most advantage to our own proper selves. How shall we proceed, honoured sir? Shall we rouse the whole _posse comitatus_, and attack the house in which these miscreants are engendering, and hatching, and concocting those horrors; or, shall we go incontinent, and give secret intelligence to Sir Thomas Lucy at Charlecote?"

"That I must leave to your discretion, good Grasp," said Neville. "Your part must be to secure them ere twenty-four hours have elapsed.

Meantime, I must ride post haste to London, and give information to the Queen or her ministers of the whole affair."

"I would your worship would remain here, and capture the caitiffs, whilst I proceed up to town with information," said Grasp. "Methinks, as you are a man of _war_, and I am a man of _law_, that would be the most proper arrangement."

"By no means," said Neville. "Manage the matter as I have told thee. Do it well and effectually, and reward is sure to follow to us both. It is essential that I should myself gain favour by the discovery, and if I should succeed to the estates and t.i.tle of Westmoreland, I shall not forget the service you have rendered. Be wary, and prosper. Farewell."

So saying, the visitor hastily took his leave, and a few minutes afterwards was riding furiously towards Warwick, on his way to London.

"Now, there's a b.l.o.o.d.y-minded and dangerous Jesuit for you," said Grasp to himself. "He thinks I know not that he's a Catholic, I suppose, and that I cannot guess he has been as deep in this vile plot as the rest of them. But I do bear a brain, and I can perceive that the death of his relation hath completely turned his conscience, and now, in place of helping to murder the Queen, he's going to hang up all his a.s.sociates, by turning evidence. A bad world, my masters, and bad folks in it! But then it's by the bad I gain and thrive; bickerings, quarrellings, evil-speaking, lying, and slander, plots, counterplots, conspiracies, hangings, and headings, are my especial good. So now to consider and contrive this matter. Let me see--I instantly hasten off to the high bailiff, get together a sufficient body of his men, and then, my masters, look to yourselves! A plot to kill the Queen, subvert the Government, and burn the whole kingdom in an _auto-da-fe_! By all that's good, the business will not be effected without blood-letting on both sides! Let me see, who have we of approved valour and conduct to aid us in this capture? There's Master John Shakespeare; he's a good man and a true one, that will thrust in, and smite hard. His grandsire did good service at Bosworth Field. Then there's Goodman Rivett, the armourer; he hath an arm of might, and a heart of steel,--him will I also look up, an we need special men. Then there's--Yet," continued Grasp, pausing, and considering the matter, "methinks, after all, it would be better to put the affair at once into the management of Sir Thomas Lucy. Yes, I will incontinently and instantaneously proceed to Charlecote, and do so. Let me see; 'tis now about one hour after noon. I shall catch the proud knight just before he takes his post-prandium ride."

So saying, Grasp donned his hat, and prepared for his visit to Charlecote.

CHAPTER XII.

THE SONNET.

When Shakespeare took leave of his newly-found friends at Clopton, he left a deep impression behind him.

There was a feeling amongst the trio, which two of them at least could not understand; so greatly had the youth's manners struck them, so forcible was the interest he had created; whilst the third and most interesting of the party found that the handsome lad had unconsciously robbed her of her heart.

"By 'r Lady," said the old knight, "yonder stripling is one of the most singular companions I ever met; without being in the least forward in manners, he somehow impresses one with a feeling of inferiority I cannot understand. He's an extraordinary youth, my masters; and, an he turn not out something beyond the common, I am not a Clopton."

"How well he talks on all subjects!" said Arderne; "and yet how modest doth he seem!"

"How beautiful were those verses he wrote this morning!" said Charlotte.

"If he did write them," said Martin, "lady mine; _for mark ye_, they may be the offspring of another brain."

"_If_ he wrote them! Martin," said Charlotte: "why, who else could have written them, think ye?"

"Why not another as well as he, lady mine?" said Martin, archly; "what one man can do, another might effect. Methinks one older and more learned must have indited those lines."

"Nay," said Charlotte, "I know not wherefore, but sure I feel that none but he could have penned that sonnet."

"Gramercy," said Martin, "this is to have an opinion of merit, indeed!

Doth that stripling, that hero of the quarter-staff, seem to you, Master Walter," he continued, shrewdly glancing at Arderne, "to have so much merit that none other can come up to him?"

"I confess the lad hath made a singular impression upon me," said Arderne, "an impression I cannot shake off or understand. I never was in company with so amiable a youth before."

"Let us hear his verse again," said Sir Hugh. "Come, Martin, thou hast a voice, thou shalt read it."

"Ahem," said Martin. "I am no hand at a stanza; I shall mar the good verse, I fear me. Nevertheless, I will essay it."

THE SONNET.

Who will believe my verse in time to come, If it were filled with your most high deserts?

Though yet, Heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life, and shews not half your parts.

If I could write the beauty of your eyes, And in fresh numbers, number all your graces, The age to come would say, this poet lies, Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces, So should my papers, yellow'd with their age, Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue; And your true rights be termed a poet's rage, And stretched metre of an antique song: But where some child of yours alive that time, You should live twice,--in it, and in my rhyme.

Sir Hugh was a man of parts. He was a man, too, of strong sense, and, for the age in which he lived, might have been esteemed and accounted a learned man withal.

Had he chosen to be more of a courtier, and his creed been different, he might have risen to some eminence as a statesman.