Robert Walpole had been spending some time peacefully at his country place, Houghton, in Norfolk. Hunting, bull-baiting, and drinking were the principal amusements with which Walpole entertained his guests there. Sometimes the guests were persons of royal rank (Walpole once entertained the Grand Duke of Tuscany); {196} sometimes the throng of his visitors and his neighbors to the hunting-field could only be compared, says a letter written at the time, to an army in its march. Walpole never lost sight, however, of what was going on in the metropolis. He used to send a trusty Norfolk man as his express-messenger to run all the way on foot from Houghton to London, and carry letters for him to confidential friends, and bring him back the answers. When he found how badly things were going in London on the bursting of the South Sea bubble, he hastened up to town. His presence was sadly needed there. It is not without interest to think of James Stuart in Rome, and Walpole in Houghton, both keeping their eyes fixed on the gradual exposure of the South Sea swindle, and both alike hoping to find their account in the national calamity. All the advantage was with the statesman and not with the Prince. The English people of all opinions and creeds were tolerably well assured that if any one could help them out of the difficulty Walpole could; and it required the faith of the most devoted Jacobite to make any man of business believe that the return of the exiled Stuarts could do much to keep off national bankruptcy. Walpole had waited long. His time was now come at last. [Sidenote: 1720--The Craggses]