But to return to Mr. Kirby. One day, when the king was walking in the park with a party of companions and attendants, who were separated more or less from him, as was usual on such occasions, Mr. Kirby came up to him, and, with a mysterious and earnest air, begged the king not to allow himself to be separated from the company, for his life, he said, was in danger. "Keep with your company, sir," said he, "your enemies have a design upon your life. You may be suddenly shot on this very walk." Charles was not easily frightened, and he received this announcement with great composure. He asked an explanation, however, and Mr. Kirby informed him that a plot had been formed by the Catholics to destroy him; that two men had been engaged to shoot him; and, to make the result doubly sure, another arrangement had been made to poison him. The queen's physician was the person, he said, who was charged with this latter design. Mr. Kirby said, moreover, that there was a clergyman, Dr. Tong, who was fully acquainted with all the particulars of the plot, and that, if the king would grant him an interview that evening, he would make them all known. The king agreed to this, and in the evening Dr. Tong was introduced. He had a budget of papers which he began to open and read, but Charles had not patience to hear them; his mind was full of a plan which he was contemplating of going to Windsor the next day, to look at some new decorations which he had ordered for several of the apartments of the palace. He did not believe in the existence of any plot. It is true that plots and conspiracies were very common in those days, but false rumors and unfounded tales of plots were more common still. There was so much excitement in the minds of the community on the subject of the Catholic and Protestant faith, and such vastly extended interests depended on whether the sovereign belonged to one side or the other on this question, that every thing relating to the subject was invested with a mysterious awe, and the most wonderful stories were readily circulated and believed. The public mind was always particularly sensitive and excitable in such a case as that of Charles and his brother James at the time of which we are writing, where the reigning monarch, Charles, was of one religious faith, and his brother James, the next heir, was of the other. The death of Charles, which might at any time take place, would naturally lead to a religious revolution, and this kept the whole community in an exceedingly excitable and feverish state. There was a great temptation to form plots on the one hand, and a great eagerness to discover them on the other; and any man who could tell a story of treasonable schemes, whether his tale was true or fabricated, became immediately a personage of great importance.