St. John, who once wrote himself down my Lord Marlborough's most devoted and grateful servant, had helped to bring about that humiliation and that fall from power. And then came Atropos with the fatal shears, and just when the traitor's hopes were highest, and he was to play, in a strictly diplomatic and unwarlike character, the great part of General Monk, and bring about a new Restoration, with more ringing of joy-bells and flinging of flowers, as on the glorious twenty-ninth of May, the Queen died, and the plotter's web was rent in pieces. "What a world it is, and how does Fortune banter us!" he cried, in bitterness of spirit. Then came loss of office, six months of rustic retirement, watching for any change of the wind setting Saint-Germain-wards, then the bill of attainder, and the sudden flight of one who dared not face his accusers. Oxford, whose timidity mid irresolution had been ridiculed by his high-spirited colleague, had faced the danger, and escaped it; while Bolingbroke, the high-minded and daring, had fled to France disguised as a French messenger. And now he was in England again, debonair, audacious, favoured by his Majesty's morganatic wife, her Grace of Kendal, flattering everybody, charming everybody by his graces of person, his witchery of manner, his matchless talents, his reckless liberality. Lavendale could but admire the sinner now, as he had admired him ten years ago, only with a less unquestioning idolatry. "I know he is an unprincipled scamp," he told Durnford, when his friend remonstrated with him upon those long nights of brilliant talk and deep drinking which he spent with the patriot. "I know he has been a reprobate in his conduct to women, flying at all game, from the young lady of fashion to the chance Egeria of the Mall; and he could drink us bottle-men all under the table and keep his head clear to the last; yes, go straight from the carouse to his office-table and pen diplomatic correspondence, no worse for his four bottles than if he had been drinking rose-water instead of champagne. But he drinks less now, and he can hardly run after women as he used to do, since his adoring wife watches him closer than ever Juno watched Jove." "And in all probability with the same result." "Nay, Herrick, he is too deeply immersed in statecraft to sacrifice to Venus. He and Pulteney have sworn an alliance. They call themselves Patriots, and are to start a newspaper before the year is out, with the help of that scamp Amhurst, whom you must remember at Oxford, where he was turned out of his college for profligacy and insubordination. I have half a mind to write for them." "You, Lavendale! Are you going to rat--turn Jacobite?" "No, but I am rather inclined to join the Hanoverian Tories. They have all the talents on their side. Walpole is too jealous of power. He will suffer no rival near the throne."