I thought that my Lord Shaftesbury seemed very heavy this evening. He treated me with a silent kind of civility; and so, too, did he treat the rest. His eyes wandered away sometimes as we talked, as if he were thinking of something else. We spoke of nothing of any importance for a time, for Mr. Sheppard was bringing in wine with his own hands, though I saw a number of used glasses on the press which shewed me that the company had been here some time already. It would be not until after ten or twelve minutes that Mr. Sheppard was deputed to open the affair on account of which I had been sent for. "Now then, Sheppard," said my Lord Essex who sat on my right, "tell us the news." Mr. Sheppard pushed his glass forward and leaned his elbows on the table. I could see that all that he said was directed principally at me. "Well, my lords," he said, "I have very good news. You remember how I told you that I was beginning to fear for the people down here--that they would be provoked soon into some kind of a rising. They are still not wholly pacified--" (here he shot a look at me, which he should not have done)--"but I am doing my best to tell them that we have very good hopes indeed that His Majesty will be persuaded to call a Parliament; and I think they are beginning to believe me. I think we may say that the danger is past." "Why; what danger is that, Mr. Sheppard?" said I, very innocently. "Why--a rising!" he said. "Has not my Lord Essex told you?" "Ah! yes!" said I, "I had forgot." (This was wholly false. He had told me once or twice at least that there was danger of this. This had been a month ago; and his object had been to persuade me that they had been telling the truth.) "I saw some fellows as we came in," I said. "Those are the malcontents," he said. "There are not more than a very few now, who go about and brag." I assented. "By the way," said my Lord Essex to Shaftesbury who looked at him heavily, "I spoke with my Lord Russell a week ago. You know my Lord Russell, Mr. Mallock?" I said that I did not. "Well; I had hoped he would have been here to-night. But he is gone down to the country--to Stratton--where he has his seat." He talked a while longer of my Lord Russell; and I saw that he wished me to believe that my Lord was of their party: whence I argued to myself that was just what he was not; but that they wished to win him over for the sake of his name, perhaps, and his known probity. (And, as the event shewed, I was right in that conjecture.)