Kelly knew nothing of the camp, and the discovery which it seemed to speak of, when he left the lodgings where he had slept all day. Of the ballad, too, it was like that Kelly knew nothing, and, in Wogan's opinion, the ballad was the cause of the military stir. Lady Oxford, inflamed with anger, blaming Lady Mary for the ballad, and blaming Kelly for blabbing her fault to her enemy, Lady Mary; had doubtless visited Mr. Walpole. The innocent Kelly, innocent of all these things, would be going to Lady Oxford's to fathom the causes of her renewed friendship. Mr. Wogan puzzled his brains over these matters while he supped in solitude at his lodgings. His friends have hinted that his mental furnishing is not in a concatenation with his bodily stature. He has answered that, if it were so, he would be Shakespeare and the Duke of Marlborough rolled into one. Though refreshed with Burgundy, his head felt weary enough when he turned to the question, 'What was he, Wogan, to do next?' In his opinion, the boldest plan is ever the best; moreover, he had a notion that there was no safer place in London for him, that night, and perhaps for Mr. Kelly, than Queen's Square in Westminster which Lady Oxford had taken for a permanence. For if Lady Oxford had blabbed, the last place in London where the Messengers would be like to look for the Parson was her ladyship's withdrawing-room. Unless of course she was laying a trap, which did not seem likely. In the face of this new ballad, Lady Oxford would not dare to have the Parson arrested within, or even near her house. It would provoke too great a scandal. He decided, therefore, first to go to the Dean's house, at Westminster, where the Bishop of Rochester stayed, see Mr. Kelly, if he could, and unfold his parcel of black news. Next, he would take Kelly to Lady Oxford's, if Kelly would come, for Wogan not only deemed this step the safest of his dangers, but expected to enjoy a certain novelty of the emotions, in which he was not disappointed. He therefore, imitating the clerical example, began to decorate himself in his most seductive shoulder knots to do honour to Lady Oxford. It may be that Wogan's mind, already crowded by a number of occurrences and dubitations, had exhausted its logical powers, for there was one idea which should have occurred to him earliest, and which only visited him while he was shaving. Who was the first person he was likely to encounter at Lady Oxford's? Why, the very last person whom at this juncture it was convenient for him to meet--namely, Colonel Montague. Wogan heartily wished he had left the Colonel between two fires at Preston barricade. But now there was no help for it, go he must. The Colonel, like other people, might not remember the boy in the man and under a new name, or, if he did--and then a fresh idea occurred to Wogan which made him smile. 'I was born,' he said, 'to be a lightning conductor!' CHAPTER XV