“It seems,” said the Earl of Derby, “that old England who takes a frolicsome brain-fever once every two or three years, for the benefit of her doctors, and the purification of the torpid lethargy brought on by peace and prosperity, is now gone stark staring mad on the subject of a real or supposed Popish plot. I read one programme on the subject, by a fellow called Oates, and thought it the most absurd foolery I ever perused. But that cunning fellow Shaftesbury, and some others amongst the great ones, having taken it up, and are driving on at such a rate as makes harness crack, and horses smoke for it. The King, who has sworn never to kiss the pillow his father went to sleep on, temporises, and gives way to the current; the Duke of York, suspected and hated on account of his religion, is about to be driven to the continent; several principal Catholic nobles are in the Tower already; and the nation, like a bull at Tutbury-running, is persecuted with so many inflammatory rumours and pestilent pamphlets, that she has cocked her tail, flung up her heels, taken the bit betwixt her teeth and is as furiously unmanageable as in the year 1642.” “All this you must have known already,” said Peveril; “I wonder you told me not of news so important.” “It would have taken long to tell,” said the Earl; “moreover, I desired to have you _solus_; thirdly, I was about to speak when my mother entered; and, to conclude, it was no business of mine. But these despatches of my politic mother’s private correspondent put a new face on the whole matter; for it seems some of the informers--a trade which, having become a thriving one, is now pursued by many--have dared to glance at the Countess herself as an agent in this same plot--ay, and have found those that are willing enough to believe their report.” “On mine honour,” said Peveril, “you both take it with great coolness. I think the Countess the more composed of the two; for, except her movement hither, she exhibited no mark of alarm, and, moreover, seemed no way more anxious to communicate the matter to your lordship than decency rendered necessary.” “My good mother,” said the Earl, “loves power, though it has cost her dear. I wish I could truly say that my neglect of business is entirely assumed in order to leave it in her hands, but that better motive combines with natural indolence. But she seems to have feared I should not think exactly like her in this emergency, and she was right in supposing so.” “How comes the emergency upon you?” said Julian; “and what form does the danger assume?” “Marry, thus it is,” said the Earl: “I need not bid you remember the affair of Colonel Christian. That man, besides his widow, who is possessed of large property--Dame Christian of Kirk Truagh, whom you have often heard of, and perhaps seen--left a brother called Edward Christian, whom you never saw at all. Now this brother--but I dare say you know all about it.”