"Answer for him?" cried Ferguson, with a sneer. "If you answer for him no better than I did, you will give us small surety." "Ay, but I am not you, Mr. Ferguson," Smith retorted, in a tone of contempt, whereat the older man writhed impotently. "This person--Mr. Taylor or Mr. Price--or whatever his name is--knows me and that what I say I do." "Well, do--what you like with him," Charnock answered peevishly, "so that you stop his mouth." To my great joy the other men assented in the same tone, being glad to be rid of the burden. It may seem strange to some that those who had prepared an hour before to take my life, should now be as ready to let me go; but there are few men who are eager to take life in cold blood, and kill a man as they would a sheep. Moreover, in favour of these men--on whose memory the Assassination Plot has cast obloquy not altogether deserved, since few of them were assassins in the strict sense, and the worst of all, Ferguson, escaped his just fate--in their favour I say, it is to be observed that the fact which they designed, however horrid in the eyes of good citizens, and certainly not to be defended by me, was not in their sight so much a murder as an act of private warfare carried into the enemy's country. So fully I am persuaded was this the case, that had it been a question of stabbing the King in the back, or shooting him from a window, I believe not one would have volunteered. Let this stand to their credit: to the credit of men whom I saw and have described at their worst, drunken, reckless, ill-combined, and worse governed; whose illegal design had it been accomplished, must have postponed the Protestant succession in these realms; but who, misguided and betrayed as they were by leaders more evil than themselves, evinced some spark of chivalry in their lives--for all did it in a measure for a cause--and in their sufferings a fortitude that would have become better men and a nobler effort. So much of them. One released my hands, and another at Smith's request found him a light; and my new protector bidding me follow him, and leading the way upstairs to the bare room at the back whence I had broken out, those we left were deep in muttered plans and whisperings of the Marsh, and Hunt's house, and Harrison's Inn at Dimchurch, before we were out of hearing. Smith's first act, when we reached the room above, was to close the door upon us. This done, he set his candle on the floor--whence its flame threw dark wavering outlines of our figures on the ceiling--and moved to the hearth. Here, while I stared, wondering at his silence, he searched for some spring or handle, and finding it, caused a large piece of the wainscot to fall out and reveal a cavity about three feet deep and six long. He beckoned me to bring the candle and look in, and supposing it to be a secret way out, I did so. However, outlet there was none. The place was nothing more than a concealed cupboard.