Then one Sunday, Will Peake, my old adversary, walked into the shop with a monstrous letter in his hand, tied round with blue silk and sealed black at either end. I had seen Will often since I came back to London, but had always forgotten to tell him, that when I was put to it to advise Ludar where he might hear of me, I had told him to send to my brother 'prentice on London Bridge, who, if any, might be counted on to know where I was to be found. So now, when a letter was come, Will was vastly wroth that he should be mixed up in the matter, and needed much satisfying that 'twas a sign of friendship and nothing else that made me give his name, he being--as I told him--the only trusty man of my acquaintance in London. "I like it not, Humphrey Dexter," said he, tossing down the letter. "The air is full of treason. Only to-day there is talk in the city of some new conspiracy in the North, and 'tis not safe to get a missive from so much as your lady-love. There, take it. I am rid of it; and, hark you, let no man know I had it in my fingers. Farewell." The letter was in a great and notable hand, which, I was sure, did not belong to Ludar. Yet it was addressed: "_To the worthy 'prentice Humphrey Dexter, by the hand of one Will Peake, a mercer's man on London Bridge, give these_--" With beating heart, I took the letter to where Jeannette sat in the garden, and bade her break the seal. CHAPTER NINETEEN. HOW I WAS CONCERNED IN TREASON AND LOVE. The first words of the letter left me in no doubt as to who the writer might be. "To a certain Hollander, once my servant, and honoured still to live in my memory. Know, my son of Neptune, fledgeling of the Nymphs, and half- brother to the Tritons, that he whom thou knewest once in Parnassus' grove (whither he himself led thy halting feet), respireth still in sighs for beauty and exhalations of sweet verse. Know, too, that he hath of late composed a notable and admirable epic in praise of the Sun, which, if it please Heaven to bring him, ere the year fall, to London, thou mayest have the high honour of setting in print, thereby assisting at the birth of an immortal.