But none the less I turned my face to the wall, for I felt my cheeks blazing. My words were indeed the truth. The same packet which brought to us the news of Monmouth's rising in the west, brought to us also the news of his defeat at Sedgemoor. But I might easily have divined his project some while ago. For early in the spring I had received a visit from one Ferguson, a Scot, who, after uttering many fantastical lies concerning the "Duke of York," as he impudently styled the King, had warned me that such as failed to assist the true monarch out of the funds they possessed might well find themselves sorely burdened in the near future. At the time I had merely laughed at the menace, and slipped it from my thoughts. Afterwards, however, the remembrance of his visit came back to me, and with it a feeling of shame that I had lain thus sluggishly at Leyden while this monstrous web of rebellion was a-weaving about me in the neighbouring towns of Holland. "'Art more of a woman than a man, Morrice, I fear me," said Jack. I had heard some foolish talk of this kind more than once before, and it ever angered me. I rose quickly from the couch; but Jack skipped round the table, and jeered yet the more. "'Wilt never win a wife by fair means, lad," says he. "The Muses are women, and women have no liking for them. 'Must buy a wife when the time comes." Perceiving that his aim was but to provoke my anger, I refrained from answering him and got me back to my ode. The day was in truth too hot for quarrelling. Larke, however, was not so easily put off. He returned to his chair, which was close to my couch. "Horace!" he said gravely, wagging his head at me. "Horace! There are wise sayings in his book." "What know you of them?" I laughed. "I know one," he answered. "I learnt it yesternight for thy special delectation. It begins in this way: "Quem si puellarum chore inseres." He got no further in his quotation. For he tilted his chair at this moment, and I thrusting at it with my foot, he tumbled over backwards and sprawled on the ground, swearing at great length. "'Wilt never win a wife by fair means for all that," he sputtered. "Then 'tis no more than prudence in me to wed my books." So I spake, and hot on the heels of my saying came the message which divorced me from them for good and all. For as Larke still lay upon the floor, a clatter of horse's hoofs came to us through the open window. The sound stopped at our door. Larke rose hastily, and leaned out across the sill. "It is an Englishman," he cried. "He comes to us."