“Why, scarcely, sir, if I may venture to say so. If you told him that Sir John Thisleford’s former valet was in the neighbourhood, and if you gave some notion of my present appearance, then he might indeed guess. But otherwise I’ll warrant he wouldn’t know me. You see, sir, we look different out of livery, and my name wasn’t Filson when I served Sir John; and in various ways my manners have altered—for the better, I trust. So if your Honour has given him no hint of the matter, I think I may safely go and solicit his interest in my quest.” “Oh, do as you see fit, man. If he discovers you, ’tis your back must abide the cudgel, nobody else’s. Ecod, the letter will serve my purpose just as well, whether or not he knows how I came by it.” Jeremiah Filson was not long in availing himself of the security with which he now felt he might interview Foxwell. He thanked Providence he had not been too late to stipulate against the Squire’s mentioning him in connection with the letter, which he had neglected to do at the time of their transaction. The afternoon of that same day saw him make his very civil and yet not obsequious approach, the manner of which rather recommended him to Foxwell, as being unmistakably of London. Learning that his business was of a private nature, Foxwell heard him in the drawing-room, where Filson introduced himself with a careful ambiguity as upon a business “in the interest of Government.” Foxwell listened with polite attention to the glib description of the “fugitive rebel, one Charles Everell, who was of the Pretender’s body-guard of gentlemen at Culloden,” and who was suspected of being now in hiding in the neighbourhood, possibly upon the Foxwell estate. Filson, being satisfied by his hearer’s unconcerned manner that Foxwell neither knew nor cared anything about the Jacobite, explained that, while a justice’s warrant had been made out, upon his affidavit, to “take and apprehend” this Charles Everell, he was prosecuting the search quietly rather than by such public means as might give the refugee the alarm. He was, therefore, in this private manner soliciting the coöperation of the loyal gentlemen in the neighbourhood, and begging that, in the event of their discovering such a person, either by chance or as a result of investigations their loyalty might prompt, they would cause the man to be detained, and would send word to him, Jeremiah Filson, at the ale-house in the village. “For, d’ye see, sir, I’ve arranged matters that I can put my hand on the justice officers at short notice. I shall be the chief witness against the rebel, and I know where to find another, as two are required. The other, in fact, is at Carlisle, where the trials are now on.”