Added to this, the soldier conducting him, a Dutchman, who seemed to have no English, roused Jerome’s ire curiously; the prisoner noticed how the fellow’s uniform sat in creases on his fat figure, how he wheezed and moaned to himself as he mounted the stairs, and how he eyed his charge from time to time with a glance of heavy aversion. At every doorway a sentinel was posted, and with him the fat Dutchman exchanged slow speech in his own language, while Jerome waited his pleasure, swordless, helpless, in a cold wrath at these lumpish foreign intruders. “Have you, sir, no English here?” he demanded at last. “Or is Kensington entirely filled with your countrymen?” The Dutchman looked at him insolently and made no answer; it was doubtful if he understood. They had reached now a small ante-chamber at the end of a long gallery; it was very ill-lit; the soldier’s blue uniform showed dimly through the gloom; a high-nosed, pale-faced young man was engaged in tying up papers at a side table. He came forward and spoke in a suppressed manner to the soldier, who, Jerome gathered from the address, was Count Solmes of the famous “Blues.” The Englishman looked on in disinterested curiosity; the whole surroundings were as unpretentious as might be the back parlor of a small merchant’s shop: the officials all seemed affected with the same taciturn manner and somber clothing. Dutch appeared the only language spoken. His gossip over, Count Solmes disappeared through an inner door, and the pale usher turned gloomy eyes on Jerome, who, thinking of the court of the Second Charles, inwardly smiled and sighed alike. The Count, returning, was accompanied by another Dutch gentleman who, remaining on the threshold, beckoned Jerome into the inner room. This was more cheerful of aspect, being lit by two long windows that looked on the garden, and so small that the firelight filled it from end to end. The two Dutchmen talked together with no heed of the fourth occupant of the room, a lean man in the prim gown and wig of a Scottish clergyman, who sat by the window, evidently waiting. Jerome Caryl knew him at once for Carstairs, chaplain to their Majesties for Scotland, and confidential adviser to the King. “A drab-hued court,” he smiled to himself, and while Count Solmes talked to his friend and the Rev. William Carstairs gazed out of the window at the bare trees, the Jacobite prisoner idly noted what manner of room he was in. Floor, walls and ceiling were paneled in highly polished wood; a bureau stood between the two windows, and before it a chair; a second chair and a stool similar to that on which Carstairs sat, completed the furniture, all of the same stiff pattern and absolutely plain.