"The roads are very bad, and heavy with the rain, Your Highness," said Captain Royston; "but with a fresh horse from here, a remount from the stables of my troop at Honiton, and a third that I shall doubtless find at my own house of Royston, I will do it in ten hours. If the clouds should break, the moon might help me to better it by an hour." "And how far is this house of yours, Captain?" asked the Prince. "Royston Chase and the hamlet of Royston, Your Highness," he answered, "lie midway between Chard and Crewkerne: as the crow flies, some three and thirty miles from Exeter, and half as much, or thereabout, from Sherborne." "Is it at present inhabited?" says His Highness. "By my mother and a few old servants," said Royston. "Is the lady of your mind in politics?" continued His Highness; and being answered that she was, he then asked Captain Royston to do him the honor to be his host on the following day. "I shall go to Chard with Count Schomberg and a troop of cavalry," he said, "to inspect the outposts that lie there, and ostensibly to take notice of the country for purpose of strategy. About two hours after noon we shall arrive and ask hospitality of madam your mother--it may be for the night. Meantime you, Captain Royston, will have conducted Colonel my Lord C----, with all secrecy and discretion, and by hidden paths and byways when possible, to your house, where we can privily accomplish that personal meeting he so much desires, and contrive, I doubt not, to fix the price of his treachery. Mr. Bentinck, sir, considers that I err to trust you so far with my secret purposes. But I intend employing an English gentleman in a service as much to the advantage of his country as of myself, and I would not have him think it is my habit to deal with traitors. While, like yourself, Captain, I vastly prefer the open field to the dark ways of intrigue, yet, in this case, though I am, as the world knows, no Jesuit, I hold the great end in view to justify the means we are to employ. And, when all is said, the private motives of his lordship are no more concern of ours than--than--" he said, pausing with a smile, "than his Protestantism. He is a good soldier, and, if I am any judge, bids fair to be a great one; so I would have him an instrument on the right side." His Highness then gave to Captain Royston a pass under his own seal, very comprehensive in its terms, laying also before him a like paper sent by Lord C----, bearing the signature, "James R." M. de Rondiniacque has since told me of the lofty manner in which dear Ned would have declined this last. But His Highness insisted with some sharpness, saying: "You will take no escort, Captain, and these scruples are petty. And," he added more kindly, "let us hope that its use, if needed, will prove, after all, in the interest of His Majesty, my uncle. It shall not be our fault, sir, if it do not."