tenderness for a man after that. Beside, we used to hunt together in Exmoor, and have royal nights afterward into Ilfracombe, when we were a couple of mad young blades. Fond of him? Why, I would have sooner given my forefinger than that he should have gone to the dogs thus."
"Then my dear sir, if you feel for him still, in spite of all his faults, how do you know that God may not feel for him still, in spite of all his faults? For my part," quoth Frank in his fanciful way, "without believing in that Popish Purgatory, I cannot help holding with Plato, that such heroical souls, who have wanted but little of true greatness, are hereafter by some strait discipline brought to a better mind; perhaps, as many ancients have held with the Indian Gymnosophists, by transmigration into the bodies of those animals whom they have resembled in their passions; and indeed, if Sir Thomas Stukely's soul should now animate the body of a lion, all I can say is that he would be a very valiant and royal lion; and also doubtless become in due time heartily ashamed and penitent for having been nothing better than a lion."
"What now, Master Frank? I don't trouble my head with such matters—I say Stukley was a right good-hearted fellow at bottom; and if you plague my head with any of your dialectics, and propositions, and college quips and quiddities, you shan't have any more sack, sir. But here come the knaves, and I hear the cook knock to dinner."
After a madrigal or two, and an Italian song of Master Frank's, all which went sweetly enough, the ladies rose, and went. Whereon Will Cary, drawing his chair close to Frank's, put quietly into his hand a dirty letter.
"This was the letter left for me," whispered he, "by a country fellow this morning. Look at it and tell me what I am to do."
Whereon Frank opened and read—
"Mister Cary, be you wary
By dear park end to-night.
Yf Irish ffoxe com out of rocks
Grip and hold hym tight."
"I would have showed it my father," said Will, "but
"I verily believe it to be a blind. See now, this is the handwriting of a man who has been trying to write vilely, and yet cannot. Look at that B, and that G; their formæ formativæ never were begotten in a hedge-school. And what is more, this is no Devon man's handiwork. We say 'to' and not 'by,' Will, eh? in the West country?"
"Of course."
"And 'man,' instead of 'him?"
"True, O Daniel! But am I to do nothing therefore?"
"On that matter I am no judge. Let us ask much-enduring Ulysses here; perhaps he has not sailed round the world without bringing home a device or two."
Whereon Amyas was called to counsel, as soon as Mr. Cary
