Page 32 - A Jacobite Exile
P. 32
"Yes, I think it is a good thing that I should know," Charlie agreed
thoughtfully. "I daresay it is all right, but, at any rate, I am glad you told
me."
"You won't tell your father?" she asked eagerly. "Because, if you were to
speak of it-- "
"I shall not tell him. You need not be afraid that what you have told me will
come out. It is curious, and that is all, and I will look after the fellow a bit.
Don't think anything more about it. It is just the sort of thing it is well to
know, but I expect there is no harm in it, one way or the other. Of course,
he must have known your father before he came to us, and may have
business of some sort with him. He may have a brother, or some other
relation, who wants to take one of your father's farms. Indeed, there are a
hundred things he might want to see him about. But still, I am glad you
have told me."
In his own mind, Charlie thought much more seriously of it than he
pretended. He knew that, at present, his father was engaged heart and soul
in a projected Jacobite rising. He knew that John Dormay was a bitter
Whig. He believed that he had a grudge against his father, and the general
opinion of him was that he was wholly unscrupulous.
That he should, then, be in secret communication with a servant at
Lynnwood, struck him as a very serious matter, indeed. Charlie was not yet
sixteen, but his close companionship with his father had rendered him older
than most lads of his age. He was as warm a Jacobite as his father, but the
manner in which William, with his Dutch troops, had crushed the great
Jacobite rebellion in Ireland, seemed to him a lesson that the prospects of
success, in England, were much less certain than his father believed them to
be.
John Dormay, as an adherent of William, would be interested in thwarting
the proposed movement, with the satisfaction of, at the same time, bringing
Sir Marmaduke into disgrace. Charlie could hardly believe that his cousin
would be guilty of setting a spy to watch his father, but it was certainly
