CHAPTER XIV. DETECTION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 127, 8 October 1875, Page 6

CHAPTER XIV. DETECTION.

The hands of Queen Mary's watch pointed to the hour of twelve j she had noted the progress of the last half hour very anxiously, as people do when they are expecting an interview with a person on important business. Royalty, however, is rarely kept waiting beyond the time it has appointed, thus it was that two minutes after twelve, a tap at the door of her closet made her aware that the person she had expected had arrived. Von Keppel, the page, '" entered and spoke to the queen, then left the room and ushered in Mrs. Pratt. Rather a comely woman she was, but with the awe royalty inspires an the uneducated classes, she appeared perfectly petrified when she found herself in the 1 presence of the queen, m* Mary, howerer,~knew well how to ingratiate herself witDTOie people, and putting on a smiling countenance, she said : " I understand you have begged an audience of me, Mrs. Pratt, desiring to speak to me of one Mr. Ashton, who has hired a vessel of yours for purposes against the government, though you were told that it is required to carry bales of silk to France ; what has led you to disbolive what you have heard ?" Here the Queen paused and fixed her full dark eyes on the woman's face as if she would search the inmost recesses of her heart. Martha Pratt, while the queen was speaking, had time to overcome her fears, and did not blench, beneath her gaze; she replied : " In the first place, your Majesty, Mr. Ashton was too anxious about the vessel, for he called on me, who have the letting of it, three times ; secondly, he offered me one hundred pounds to get _ my husband to let him have it at once ; and thirdly, because I found, from the King's page, that this Mr. Ashton used to be one ! of the members of the household of the late Popish. Queen, so ! when he hart gone, after calling the third time, for Pratt had j refused him his smack, wanting to send her to Hull, then said I, ' there's another Popish plot ab work, and if Pratt doesn't th nk so, but after all lets him have the vessel, then by all means don't take his money, Martha Pratt, but let the Queen's Majesty know all about it.' " " I commend your prudence, my good -woman," said the queen, " meanwhile, 1 beg you to keep perfectly silent in this matter, and if it really be as you* suspect, I will not fail to more than recompense you for what you will have sacrificed by your loyalty to the king and myself ; now leave me, I will sena for you again when I" have seen further into this business. Again alone, queen Mary walked up and down her chamber, as one whose mind is ill at ease. Nearly six months since she had consigned two of her uncles, the brothers of her late mother, to the Tower, along with a large number of the discontented nobility. As to the imj)risonment of her own kindred, she talked as pleasantly over this " clapping up," as she did when she robbed her father of his crown." - The queen's position was beset with difficulties, she never possessed a real friend, whilst sho was surrounded by enemies in disguise. Of partisans, serving her for interest, she had an abundance j she had a sister, it is true, a sister who shamefully conspired with herself to expel her father from his throne, and who had even given up her own place in succession to the Dutch Prince, but even-handed justice had brought the poisoned chalice to the lips of the Princess Anne by the way in -which she was treated by her sister and brother-in-law ; so that with divided interests between the Queen and the Princess, there was no bond of sisterly affection on which she could lean when apart, as she so often was, from her uncouth and boorish husband. " And he absent now," she says to herself, as she wanders up and down her spacious chamber, "on his way to the Boyne, at the time that another plot is on foot for the subversion of our government. The woman Pratt shall be richly rewarded, one of the humbler classes she, but possessing a fund of shrewd penetration rarely to be met with; but now let me call a council without delay," she continued, " nip this plot in the bud, if possible, and prevent this glorious departure to St. Germains," for that, and no other, is tl c spot whither these traitors are bound." A very few hours later, ihe agents of the Queen's governmPß were on the track of Ashton, Lord Preston, and others connected with the plot for which the young Jacobite, Nevill Payne, had beeS so mercilessly tortured some months previous. Throughout tho whole of that day the enraged Queen did not summon Florence to her presence.' It was passed in the company of hey advisers, discussing the manner in which the ringleaders of this new plct, in favor of the restoration of her unfortunate father, should be captured, and in filling the Tower and other prisons with captives who were under suspicion, upon the Queen's signature alono. Slowly fche hours passed away, Iwt no summons came to Florence, who had expected to be in attendance on the queen that 1 evening, Imt suspecting, from her conversation with Mrs. Pratt, 1 that even now the conspirators might have mp-de good their retreat, , the queen had weightier niattors to engage her attention than L | passing an evening at the theatre. : " The thirty-first of December," said she to herself, as the ; winter afternoon drew in, shutting out from her view the spacious • o-ardens <->r H\o palace, and the then small village of Kensington in . thedi.tance. The s ow had fallen heavily throughout the do#, . I and the » tu >a swept in hollow gusts around that wing of the palace in which her chamber was situated, and turning, with a shiver, . from the window, she continued : " Ashton must have surely re1 turned to St, Germains, or be on his way thither, and I am here-—

here, and know not how to escape, for to leave without permission will be to own that I have cause for fearing I am detained in the light of a prisoner."

Now thinking of Sir Reginald, then of those she loved at St. G-ermains, and a weary feeling at her heart on account of the Queen's enquiries respecting Ashton, coupled with surprise at not having been summoned to attend her, she became fnll of apprehension of coming evil. She knew how tyrannical the sway of Mary had been, since she had plucked the crown from her father's brow to place it on her own j that there was not a warm spot in her cold, selfish heart, save for her Dutch husband ; that she had trodden underfoot every tender emotion, where the dearest ties were concerned, so that Bmall mercy would be granted to herself should the queen surmise that she had in any way mixed herself up with this new rising. One after another the hours sped Blowly on. She had dismissed her maid, telling her she would dispense with her attendance ; and, stirring the fire into a blaze, she threw herself on her knees, seeking to strengthen and fortify herself by- prayer, and also by the remembrance of the courage and resignation of the saintly Mary Beatrice, when, suddenly, the dead silence of the night was broken by the sound of some soft substance thrown againsb the window. She started, rose from her seat, and listened attentively, when the noise was again repeated, this time somewhat more loudly. Shading her larup, she advanced with faltering steps to the window, and partially drawing aside the curtain, fancied she could discern the figure of a woman leaning against a tree in the garden beneath. A moment passed in breathless suspense, then she became aware she was recognized, and advancing from the friendly shadow of the tree, the person beneath raised her arm as if again about to attract attention. Cautiously and very gently, for Florence had recognized, by the pale moonbeams which fell on the white waste around, the form of Mrs. Ashton, she opened the casement, and with true, unerring aim, a small substance, soft, and round as a ball, was flung into her room, and the next moment she had hastily glided away amidst the shadow of the thicket of evergreens. Gently Florence closed the window, and drew her curtain, and afraid, for a few moments, to open the little packet, she fastened her door, waited still a few moments, in case she should be molested, and full of a deadly fear that her courageous visitor should have been watched. Not a sound, however, broke the dead stillness of the night, and she proceeded to unfold the little parcel, which consisted of several rolls of wool, compressed together. At last, within the last roll, her eye fell on a small piece of paper. It had one word written on it, and that was " Danger." Florence flung it into the fire, and crouching down by the dying embers, buried her face in her hands. Her worst apprehensions seemed about to be verified. She went to bed, but could not sleep, and when at last she sunk into slumber ifc was disturbed by frightful visions and distressing dreams, the reflection of her waking thoughts. When the dawn of the winter morning broke at last, it found her with a raging headache, feverish, and utterly unable to rise. She had thought over several plans, and had cast them all aside as impracticable. The most feasible was to make a request to visit Sir Charles, but she feared being the means of drawing him into trouble, as she should inevitably do, did she obtain permission to visit him and fail to return. , Thus it was thab the'queen was told that indisposition confined Florence to her room. Danger, in what form would it present itself ? Incarceration, such as the queen's tender mercies had inflicted on her own uncle ; torture such as Nevill Payne had undergone ; or death itself, which this ungrateful daughter and her Dutch husband had unsparingly inflicted on the unfortunate Jacobites who had attempted to procure the restoration of the exiled James.