Sir Kenelm died in 1665, full of years.  In that day his fame rested chiefly on his books in physic and chirurgery.  His most enduring work was still to be published—­“The Closet Opened.”

It was two years after his death that his son came upon a bundle of his father’s papers that had hitherto been overlooked.  I fancy that he went spying in the attic on a rainy day.  In the darkest corner, behind the rocking horse—­if such devices were known in those distant days—­he came upon a trunk of his father’s papers.  “Od’s fish,” said Sir Kenelm’s son, “here’s a box of manuscripts.  It is like that they pertain to alchemy or chirurgery.”  He pulled out a bundle and held it to the light—­such light as came through the cobwebs of the ancient windows.  “Here be strange matters,” he exclaimed.  Then he read aloud:  “My Lord of Bristol’s Scotch collops are thus made:  Take a leg of fine sweet mutton, that to make it tender, is kept as long as possible may be without stinking.  In winter seven or eight days”—­“Ho!  Ho!” cried Sir Kenelm’s son.  “This is not alchemy!” He drew out another parchment and read again:  “My Lord of Carlile’s sack posset, how it’s made:  Take a pottle of cream and boil in it a little whole cinnamon and three or four flakes of mace.  Boil it until it simpreth and bubbleth.”

By this time, as you may well imagine, Sir Kenelm’s son was wrought to an excitement.  It is likely that he inherited his father’s palate and that the juices of his appetite were stirred.  Seizing an armful of the papers, he leaped down the attic steps, three at a time.  His lady mother thrust a curled and papered head from her door and asked whether the chimney were afire, but he did not heed her.  The cook was waddling in her pattens.  He cried to her to throw wood upon the fire.

That night the Digby household was served a delicacy, red herrings broiled in the fashion of my Lord d’Aubigny, “short and crisp and laid upon a sallet.”  Also, there was a wheaten flommery as it was made in the West Country—­for the cook chose quite at random—­and a slip-coat cheese as Master Phillips proportioned it.  Also, against the colic, which was ravishing the country, the cook prepared a metheglin as Lady Stuart mixed it—­“nettles, fennel and grumel seeds, of each two ounces being small-cut and mixed with honey and boiled together.”  It is on record that the Lady Digby smiled for the first time since her lord had died, and when the grinning cook bore in the platter, she beat upon the table with her spoon.

The following morning, Sir Kenelm’s son posted to London bearing the recipes, with a pistol in the pocket of his great coat against the crossing of Hounslow Heath.  He went to a printer at the Star in Little Britain whose name was H. Brome.