This letter, together with that to his father, Harry gave to Mike.  The post in those days was extremely irregular, and none confided letters of importance to it which could possibly be sent by hand.  Such a communication as that to Herbert Rippinghall was not one which Harry cared to trust to the post.  Mike had never been at Abingdon, and would therefore be unknown there.  Nor, indeed, unless they were taken prisoners in battle or in the first hot pursuit, were any of lower degree meddled with after their return to their homes.  There was therefore no fear whatever of molestation.  At this time Jacob was far from well.  The fatigues which he had undergone since the king broke up his camp at Stirling had been immense.  Prolonged marches, great anxiety, sleeping on wet ground, being frequently soaked to the skin by heavy rains, all these things had told upon him, and now that the necessity for exertion was over, a sort of low fever seized him, and he was forced to take to his bed.  The leech whom Harry called in told him that Jacob needed rest and care more than medicine.  He gave him, however, cooling drinks, and said that when the fever passed he would need strengthening food and medicine.

Hamburg was at that time the resort of many desperate men from England.  After Worcester, as after the crushing out of the first civil war, those too deeply committed to return to their homes sought refuge here.  But though all professed to be Cavaliers, who were suffering only from their loyalty to the crown, a great many of them were men who had no just claim to so honorable a position.  There were many who took advantage of the times in England to satisfy private enmities or to gratify evil passions.  Although the courts of law sat during the whole of the civil war, and the judges made their circuits, there was necessarily far more crime than in ordinary times.  Thus many of those who betook themselves to Hamburg and other seaports on the continent had made England too hot for them by crimes of violence and dishonesty.

The evening after Mike sailed Harry, who had been sitting during the afternoon chatting by Jacob’s bedside, went out to take the air.  He strolled along the wharves, near which were the drinking-houses, whence came sounds of singing, dancing, and revelry, mingled occasionally with shouts and the clash of steel, as quarrels arose among the sailors and others frequenting them.  Never having seen one of these places, Harry strolled into one which appeared of a somewhat better class than the rest.  At one end was a sort of raised platform, upon which were two men, with fiddles, who, from time to time, played lively airs, to which those at the tables kept time by stamping their feet.  Sometimes men or women came on to the platform and sang.  The occupants of the body of the hall were mostly sailors, but among whom were a considerable number of men, who seemed by their garb to be broken-down soldiers and adventurers.