Meanwhile, in other matters, we were quiet enough.  Still I hesitated in pushing my suit with my Cousin Dolly, until I could see whether she was being forced to it or not.  But my Cousin Tom had more wits than I had thought; for he said no more to me on the point, nor I to him; and I think I should have spoken to her that summer, had not an interruption come to my plans that set all aside for the present.  During those months of spring and early summer we had no religious consolation at all; for we were too near London, and at the same time too solitary for any priest to come to us.

The interruption came in this manner.

I had sent my man over to Waltham Cross on an affair of a horse that was to be sold there on the nineteenth day of June (as I very well remember, from what happened afterwards); and when he came back he asked if he might speak with me privately.  When I had him alone in my room he told me he had news from a Catholic ostler at the Four Swans, with whom he had spoken, that a party had been asking after me there that very morning.

“I said to him, sir, What kind of a party was it?  And he told me that there were four men; and that they went in to drink first and to dine, for they came there about noon.  I asked him then if any of them had any mark by which he could be known; and he laughed at that; and said that one of them was branded in the hand, for he was pulling his glove on when he came into the yard afterwards, so that it was seen.”

I said nothing for a moment, when James said that, for I was considering whether so small a business of so many months ago was worth thinking of.

“And what then?” I said.

“Well, sir; as I was riding back I kept my eyes about me; and especially in the villages where it might be easy to miss them; and in Puckeridge, as I came by the inn I looked into the yard, and saw there four horses all tied up together.”

“Did you ask after them?” I said.

“No, sir; I thought it best not.  But I pushed on as quickly as I could.”

“Did the ostler at Waltham Cross tell you what answer was given to the inquiries?”

“No, sir—­he heard your name only from the parlour window as he went through the yard.”

Now here was I in a quandary.  On the one hand this was a very small affair, and not much evidence either way, and I did not wish to alarm my Cousin Tom if I need not; and, on the other if they were after me I had best be gone as soon as I could.  It was six months since the fellow Dangerfield had asked after me at Whitehall, and no harm had followed.  Yet here was the tale of the branded hand—­and, although there were many branded hands in England, the consonance of this with what had happened, misliked me a little.

“And was there any more news?” I asked.

“Why, yes, sir; I had forgot.  The man told me too that the five Jesuits were cast six days ago, and Mr. Langhorn a day later, and that they were all sentenced together.” (Mr. Langhorn was a lawyer, a very hot and devout Catholic; but his wife was as hot a Protestant.)