Charlie took the letter, and with some trouble spelt through the crabbed handwriting.

It began: 

“Honoured sir and master, I hope that this finds you and Captain Charles both well in health.  I have been laid up with rhematis in the bones, having less comfort in my lodgings than I used to have at Lynnwood.  Your honour will have heard that King William has fallen from his horse, and broken his collarbone, and died.  May the Lord forgive him for taking the place of better men.  Anne has come to the throne, and there were some hopes that she would, of herself, step aside and let him to whom the throne rightly belongs come to it.  Such, however, has not been the case, and those who know best think that things are no forwarder for William’s death, rather indeed the reverse, since the Princess Anne is better liked by the people than was her sister’s husband.

“There is no sure news from Lynnwood.  None of the old servants are there; and I have no one from whom I can learn anything for certain.  Things however are, I hear, much worse since young Mr. Dormay was killed in the duel in London, of which I told you in my last letter.

“Dame Celia and Mistress Ciceley go but seldom abroad, and when seen they smile but little, but seem sad and downcast.  The usurper has but small dealing with any of the gentry.  There are always men staying there, fellows of a kind with whom no gentleman would consort, and they say there is much drinking and wild going on.  As Captain Charles specially bade me, I have done all that I could to gather news of Nicholson.  Till of late I have heard nothing of him.  He disappeared altogether from these parts, just after your honour went away.  News once came here from one who knew him, and who had gone up to London on a visit to a kinsman, that he had met him there, dressed up in a garb in no way according with his former position, but ruffling it at a tavern frequented by loose blades, spending his money freely, and drinking and dicing with the best of them.

“A week since he was seen down here, in a very sorry state, looking as if luck had gone altogether against him.  Benjamin Haddock, who lives, as you know, close to the gate of Lynnwood, told me that he saw one pass along the road, just as it was dusk, whom he could swear was that varlet Nicholson.  He went to the door and looked after him to make sure, and saw him enter the gate.  Next day Nicholson was in Lancaster.  He was spending money freely there, and rode off on a good horse, which looked ill assorted with his garments, though he purchased some of better fashion in the town.  It seemed to me likely that he must have got money from the usurper.  I do not know whether your honour will deem this news of importance, but I thought it well to write to you at once.  Any further news I may gather, I will send without fail.

“Your humble servant,

“John Banks.”