Nevertheless, my experience, who have been so long administrator of your authority in Man, might not, I think, be superfluous to the matter in hand." "Hold me excused, dearest mother," said the Earl gravely.

"The interference was none of my seeking; had you taken your own course, without consulting me, it had been well; but since I have entered on the affair--and it appears sufficiently important--I must transact it to the best of my own ability." "Go, then, my son," said the Countess, "and may Heaven enlighten thee with its counsel, since thou wilt have none of mine .-- I trust that you, Master Peveril, will remind him of what is fit for his own honour; and that only a coward abandons his rights, and only a fool trusts his enemies." The Earl answered not, but, taking Peveril by the arm, led him up a winding stair to his own apartment, and from thence into a projecting turret, where, amidst the roar of waves and sea-mews' clang, he held with him the following conversation:-- "Peveril, it is well I looked into these warrants.

My mother queens it at such a rate as may cost me not only my crown, which I care little for, but perhaps my head, which, though others may think little of, I would feel it an inconvenience to be deprived of." "What on earth is the matter ?" said Peveril, with considerable anxiety.
"It seems," said the Earl of Derby, "that old England who takes a frolicsome brain-fever once every two or three years, for the benefit of her doctors, and the purification of the torpid lethargy brought on by peace and prosperity, is now gone stark staring mad on the subject of a real or supposed Popish plot.

I read one programme on the subject, by a fellow called Oates, and thought it the most absurd foolery I ever perused.

But that cunning fellow Shaftesbury, and some others amongst the great ones, having taken it up, and are driving on at such a rate as makes harness crack, and horses smoke for it.