"Why, yes," I said, trying to pass it off. "I have been there and
everywhere."

Cousin Tom put the pipe back again into his mouth.

"And there is another matter," I said (for Hare Street suited me very
well as a lodging, and I had named it as such to His Majesty). "It is
not right, Cousin Tom, that you should keep me here for nothing. Let me
pay something each month--" (And I named a suitable sum.)

That determined Cousin Tom altogether. My speaking of Whitehall had
greatly reassured him; and now this offer of mine made up his mind; for
he was something of a skinflint in some respects. (For all that I did
for him when I was here, in the fields and at the farm, more than repaid
him for the expense of my living there.) He protested a little, and said
that between kinsfolk no such question should enter in; but he protested
with a very poor grace; and so the matter was settled, and we both
satisfied.

* * * * *

So, once more, the time began to pass very agreeably for me. Here was I,
safe from all the embroilments of town, in the same house with my Cousin
Dorothy, and with plenty of leisure for my languages again. Yet my
satisfaction was greatly broken up when I heard, on the last day of
January that all that I had feared was come about, and that of the three
men whom I had seen condemned at the Old Bailey, two--Mr. Ireland and
Mr. Grove--had been executed seven days before: (Mr. Pickering was kept
back on some excuse, and not put to death until May). The way I heard of