Parson Kelly. Andrew Lang

before Kelly went to Dublin University, and took deacon's orders, and was kicked out of the pulpit for preaching Jacobitism in his homilies. As boys they had raced bare-legged over the heather, and spent many an afternoon in fighting over again that siege of Rathcoffey Castle which an earlier Nicholas Wogan had held so stoutly for King Charles. The recollection of those days always played upon Wogan's foolish heartstrings with a touch soft as a woman's fingers, and very likely it now set George Kelly's twanging to the same tune; for at Wogan's words he turned himself about with a face suddenly illumined.

      'Here, Nick, lay your hand there,' said he and stretched out his hand. 'You will be long in Paris?'

      'No more than a night. And you?'

      'Just the same time.'

      He turned again to the counter, and busied himself with his boxes in something of a hurry, as though he would avoid further questioning. Wogan blew a low whistle.

      'Maybe we are on the same business, eh?' he asked. 'The King's business?'

      'Whisht, man,' whispered Kelly quickly, and he glanced about the shop. 'Have you no sense at all?'

      The shop was empty at the moment, and there was no reason that Wogan could see for his immoderate secrecy. But the Parson was much like the rest of the happy-go-lucky conspirators who were intriguing to dislodge the Elector from the English throne—cautious by fits and moods, and the more often when there was the less need. But let a scheme get ripe for completion, and sure they imagined it completed already, and at once there would be letters left about here, for all the world to read, and a wink and a sly word there, so that it was little short of a miracle when a plot was launched before it had been discovered by those it was launched against. Not that you are to attribute to Mr. Wogan any superior measure of reticence. On the contrary, it is very probable that it was precisely Mr. Wogan's tongue which George Kelly distrusted, and if so, small blame to him. At any rate, he pursed up his lips and stiffened his back. Consequence turned him into a ramrod, and with a voice pitched towards the shopman:

      'I am still in the muslin trade,' said he, meaning that he collected money for the Cause. 'I shall cross to England to-morrow.'

      'Indeed and will you now?' said Wogan, who was perhaps a little contraried by his friend's reserve. 'Then I'll ask you to explain what these pretty boxes have to do with the muslin trade?'

      'They are to carry my samples in,' replied Kelly readily enough; and then, as if to put Wogan's questions aside, 'Are you for England, too?'

      'No,' said Wogan, imitating Mr. Kelly's importance; 'I am going to visit my Aunt Anne at Cadiz; so make the most of that, my little friend.'

      Wogan was no great dab at the cyphers and the jargon of the plots, but he knew that the Duke of Ormond, being then in Spain, figured in the correspondence as my Aunt Anne. It was now Kelly's turn to whistle, and that he did, and then laughed besides.

      'I might have guessed,' said he, 'for there's a likely prospect of broken heads at all events, and to that magnet you were never better than a steel filing.'

      'Whisht, man,' exclaimed Wogan, frowning and wagging his head preposterously. 'Is it yourself that's the one person in the world to practise mysteries? Broken heads, indeed!' and he shrugged his shoulder as though he had a far greater business on hand. Kelly's curiosity rose to the bait, and he put a question or two which Wogan waived aside. The Parson indeed had hit the truth. Wogan had no business whatsoever except the mere fighting, but since the Parson was for practising so much dignified secrecy, Wogan would do no less.

      To carry the joke a step further, he turned to the counter, even as Kelly had done, and examined the despatch-boxes. He would buy one, to convince Kelly that he, too, was trusted with secret papers. The boxes were as like to one another as peas, but Wogan discovered a great dissimilitude of defects.

      'There's not one of them fit to keep a mouldy cheese in,' said he, tapping and sounding them with his knuckles, 'let alone—' and then he caught himself up with a glance at Kelly. 'However, this perhaps may serve—but wait a little.' He felt in his pockets and by chance discovered a piece of string. This string he drew out and carefully measured the despatch-box, depth and width and length. Then he put the tip of his thumb between his teeth and bit it in deep thought. 'Well, and it must serve, since there's no better; but for heaven's sake, my man, clap a stouter lock on it! I could smash this with my fist. A good stout lock; and send it—wait a moment!' He glanced towards Kelly and turned back to the shopman. 'I'll just write down where you are to send it to.'

      To Kelly's more complete mystification he scribbled a name and an address on a sheet of paper, and folded it up with an infinity of precautions.

      'Send it there, key and all, by nine o'clock tomorrow morning.'

      The name was Mr. Kelly's, the address the inn at which Mr. Kelly was in the habit of putting up. Wogan bought the box merely to gull Kelly into the belief that he, also, was a Royal messenger. Then he paid for the box, and forthwith forgot all about it over a bottle of wine. Kelly, for his part, held his despatch-box in his hand.

      'Nick, I have business,' said he as soon as the bottle was empty, 'and it appears you have too. Shall we meet to-night? Mr. Law expects me at the Mazarin Palace.'

      'Faith, then I'll make bold to intrude upon him,' said Nicholas, who, though Mr. Law kept open house for those who favoured the White Rose, was but a rare visitor to the Mazarin Palace, holding the financier in so much awe that no amount of affability could extinguish it.

      However, that night he went, and so learned in greater particular the secret of the Parson's journey. It was nine o'clock at night when Wogan turned the corner of the Rue Vivienne and saw the windows of the Mazarin Palace blazing out upon the snow. A little crowd shivered and gaped beneath them, making, poor devils! a vicarious supper off the noise of Mr. Law's entertainment. And it was a noisy party that Mr. Law entertained. Before he was half-way down the street Wogan could hear the peal of women's laughter and a snatch of a song, and after that maybe a sound of breaking glass, as though a tumbler had been edged off the table by an elbow. He was shown up the great staircase to a room on the first floor.

      'Monsieur Nicholas de Wogan,' said the footman, throwing open the door. Wogan stepped into the company of the pretty arch conspirators who were then mismanaging the Chevalier's affairs. However, with their mismanagement Wogan is not here concerned, for this is not a story of Kings and Queens and high politics but of the private fortunes of Parson Kelly. Olive Trant was playing backgammon in a corner with Mr. Law. Madame de Mezières, who was seldom absent when politics were towards, graced the table and conversed with Lady Cecilia Law. And right in front of Mr. Wogan stood that madcap her sister, Fanny Oglethorpe, with her sleeves tucked back to her elbows, looking gloriously jolly and handsome. She was engaged in mincing chickens in a china bowl which was stewing over a little lamp on the table, for, said she, Mr. Law had aspersed the English cooks, and she was minded to make him eat his word and her chicken that very night for supper. She had Parson Kelly helping her upon the one side, and a young French gentleman whom Wogan did not know upon the other; and the three of them were stirring in the bowl with a clatter of their wooden spoons.

      'Here's Mr. Wogan,' cried Fanny Oglethorpe, and as Wogan held out his hand she clapped her hot spoon into it. 'M. de Bellegarde, you must know Mr. Wogan. He has the broadest back of any man that ever I was acquainted with. You must do more than know him. You must love him, as I do, for the broadness of his back.'

      M. de Bellegarde looked not over-pleased with the civility of her greeting, and bowed to Wogan with an affectation of ceremony. Mr. Law came forward with an affable word. Olive Trant added another, and Madame de Mezières asked eagerly what brought him to Paris.

      'He is on his way to join the Duke of Ormond at Cadiz,' cried Kelly; 'and,' said this man deceived, 'he carries the most important messages. Bow to him, ladies! Gentlemen, your hands to your hearts, and your knees to the ground! It's no longer a soldier of fortune that you see before you, but a diplomatist, an ambassador: His Excellency, the Chevalier Wogan;' and with that he ducked and bowed, shaking his head and gesticulating with his hands, as though he were some dandified court chamberlain. All the Parson's diplomacy had been plainly warmed out of him in his present company. Mr. Law began to