"
He knew not which was the greater lie. For Mr. Blood had spent a
third of his life in the Netherlands, where this same James Scott
- who now proclaimed himself James the Second, by the grace of God,
King, et cetera - first saw the light some six-and-thirty years ago,
and he was acquainted with the story current there of the fellow's
real paternity. Far from being legitimate - by virtue of a
pretended secret marriage between Charles Stuart and Lucy Walter
- it was possible that this Monmouth who now proclaimed himself
King of England was not even the illegitimate child of the late
sovereign. What but ruin and disaster could be the end of this
grotesque pretension? How could it be hoped that England would
ever swallow such a Perkin? And it was on his behalf, to uphold
his fantastic claim, that these West Country clods, led by a few
armigerous Whigs, had been seduced into rebellion!
"Quo, quo, scelesti, ruitis?"
He laughed and sighed in one; but the laugh dominated the sigh, for
Mr. Blood was unsympathetic, as are most self-sufficient men; and he
was very self-sufficient; adversity had taught him so to be.
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