In a certain secret and tortuous
correspondence he figured as Octavius, and you may still read his sprawling
script in the Record Office. His true name, which was Nicholas Lovel, was
known at Weld House, at the White Horse Tavern, and the town lodgings of my
lords Powis and Bellasis, but had you asked for him by that name at these
quarters you would have been met by a denial of all knowledge. For it was a
name which for good reasons he and his patrons desired to have forgotten.
He was a man of not yet forty, furtive, ill-looking and lean to emaciation.
In complexion he was as swarthy as the King, and his feverish black eyes
were set deep under his bushy brows. A badly dressed peruke concealed his
hair. His clothes were the remnants of old finery, well cut and of good
stuff, but patched and threadbare. He wore a sword, and carried a stout
rustic staff. The weather was warm for October, and the man had been
walking fast, for, as he peered through the autumn brume into the dark
entry, he mopped his face with a dirty handkerchief.
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