 correspondence with his wife.
    Mean while the lovers enjoyed themselves without restraint, and Peregrine's
plan of inquiry after his dear Unknown was for the present postponed. His
fellow-travellers were confounded at his mysterious motions, which filled the
heart of Jolter with anxiety and terror. This careful conductor was fraught with
such experience of his pupil's disposition, that he trembled with the
apprehension of some sudden accident, and lived in continual alarm, like a man
that walks under the wall of a nodding tower. Nor did he enjoy any alleviation
of his fears, when upon telling the young gentleman, that the rest of the
company were desirous of departing for Antwerp, he answered, they were at
liberty to consult their own inclinations; but for his own part, he was resolved
to stay in Brussels a few days longer. By this declaration, the governor was
confirmed in the opinion of his having some intrigue upon the anvil; and in the
bitterness of his vexation, took the liberty of signifying his suspicion, and
reminding him of the dangerous dilemmas to which he had been reduced by his
former precipitation.
    Peregrine took his caution in good part, and promised to behave with such
circumspection, as would screen him from any troublesome consequences for the
future: but, nevertheless, behaved that same evening in such a manner, as
plainly shewed, that his prudence was nothing else than vain speculation. He had
made an appointment to spend the night, as usual, with Mrs. Hornbeck; and about
nine o'clock hastened to her lodgings, when he was accosted in the street by his
old discarded friend Thomas Pipes, who, without any other preamble, told him,
that for all he had turned him adrift, he did not choose to see him run full
sail into his enemy's harbour, without giving him timely notice of the danger.
»I'll tell you what, (said he) mayhap you think I want to curry favour, that I
may be taken in tow again; if you do, you have made a mistake in your reckoning.
I am old enough to be laid up, and have wherewithal to keep my planks from the
weather. But this here is the affair; I have known you since you were no higher
than a marlinspike, and shouldn't care to see you deprived of your carriages at
these years: whereby I am informed by Hornbeck's man, whom I this afternoon fell
in with by chance, as how his master has got intelligence of your boarding his
wife, and has steer'd privately into this port, with
