Rafael Sabatini

“ It was the first that he had seen; for although he had come this way a week ago, when the plague was already active in the neighbourhood, yet it was then confined to Butcher's Row on the north side of the church and to the mean streets that issued thence. To find it thus upon the main road between the City and Whitehall was to be rendered unpleasantly conscious of its spread. And, as he now pursued his way with instinctively quickened steps, he found his thoughts thrust more closely than ever upon the uses which the revolutionaries could make of this dread pestilence. ”

“ I don't want my house named for a meeting-place of traitors, as you've made it, taking advantage of me that haven't a man to protect me, and all the while deceiving me with your smooth pleasantness. If it wasn't for that, I'd inform the Justices myself at once. You may be thankful that I want to keep the good name of my house, if I can. And that's the only reason for my silence. But you'll go to-day or maybe I'll think better of it yet."
She picked up the empty tankard, and reached the door before he could find words in his numbed brain to answer her. ”

“ And maybe you've never heard the names of his lieutenants neither—of Tucker and of Rathbone, that was in here with you no later than yesterday as I can swear. And what was they doing with you? What had you to do with them? That's what you can perhaps explain to the satisfaction of the Justices. They'll want to know how you came to be so close with they two traitors that was arrested this morning, along of a dozen others, for conspiring to bring back the Commonwealth. Oh, a scoundrelly plot—to murder the King, seize the Tower, and burn the City, no less. ”

“ It was like a blow between the eyes. "Arrested!" he gasped, his jaw fallen, his eyes startled. "Tucker and Rathbone arrested, do you say? Woman, you rave!" But in his heart already he knew that she did not. For unless her tale were true how could she have come by her knowledge of their conspiring.
"Do I?" She laughed again, evilly mocking. "Step out into Paul's Yard, and ask the first man you meet of the arrest made in Cheapside just afore noon, and of the hunt that is going on this minute for Danvers, their leader, and for others who was mixed up in this wicked plot. ”

“ The fact is that he was a soldier who understood soldiering, and they were traders who understood trade. And the whole art of successful trading, in whatsoever degree, lies in a quick perception of the necessities of others and a bowelless readiness to take advantage of them. ”

“ Let him be denounced for association with Tucker and Rathbone, and there would be no mercy for the son of Randal Holles the Regicide. His parentage and antecedents would supply the crowning evidence against him. That was plain to him. And yet the score, whilst a comparatively negligible evil, was the more immediate, and therefore gave him at the moment the greater preoccupation.
He knew that it would be heavy, and he knew that the balance of his resources was utterly inadequate to meet it. Yet unless it were met he could be assured that Mrs. Quinn would show him no mercy ”