‘True; and pardoners among them, mayhap—vendors of spurious relics to the credulous, pigs’ bones for saints,’ a feather of the cock that crew St Peter into shame, and of other things no less false and profitable—Papal indulgences, to wit, for any that would be traitors to their country.’
‘It is not true.’
‘Why, I know you for a Papist, else would you ne’er have spoke of “Catholic” emissaries.’
‘I deny it not. Denounce me for it, an you will. Wounded and in your power, I shall not abjure my faith.’
‘Your necessity, as you should know, is your surest appeal to mine.’
‘Yet you can show so little Christian tolerance as to assume, without proof, a certain vileness in me, and for no reason but just that I am a Catholic. Tell me this, Sir: is Papistry, as you call it, countenanced in your England?’
‘With reason, no.’
‘We’ll spare the reason. It is not countenanced, at least. Then, for the convinced English Catholic there is no alternative to apostacy but—Picardy, shall we say?’
‘God forbid I should quarrel with any man for his religion. Only for yours, Picardy is a wholesomer climate than Devon.’
‘My hurts cry Amen to that.’