"Who is Dr. Sacheverell, Harry?" asked Celia from the window, where she sat with her work.
"There is but little regarding him," was the answer. "He is of Derbyshire family, and was sometime tutor at Oxford. 'Twas on the 5th of November, Gunpowder Plot day last, that he preached before the corporation of London, saith one of the newspapers—I brought the News-Letter as well as the Gazette—and speaking upon 'perils among false brethren,' which he chose for his discourse, he denounced the Bishops and the Lord Treasurer,[[13]] and spake of the Lords who aided in the Revolution as men that had done unpardonable sin."
"Where is all that in the Gazette?" asked the Squire, turning the little sheet of paper about, and looking down the columns to catch the name of the obnoxious preacher.
"Not in the Gazette, what I said last, Sir," answered Harry; "'tis in the sermon, whereof I brought a copy, thinking that you might wish to see it. The bookseller of whom I had it told me that a prodigious number had been sold. Methinks he said thirty thousand."
"Thirty thousand sermons!" exclaimed Lucy, under her breath.
"Leather and prunella!" observed the Squire from behind his Gazette.
"Maybe so, Sir," responded Harry, very civilly. "Yet a sermon sold by the thousand, one would think, should be worth reading."
"Hold your tongue, lad! men don't buy what is worth reading by the cart-load!" growled the Squire. "'Tis only trash that is disposed of in that way."
"Very likely, Sir," responded Harry as before. "Yet give me leave to ask how many prayer-books have been printed in England since the reign of Queen Elizabeth?"
The Squire only grunted, being deep in the Gazette, and Harry turned his attention elsewhere.