Dr Thorpe exploded, as was usual with him, at Northumberland’s name.
“What, the Duke of Blunderhead?” cried he. “Ay, I reckon he would like well to be John the Second. Metrusteth the day that setteth the fair crown of England on that worthless head of his, shall see me safe in Heaven, or it should go hard with me but I would pluck it thence!”
“I never can make out,” answered Mr Underhill, laughing, “how you can be a Lutheran, and yet such an enemy to my Lord of Northumberland, that is commonly counted head of the Lutheran party, at the least in the sense of public matters.”
“Nay, my word on’t!” exclaimed he, “but if I thought the Devil, by that his proxy, to be head of the Lutheran party, in any sense or signification whatsoever, I would turn Gospeller to-morrow!”
Mr Underhill roared with laughter. John said, aside to Mr Rose,—“He is not far from it now.”
“Come, you are over hard on Jack Dudley,” said Mr Underhill. “He is an old friend of mine.”
“Then I wish you joy of your friends,” replied Dr Thorpe, in a disgusted tone: adding after a minute, “I yet look for your answer to my question.”
“I am no prophet,” answered he, “neither a prophet’s son; but it needeth not much power of prophecy to see that a civil war, or something very like it, should follow.”
“In either case?” suggested Avery.
“In the case of the King making no appointment,” he said, “very likely: in the case of his so doing, almost certain.”