'Is it, then, the Lords of the King's Council that ye are discontented with?'
'Nay, they are goodly men, for they are of the King's choosing,' one answered—a little man with a black pill-hat.
'Why, speak through your leader,' the stranger said heavily from the hearth-place. 'Here is too much skimble-skamble.' The old man beside him leaned over his chair-back and whispered in his ear. But the stranger shook his head heavily. He sat and gazed at the brands. His great hands were upon his knees, pressed down, but now and again they moved as if he were in some agony.
'It is well that ye do as the Lord commandeth,' Lascelles said; 'for in Almain, whence he cometh, there is wont to be a great order and observance.' He held his paper up again to the light. 'Master Printer, answer now to this question: Find ye aught amiss with the judges and justices of this realm?'
'Nay; they do judge indifferent well betwixt cause and cause,' the printer answered from his paper.
'Or with the serjeants, the apparitors, the collectors of taxes, or the Parliament men?'
'These, too, perform indifferent well their appointed tasks,' the printer said gloomily.
'Or is it with the Church of this realm that ye find fault?'
'Body of God!' the stranger said heavily.
'Nay!' the printer answered, 'for the supreme head of that Church is the King, a man learned before all others in the law of God; such a King as speaketh as though he were that mouthpiece of the Most High that the Antichrist at Rome claimeth to be.'