"Hang the Protestant Succession, and you too!" screams Mr. Pinchin.
"Jacobite, Papist, Warming Pan!" roars the Chaplain, "I will delate you to the English Envoy here, and you shall be laid by the heels as soon as ever you set foot in England. You shall swing for this, sir!"
"Leave the Room!" yells Mr. Pinchin, starting up, but trembling in every limb, for he was hardly yet convalescent of his Fever.
"I won't," answers the sturdy Chaplain. "You wretched rebellious little Ape, I arrest you in the King's name and Convocation's. I'll teach you to malign the Act of Settlement, I will!"
Whenever Mr. Hodge assumed a certain threatening tone, and began to pluck at his cassock in a certain manner, Mr. Pinchin was sure to grow frightened. He was beginning to look scared, when I, who remembering my place as a servant had hitherto said nothing, ventured to interpose.
"Oh, Mr. Pinchin!" I pleaded, "think of your Mamma in England. Why, it will break the good lady's heart if you go Romewards, Sir. Think of your Estate. Think of your tenants and the Commission of the Peace, and the duties of a Liveryman of the City of London."
I knew that I had touched my Master in a tender part, and anon he began to whimper, and cry about his Mamma, who, he shrewdly enough remarked, might cause his Estate to be sequestrated under the Act against Alienation of Lands by Popish Recusants, and so rob the Monks of their prey. And then, being soothingly addressed by Mr. Hodge, he admitted that the Friars were for the greater part Beggars and Thieves; and before supper-time we obtained an easy permission from him to drive those Pestilent Gentry from the doors, and deny him on every occasion when they should be impudent enough to seek admission to his presence.
We were no such high Favourites in Ratisbon after this; and I believe that the Jesuits denounced us to the Inquisition at Rome,—in case we should ever go that way,—that the Capuchins cursed us, and the Benedictines preached against us. The Town Authorities began also to look upon us with a cold eye of suspicion; and but for the sojourn of an English Envoy in Ratisbon (we had diplomatic agents then all over the Continent, and very little they did for their Money save Dance and Intrigue) the Burgomaster and his Councillors might have gotten up against us what the French do call une querelle d'Allemand, which may be a Quarrel about Any thing, and is a Fashion of Disagreeing peculiar to the Germans, who may take offence at the cock of your Hat or the cut of your Coat, and make either of them a State affair. Indeed, I believe that some Imprudent Expressions, made use of by my Master on seeing the Horrible Engines of Torture shown to the curious in the vaults of the castle, were very nearly being construed into High Treason by the unfriendly clerical party, and that an Information by the Stadt-Assessor was being actually drawn up against him, when, by much Persuasion coupled with some degree of gentle Violence, we got him away from Ratisbon altogether.