"Say 'contradictory to all the adages of common folk' and I am with you. 'You cannot have your cake and eat your cake,' runs the saw; Buckingham thinks he can. He believes the sky will rain potatoes, if he wishes it. He rules England just as much as the weathercock on my barn rules the wind."
"We may hope for better days, think you not," asked Squire Mell, "since the judges have at last taken a stand, and declared the new loan illegal?"
"I see not much promise in that, since the King's answer is to dismiss Sir Randal Carew from his Chief Justiceship," replied Stovin. "That is as high-handed a piece of tyranny as the sale of our land over our heads to the Dutchman; and the country takes it as tamely as we have ta'en the loss of our property and our rights."
"There are more than fifty gentlemen of the county committed to prison for refusing to pay the money demanded," said one.
"Ten of them had been appointed commissioners to collect the loan," said another.
"I heard a rumour the other day," said a third, "that the Earl of Lincoln is to be sent to the Tower."
"These are not times for our young men to be enlisting for foreign service; there will be civil war in England before we are much older," declared Squire Portington.
"There's not much sign of it yet," growled Stovin. "We are too white-livered for 't. But 'tis no bad thing some of our lads should learn how to win battles under a master of the art."
"Vavasour and Drury will be apt pupils, I warrant," said the younger Mell. "He is a good captain who knows how to get the victory when he is outnumbered three to one, and the enemy has horsemen and he footmen only. How the Mulgrave men fled at Belshaw!"
"Nay, the chief credit for that must be put down to thee," I replied.