"The court house is not so full to-day."
"Nay. Do you mind when John Bunyan was tried? Ay, but he answered the justices boldly, and so cleverly that they could not gainsay him."
"True, but they clapped him into gaol for all that."
"Ay, they did; but that did not depend upon the trial. They had made up their minds to do that before he was brought hither. John was among the first, and people thought much of the trials then. We have had so many since that we be getting used to them."
"Well, it makes it pay to be religious."
"Nay, say rather it makes it a paying business to go to church. There's nought of religion in sending godly people to prison for praying in their own way."
"Hush, man! Men be spying around everywhere, and it takes but little to get fined. I hear there is a lot of paid spies, whose business it is to go around to hear folks talk and to give information to the justices."
"Ay, I suppose so. And yet these Dissenters pray and preach more than ever. I am told that they be increasing in number every week."
"And yet I hear that the king and the clergy say they'll never stop until there's not a Dissenter left in the land."
"Ay, I suppose so."