With such words he encouraged me not only then, but daily, till ere a term was half over I was as hot a young Puritan as any in Cambridge. I cannot blame myself that I so quickly made surrender to that remarkable young man, whom St. John's and my college were bidding against each other to possess, and who has since made so great a stir in England, becoming the very head and heart of the Puritan party.
I had not even good Mr. Follet's influence to help me, for he left Cambridge a few days after to take up his place as tutor to Harry and one or two other young gentlemen about the Court, to whom he had been commended by his good friend Mr. Ascham, a man who at that time was the very oracle of the nobility on all such matters.
I was glad enough my tutor was spared any further sight of the ill-conditioned state of his university, and, above all, the hornets' nest which I soon found my unhappy exploit had stirred up.
It was some days after his departure that I was sitting at the window of my lodging pretending to read, but in truth listening to the Vice-Master and Mr. Cartwright, who were talking over Mr. Saunderson's recent expulsion from his fellowship.
'And how think you the Vice-Chancellor will take it?' said Mr. Cartwright thoughtfully.
'Who cares how?' said Mr. Beaumont hotly. 'Who cares what a Romish mule like Baker thinks? If he cannot stomach it, so much the worse for his Cretan belly.'
'And yet I think he is like to take some order in the matter,' said Mr. Cartwright, 'seeing how sturdy a papist Saunderson was.'
'Doubt not he will talk big enough,' answered the Vice-Master. 'He thinks because he is Provost of King's he can lift up his head over Trinity men. Yet let him beware, or he shall find that Pharaoh will lift up the head of the King's Baker from off his shoulders, and good Protestant fowls shall eat the flesh from off him. And besides, what order can he take? For if we cannot expel a fellow for observing fasts and particular days, not to speak of using allegory and citing Plato when publicly discoursing on the Scriptures, we may just as well write ourselves heathen idolaters and Italian atheists at once.'
At this moment I heard the tramp of armed men below the window, and, looking out, I perceived the Proctor with the beadles and his watch in the court below halting at our staircase. At that time the Proctor's watch always went at night harnessed with good morions and corselets, for fear of the Mayor's constable and his men, but it was not common to see them so by day.
Mr. Proctor demanded admittance in the Vice-Chancellor's name, and therewith entered the room with the beadles and two halberdiers, whose bright armour seemed strangely out of place in our dim and dusty lodging.