"Man," retorted another, "doth thy reasoning not rise above the price of petty huckstering, Obadiah Blow-the-trumpet-in-Zion? Heed him not, good Master Wentworth. Hast news of honest George Monk and his army?"
"None, though rumour hath it that the fleet at Portsmouth hath sided with Monk, and that John Tippets, the mayor, hath called out the train bands and manned the ordnance on the Platform and the Square Tower. Moreover, a trusty messenger hath reached Sir Giles Seaward with orders to raise the countryside and to assemble in Petersfield marketplace to-morrow at noon. God forfend that this land be not again drenched in blood!"
"Ay," rejoined another, "but, as man to man, Master Wentworth, what think ye? How blows the wind in London?" he added darkly.
"My friend, mark ye well, the wind blows straight from the Low Country."
"No," thundered a voice from a seat in the chimney corner; "the blast of the Lord, that destroyed Sennacherib and his host, will utterly consume the malignants, including Charles Stuart, the son of the enemy of the people of England!" My father sprang to his feet, white with fury. All eyes were centred on the speaker. He was a short, thick-set man of about forty years of age, with a bull-neck, huge ears, small ferrety eyes, close-cropped hair, and a clean-shaven face deeply pitted with smallpox. He wore a buff-coloured jerkin, opened at the neck for comfort's sake, and frayed and soiled from the wearing of armour, his breast- and back-plates of dull steel having been removed. These, together with a steel helmet with metal guards, and a heavy broadsword, lay on the settle within arm's length, while a petronel and a well-weighted bandolier hung across the back of a chair on which the man's feet, encased in long Spanish boots, rested.
On my father striding across the room, the stranger leisurely rose from his seat and extended his hand in an attitude of contemptuous reproof.
"Tut, man, 'tis time thy grey hairs taught thee wisdom! Wouldst threaten me, Increase Joyce, trooper of Parliamentary Horse?"
"Draw, knave, draw!" shouted my father, whipping out his hanger. "Either unsay those words or else swallow them!"
Instantly all was confusion. Some of the more timid made towards the door, tables were overturned, tankards clattered on the floor, excited men shouted in unintelligible voices. For my own part, I remained by my father's side, unable to take my eyes off his antagonist, and, at the same time, knowing that my father in his choler would brook no interference from me.
"I fight not with old men," retorted Joyce. "But this I know: 'The axe is laid unto the root of the trees', an' if that arch-profligate, Charles Stuart, were to set foot in England----"