“Good,” was the reply, “most excellent! Eh? would it not make rare sport amongst the roundheads? It would verily enforce them to join in a few games, such as dancing till they fell down. But, old knight, be on your guard how you recommend that measure again. It has been seconded and carried by a majority of affirmatives in parliament with this amendment, of being burnt by the hands of the common hangman, instead of being vomited forth by the cannon.”
“See,” whispered the knight to the miller. “Parliament does its duty nobly, by purging itself from that mass of pollution. I attempted to do my duty when the king wrote it, and it nearly cost me my head. The crowned fool fumed like the smoke of that tobacco against which he blew ‘A Royal Blast.’”
The church was crowded, and many were obliged to stand, for lack of better accommodation. A few soldiers from the castle took their place in the aisles, and during the reading of prayers, at every Amen pronounced by the clerk, and responded to by the congregation, they clashed their sheathed swords on the echoing pavement, and then laughed to each other.
The parson arose to commence his discourse. His face had got a rueful longitude, which assisted him to read his text with becoming effect.
“And there shall be rumours of wars.”
His divisions, theologically speaking, were striking and impressive. He mentioned, in regular succession, all the rumours which had been afloat!
“First, my brethren, when I was in the neighbourhood of Manchester, the skies had darkened, and all was still around, when I heard a warlike drum. But greater woes were to succeed,—and I fled.”
He had proceeded through the divisions, and had come to the last.
“Lastly, my brethren,”—