“But sure it an’t any concernment of yours,” says I. “You are here, and may stay away until there be a king to your mind.”
“Whence shall he come?” cried the old man. “One there was, even in this wicked family, in whom some good thing was found towards the God of Israel, and he was took away from the evil to come. Who is there beside?”
“But who is he of whom you speak?” I asked him.
“The men of this world called him Henry, Duke of Gloucester, but to us he was the young Josias, raised up for to destroy the idols of his fathers and the tombs of their false priests. But the Lord intended the overthrow of the house of Stewart, and left to it only those that to the wickedness of their fathers would add yet more.”
“Man,” says I, “you are prodigious bold to speak thus impudently of the royal house. I thank God that I and mine have never ceased to uphold his majesty’s cause, and will do so still. But ’tis you and your like that have brought God’s judgments upon Britain by that shameful deed of slaying the Lord’s anointed, that blessed martyr the late king.”
“Nay,” said he, “I had no hand in the well-merited death of that bloody and deceitful man, for I was far away from England at that time,—and even had I been at home, I don’t know that I had dared to counsel the taking of his life.”
“But ’tis to that point that your opinions lead you,” said I.
“Maybe,” says he, “but men should lead their opinions, not be led by ’em. And had I been then in England, and not aboard the good ship Covenant (Captain Godly-Fear Johnson, master), a-sailing the seas with that fleet whereof Colonel Blake took the command not long thereafter——”
“How?” says I, “did you sail with Blake?” For in very truth I had heard much concerning this famous admiral and obstinate rebel, and was minded to hear more. But this old man Darrell was not inclined to further my desires.
“Ay,” says he, “I sailed with Blake, sure enough; and look you, Master Carlyon, there was a ship and a ship’s company for you! Worship publicly conducted mornings and evenings, and all day of a Sabbath any man that felt himself moved thereto might open the Scriptures and exhort the rest. There was some difference betwixt free spiritual exercise of this sort, and the skipper here, reading on the Sabbath-day from the Prayer-book and the Homily against Rebellion!” This he said with a prodigious scorn.