"What else can folk expect that side with cutting off kings' heads?" cried Bobby Sparrow, a dapper little master-tailor, who made and repaired habits for the parson, and all the genteel people, of Caistor and its vicinity.
"More by token—such folk as would pull down all the parish churches, and murder all the Protestants!" added old Davy Gregson, a fat little retired man of business, who liked to enjoy his joke,—sitting in a corner of the old shop, and thrusting his tongue grotesquely into his cheek,—although he was nearly fourscore.
"You will please to remember, gentlemen," interjected the barber, driven to the extremity of his temper, "that I am not an advocate either for cutting off kings' heads, or pulling down parish churches, or murdering people of any religion, much more my own."
"But ye take part with rogues that do, neighbour Kucky," said Bobby Sparrow, with provoking pertness,—"and the more's the shame to you!"
"Ay, marry, good faith—that he does!" exclaimed old Davy Gregson, enjoying the barber's apparent soreness; "and it has always been held that the abettor is as bad as the thief or the murderer!"
"If you mean to be respected, Kucky Sarson," growled old farmer Garbutt, "be advised, and give up all your Jacobin notions. The Squire says it would be ruin for this country to be without a king and an established church. I had a famous talk with him on all these things at the rent-day; and so he said: and if such gentlefolk as Squire Pelham don't know what belongs to good government, I should like to know who does."
"Squire Pelham's great-grandfather was of a somewhat different opinion," answered the barber: "Peregrine Pelham was his name; and he signed the death-warrant of Charles Stuart."
"The Lord be merciful to us!" exclaimed old Davy, beginning to look really alarmed—"why, that was in the time of the awful troubles that my grandmother used to talk so sorrowfully about!—Surely you don't wish that such grievous days were come again, do you, Kucky Sarson?"
"God forbid!" ejaculated farmer Garbutt, solemnly.
"You all know I don't, before you ask me," answered the barber, with some show of dignity. "I defy any one of you to say that there is a quieter and more upright citizen in England than I am. Who can say that I ever injured him? who dares say that I ever cheated any man of one farthing—ay, or that I owe him one? And do I ever try to compel any man to think as I think? Speak!—any one of you that can charge me with an act of wrongfulness, or a single speech of intolerance!"