'How should they know the temper of the country?' Sir Christopher went on, regardless. 'What doth the foul-mouthed profligate Sir George Jeffreys know concerning sober and godly people? These are not noisy Templars; they are not profligates of the Court; they are not haunters of tavern and pot-house; they are not those who frequent the play-house. Judge Jeffreys knows none such. They are lovers of the Word of God; they wish to worship after their fashion; they hate the Pope and all his works. Let us hear what these men say upon the matter.'
'Nay,' said Mr. Boscorel; 'I care not greatly what they say. But would to God the boys were safe returned.'
'Benjamin means well,' Sir Christopher went on. 'I take this warning kindly; he means well. It pleases me that in the midst of the work and the feasting, which he loves, he thinks upon us. Tell him, son-in-law, that I thank him for his letter. It shows that he hath preserved a good heart.'
'As for his good heart'—Mr. Boscorel stroked his nose with his forefinger—'so long as Benjamin gets what he wants—which is Benjamin's mess, and five times the mess of any other—there is no doubt of his good heart.'
'Worse things than these,' said Sir Christopher, 'were said of us when the civil wars began. The King's troops would ride us down; the country would not join us; those of us who were not shot or cut down in the field would be afterwards hanged, drawn, and quartered. Yet we drove the King from his throne.'
'And then another King came back again. So we go up, and so we go down. But about this expedition and about these boys my mind misgives me.'
'Son-in-law,' Sir Christopher said solemnly, 'I am now old, and the eyes of my mind are dim, so that I no longer discern the signs of the times, or follow the current of the stream; moreover, we hear but little news, so that I cannot even see any of those signs. Yet to men in old age, before they pass away to the rest provided by the Lord, there cometh sometimes a vision by which they are enabled to see clearly when younger men are still groping their way in a kind of twilight. Monmouth hath landed; my boys are with him; they are rebels; should the rising fail, their lives are forfeit; and that of my dear friend Dr. Comfort Eykin's—yea, and my life as well belike, because I have been a consenting party. Ruin and death will in that event fall upon all of us. Whether it will so happen I know not, nor do I weigh the chance of that event against the voice of conscience, duty, and honour. My boys have obeyed that voice; they have gone forth to conquer or to die. My vision doth not tell me what will happen to them. But it shows me the priest flying from the country, the King flying from the throne, and that fair angel, whom we call Freedom of Conscience, returning to bless the land. To know that the laws of God will triumph—ought not that to reconcile a man, already seventy-five years of age, to death, even a death upon the gallows? What matter for this earthly body so that it be spent until the end in the service of the Lord?'