The thought of that so flurried her--for she never yet could see a joke--that she laid her scissors on the table and said, 'The Lord forbid, John! after what Ihave cut up!'
'It would be just like him,' I answered, with a knowing smile: 'Mother, you had better stop. Patterns may do very well; but don't cut up any more good stuff.'
'Well, good lack, I am a fool! Three tables pegged with needles! The Lord in His mercy keep His Majesty, if ever He hath gotten him!'
By this device we went to bed; and not another stitch was struck until the troopers had office-tidings that the King was truly dead. Hence the Snowes beat us by a day; and both old Betty and Lizzie laid the blame upon me, as usual.
Almost before we had put off the mourning, which as loyal subjects we kept for the King three months and a week; rumours of disturbances, of plottings, and of outbreak began to stir among us. We heard of fighting in Scotland, and buying of ships on the continent, and of arms in Dorset and Somerset; and we kept our beacon in readiness to give signals of a landing; or rather the soldiers did. For we, having trustworthy reports that the King had been to high mass himself in the Abbey of Westminster, ****** all the bishops go with him, and all the guards in London, and then tortured all the Protestants who dared to wait outside, moreover had received from the Pope a flower grown in the Virgin Mary's garden, and warranted to last for ever, we of the moderate party, hearing all this and ten times as much, and having no love for this sour James, such as we had for the lively Charles, were ready to wait for what might happen, rather than care about stopping it.
Therefore we listened to rumours gladly, and shook our heads with gravity, and predicted, every man something, but scarce any two the same. Nevertheless, in our part, things went on as usual, until the middle of June was nigh. We ploughed the ground, and sowed the corn, and tended the cattle, and heeded every one his neighbour's business, as carefully as heretofore; and the only thing that moved us much was that Annie had a baby. This being a very fine child with blue eyes, and christened 'John' in compliment to me, and with me for his godfather, it is natural to suppose that Ithought a good deal about him; and when mother or Lizzie would ask me, all of a sudden, and treacherously, when the fire flared up at supper-time (for we always kept a little wood just alight in summer-time, and enough to make the pot boil), then when they would say to me, 'John, what are you thinking of? At a word, speak!' I would always answer, 'Little John ***gus'; and so they made no more of me.
But when I was down, on Saturday the thirteenth of June, at the blacksmith's forge by Brendon town, where the Lynn-stream runs so close that he dips his horseshoes in it, and where the news is apt to come first of all to our neighbourhood (except upon a Sunday), while we were talking of the hay-crop, and of a great sheep-stealer, round the corner came a man upon a piebald horse looking flagged and weary. But seeing half a dozen of us, young, and brisk, and hearty, he made a flourish with his horse, and waved a blue flag vehemently, shouting with great glory,--'Monmouth and the Protestant faith! Monmouth and no Popery! Monmouth, the good King's eldest son! Down with the poisoning murderer! Down with the black usurper, and to the devil with all papists!'
'Why so, thou little varlet?' I asked very quietly; for the man was too small to quarrel with: yet knowing Lorna to be a 'papist,' as we choose to call them--though they might as well call us 'kingists,' after the head of our Church--I thought that this scurvy scampish knave might show them the way to the place he mentioned, unless his courage failed him.
'Papist yourself, be you?' said the fellow, not daring to answer much: 'then take this, and read it.'
And he handed me a long rigmarole, which he called a 'Declaration': I saw that it was but a heap of lies, and thrust it into the blacksmith's fire, and blew the bellows thrice at it. No one dared attempt to stop me, for my mood had not been sweet of late; and of course they knew my strength.
The man rode on with a muttering noise, having won no recruits from us, by force of my example: and he stopped at the ale-house farther down, where the road goes away from the Lynn-stream. Some of us went thither after a time, when our horses were shodden and rasped, for although we might not like the man, we might be glad of his tidings, which seemed to be something wonderful. He had set up his blue flag in the tap-room, and was teaching every one.
'Here coom'th Maister Jan Ridd,' said the landlady, being well pleased with the call for beer and cider:
'her hath been to Lunnon-town, and live within a maile of me. Arl the news coom from them nowadays, instead of from here, as her ought to do. If Jan Ridd say it be true, I will try almost to belave it. Hath the good Duke landed, sir?' And she looked at me over a foaming cup, and blew the froth off, and put more in.
'I have no doubt it is true enough,' I answered, before drinking; 'and too true, Mistress Pugsley. Many a poor man will die; but none shall die from our parish, nor from Brendon, if I can help it.'
And I knew that I could help it; for every one in those little places would abide by my advice; not only from the fame of my schooling and long sojourn in London, but also because I had earned repute for being very 'slow and sure': and with nine people out of ten this is the very best recommendation. For they think themselves much before you in wit, and under no obligation, but rather conferring a favour, by doing the thing that you do. Hence, if I cared for influence--which means, for the most part, ****** people do one's will, without knowing it--my first step toward it would be to be called, in common parlance, 'slow but sure.'
