“The ale deserves all your praise, Master Prout,” said the host, “though I say it myself; nevertheless, is the good wine not to be despised.  I know no reason why a true born Englishman may not like both.”

“It may be well for thee, whose business is to get thy living from their sale, to talk thus,” replied Master Prout; “but for all that, I relish not these foreign decoctions—­your Canaries, your Sherries, and your Portos.  Their very names have a smack of popery in them.  Down with the Pope, and all his inventions to tickle men’s palates and damn their souls.”

“And so say I, down with the Pope, but up with good wine, and down with it too, so it only runs in the right place; but it grieves me to hear you, good Master Prout, evening down good wine to the Pope—­why—­”

“Contradict me not, goodman Nettles,” interrupted the guardian of public morals.  “I say that I have ever remarked the man who prefers wine to ale, to be of an unsteady faith.  It savors of a hankering after the flesh-pots of Egypt.  Let not such a man be trusted.”

As the constable was speaking, Arundel could not help fancying that he looked hard at him, as if some personal application of the words were intended.  He took no notice, however, of them, especially as mine host immediately rejoined: 

“Dear, good Master Prout, speak not so.  Why, if my customers were to hear you, the character of my house might be ruinated.  Whoever heard before that the Pope had ever anything to do with wine?  I do not believe he drinks it at all.”

“Art thou a Christian man, and so ignorant of the things that pertain to salvation?  Tells us not the Book of Revelations of the merchandise of the great city of Babylon, when it shall fall—­cinnamon, and odors, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine; and sayest thou the Pope hath no part thereof?”

“An’ you are for Scripture,” answered mine host, “have at thee with a text in return?  Saith not the Scripture, also, He giveth wine to gladden man’s heart?  Moreover, though there be wine at Rome, it doth not follow, therefrom, that it is drunk by the Pope.”

“Contradict me not, I say, goodman, and pervert not the Scriptures with thy famulistical interpretations.  I observed you spoke but a moment ago of the soul of the grape, as if it were possible that a divine principle could lodge therein, I caution thee against this, as a profane and indecent form of speech, unbecoming in one of the congregation; and, besides, an’ thou wouldst retain my custom, take heed thou put more malt into thy ale.”

“It is strong enough to answer thy purpose,” muttered the offended landlord, but in so low a tone as to be unheard; and, as new customers began to come in, he left, in order to assist in manipulations of the bottle and spigot, his tapster, Zachariah Sider, whom his late flourishing fortune had enabled him to add to the establishment.

“Has anything worthy of note occurred, during my absence of three weeks?” inquired Arundel of Master Prout.