“Now, Mr. Mallock,” said the priest, “we must consider what is best to be done.  When the case comes on, as it surely will, the question for us is what you must do.  I doubt not that you could give evidence that you have found us harmless folk”—­(he smiled as he said this)—­“but I do not know that you will be able to add much to what other of our witnesses will be able to say.  I am not at all sure but that it may not be best for you to keep away from the case at first at any rate.  You have the King’s ear, which is worth more to us than any testimony you could give.”

“Why do you not fly the country?” I cried.

He smiled again.

“Because that,” he said, “would be as much as to say that we were guilty; and so the whole Society would be thought guilty, and the Church too.  No, Mr. Mallock, we must see the matter out, and trust to what justice we can get.  But I do not think we shall get a great deal.”

So it was decided then, that I would not give testimony unless there was some call for it; and I took my leave, marvelling at the constancy of these men, who preferred to imperil life itself, sooner than reputation.

* * * * *

Well; all went forward as Mr. Whitbread had said it would.  On the twenty-eighth day of September Dr. Oates appeared before the Council to give his testimony; and it was to the same effect as was that which I had heard Mr. Chiffinch relate before, as to the Jesuit plot to murder the King, and if need be, the Duke too, and to establish Catholic domination in England.

I went into a gallery in the Council room for a little, to confirm with my own eyes whether it were Dr. Titus Oates himself against whom I had knocked in Drury Lane; and it was the man without doubt, though he looked very different in his minister’s dress.  It was not a very great room, and only those were admitted who had permission.  His Majesty himself was there upon the second day; and sat in the midst of the table, at the upper end, with the Duke beside him, and the great officers round about; amongst whom I marked my Lord Shaftesbury, who I was beginning to think knew more of the plot than had appeared; Dr. Oates stood in a little pew at one side, so that when he turned to speak I could see his face.  Dr. Tonge and Mr. Kirby and others sat on a seat behind him.

He was dressed as a minister—­for he had been one, before his pretended reconciliation to the Catholic Church—­in gown and bands and wore a great periwig; and not his face only—­which no man could forget who had once set eyes on it—­but the strange accent with which he spoke, confirmed me that it was the man I had seen.

My Lord Danby, I think it was, questioned him a good deal, as well as others:  and he repeated the same tale with great fluency, with many gibes and aphorisms such as that the Jesuits had laid a wager that if Carolus Rex would not become R.C.—­which is Roman Catholic—­he should not much longer remain C.R.  He said too that he had been reconciled to the Church on Ash Wednesday of last year; but that “he took God and His holy angels to witness that he had never changed the religion in his heart,” but that it was all a pretence to spy out Papistical plots.