“It is the Duke of Monmouth,” he said, “who is the pawn in Shaftesbury’s game.  My Lord would give the world to have the Duke declared legitimate, and so oust James.  His Grace of Monmouth is something of a popular hero now, after his doings in Scotland, and most of all since he stands for the Protestant Religion.  He hath dared to strike out the bar sinister from his arms too; and goeth about the country as if he were truly royal.  So His Royal Highness is gone back to Scotland again in a great fury; and His Majesty is once again in a strait betwixt two, as the Scriptures say.  There is his Catholic brother on the one side; and there is this young spark of a Protestant bastard on the other.  We shall know better to-morrow how the feeling runs.  His Majesty was taken very ill in August; and I am not surprised at it.”

* * * * *

This was all very heavy news for me.  I had hoped in France that most at least of the Catholic troubles were over, and now, here again they were, in a new form.  I sighed aloud.

“Heigho!” I said.  “But this is all beyond me, Mr. Chiffinch.  I had best be gone into the country.”

“I think you had,” he said very seriously.  “You can do nothing in this place.”

I was very glad when I heard him say that; for I had thought a great deal of Hare Street, and of my Cousin Dolly there; and it was good news to me to hear that I might soon see her again.

“But I must see the sight to-morrow,” I said; and soon after that I took my leave.

* * * * *

It was a marvellous sight indeed, the next evening.  I went to see a Mr. Martin in the morning, that lived in the Strand, a Catholic bookseller, and got leave from him to sit in his window from dinner onwards, that I might see the show.

It was about five o’clock that the affair began; and the day was pretty dark by then.  A great number of people began to assemble little by little, up Fleet Street on the one side, the Strand on the other, and down Chancery Lane in the midst; for it was announced everywhere, and even by criers in some parts, that the procession would take place and would end at Temple Bar.  My Lord Shaftesbury, who had lately lost the presidency of the Council, had rendered himself irreconcilable with the Duke of York, and his only hope (as well as of others with him) lay in ruining His Highness.  All this, therefore, was designed to rouse popular feeling against the Duke and the Catholic cause.  So this was my welcome home again!

It was strange to watch the folks assembling, and the gradual kindling of the flambeaux.  In the windows on either side of the street were set candles; and a line of coaches was drawn up against the gutter on the further side.  But still more strange and disconcerting were the preparations already made to receive the procession.  An open space was kept by fellows with torches to the east of the City Gate;