Martin found his neighbour Anthony by far the most interesting of his acquaintances, and the fact of this common disappointment in the new King, and the common persecution instituted against both Romanists and Puritans, had drawn them more together of late than ever before.  Both were men of considerable enlightenment of mind; both desired to see toleration extended to all (though each might have regarded with more complacency an act of uniformity that strove to bring all men to his own particular way of thinking and worship), and both agreed in a hearty contempt for the mean and paltry King, who had made such lavish promises in the days of his adversity, only to cancel them the moment he had the power, and fling himself blindly into the arms of the dominant faction of the Episcopacy.

All the guests were cordially welcomed by the family of Martin Holt.  The three elder men sat round the fire, and plunged into animated discussion almost at once.  Jacob Dyson got into a chair somehow beside Keziah, and stared uneasily round the room; whilst Walter Cole took up his position beside Jemima, and strove to entertain her by the account of some tilting and artillery practice (as archery was still called) that he had been witnessing in Spital Fields.  He spoke of the courage and prowess of the young Prince of Wales, and how great a contrast he presented to his father.  The contempt that was beginning to manifest itself towards the luckless James in his English subjects was no more plainly manifested than in the London citizens.  Elizabeth, with all her follies and her faults, had been the idol of London, as her father before her.  Now a reaction had set in, and no scorn could be too great for her undignified and presumptuous successor.  This contempt was well shown by the dry reply of the Lord Mayor some few years later, when the King, in a rage at being refused a loan he desired of the citizens, threatened to remove his Court and all records and jewels from the Tower and Westminster Hall to another place, as a mark of his displeasure.  The Lord Mayor listened calmly to this terrible threat, and then made submissive answer.

“Your Majesty hath power to do what you please,” he said, “and your city of London will obey accordingly; but she humbly desires that when your Majesty shall remove your Courts, you would graciously please to leave the Thames behind you.”

But to return to the house on the bridge and the occupants of Martin Holt’s parlour.  Whilst Jemima and Keziah listened eagerly to the stories of the student’s son, with the delight natural to Puritan maidens denied any participation in such scenes of merriment, Jacob was looking rather dismally round the room, and presently broke in with the question: 

“But where, all this time, is Cherry?”

“Strewing rushes in the eating parlour, I doubt not,” answered Keziah.  “She went out a while back to cut them.  She loveth not dry disputings and learned talk.  Belike she will linger below till nigh on the supper hour an Aunt Susan call her not.”