look like old Time himself a mowing of us all down,” says he.  “For sure, my lord,” says I, “your lordship reads it aright, for all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of the field.”  He look humble at that, for, great man as he be, his earthly tabernacle, though more than sizeable, is but a frail one, and that he do know.  And says he, “Where did you read that, Thomas?” “I am not a larned man, please your lordship,” says I, “and I cannot honestly say I read it nowheres, but I heerd the words from a book your lordship have had news of:  they do call it the Holy Bible.  But they tell me that they of your lordship’s persuasion like it not.”  “You are very much mistaken there, Thomas,” says he.  “I read my Bible most days, only not the English Bible, which is full of errors, but the Latin, which is all as God gave it,” says he.  And thereby I had not where to answer withal.’

‘I fear you proved a poor champion of the truth, master Croning.’

’Confess now, Cast-down Upstill, had he not both sun and wind of me—­standing, so to say, on his own hearth-stone?  Had it not been so, I could have called hard names with the best of you, though that is by rights the gift of the preachers of the truth.  See how the good master Flowerdew excelleth therein, sprinkling them abroad from the watering-pot of the gospel.  Verily, when my mind is too feeble to grasp his argument, my memory lays fast hold upon the hard names, and while I hold by them, I have it all in a nutshell.’

Fortified occasionally by a pottle of ale, and keeping their spirits constantly stirred by much talking, they had been all day occupied in searching the Catholic houses of the neighbourhood for arms.  What authority they had for it never came to be clearly understood.  Plainly they believed themselves possessed of all that was needful, or such men would never have dared it.  As it was, they prosecuted it with such a bold front, that not until they were gone did it occur to some, who had yielded what arms they possessed, to question whether they had done wisely in acknowledging such fellows as parliamentary officials without demanding their warrant.  Their day’s gleanings up to this point—­of swords and pikes, guns and pistols, they had left in charge of the host of the inn whence they had just issued, and were now bent on crowning their day’s triumph with a supreme act of daring—­the renown of which they enlarged in their own imaginations, while undermining the courage needful for its performance, by enhancing its terrors as they went.

At length two lofty hexagonal towers appeared, and the consciousness that the final test of their resolution drew nigh took immediate form in a fluttering at the heart, which, however, gave no outward sign but that of silence; and indeed they were still too full of the importance of unaccustomed authority to fear any contempt for it on the part of others.

It happened that at this moment Raglan Castle was full of merry-making upon occasion of the marriage of one of lady Herbert’s waiting-gentlewomen to an officer of the household; and in these festivities the earl of Worcester and all his guests were taking a part.