The effect on Anthony of Mr. Buxton's conversation was very considerable. He had managed to keep his temper very well during the actual interview; but he broke out alone afterwards, at first with an angry contempt. The absurd arrogance of the man made him furious--the arrogance that had puffed away England and its ambitions and its vigour--palpable evidences of life and reality, and further of God's blessing--in favour of a miserable Latin nation which had the presumption to claim the possession of Peter's Chair and of the person of the Vicar of Christ! Test it, said the young man to himself, by the ancient Fathers and Councils that Dr. Jewel quoted so learnedly, and the preposterous claim crumbled to dust. Test it, yet again, by the finger of Providence; and God Himself proclaimed that the pretensions of the spiritual kingdom, of which the prisoner in the cell had bragged, are but a blasphemous fable. And Anthony reminded himself of the events of the previous year. Three great assaults had been made by the Papists to win back England to the old Religion. Dr. William Allen, the founder of Douai College, had already for the last seven or eight years been pouring seminary priests into England, and over a hundred and twenty were at work among their countrymen, preparing the grand attack. This was made in three quarters at once. In Scotland it was chiefly political, and Anthony thought, with a bitter contempt, of the Count d'Aubigny, Esmé Stuart, who was supposed to be an emissary of the Jesuits; how he had plotted with ecclesiastics and nobles, and professed Protestantism to further his ends; and of all the stories of his duplicity and evil-living, told round the guard-room fire. In Ireland the attempt was little else than ludicrous. Anthony laughed fiercely to himself as he pictured the landing of the treacherous fools at Dingle, of Sir James FitzMaurice and his lady, very wretched and giddy after their voyage, and the barefooted friars, and Dr. Sanders, and the banner so solemnly consecrated; and of the sands of Smerwick, when all was over a year later, and the six hundred bodies, men and women who had preferred Mr. Buxton's spiritual kingdom to Elizabeth's kindly rule, stripped and laid out in rows, like dead game, for Lord Grey de Wilton to reckon them by.