From inquiries which he made, it appeared that the Italian had been making preparations for leaving for several days, probably doubting the success of his attempt to win over Eustace to tolerate his continued stay at Oulton. Inglesant was told that it was supposed that he had not intended to murder his brother; but that Eustace had probably threatened him, and that in the heat of contention the blow was struck. The Italian had destroyed all his papers, and everything that could give any clue to his conduct or history; but he had left a very bad reputation behind him, independently of his last murderous act; and his influence with Lady Cardiff was attributed to witchcraft. The funeral of Eustace Inglesant took place a few days after, at the Church on the borders of the chase. Snow had fallen in the meanwhile; and the train of black mourners passed over the waste of white that covered the park. A multitude of people filled the churchyard, and crowded round the outside of the hall. Lady Cardiff, by lavish almsgiving and other vagaries, had always attracted a number of vagrant and masterless people to Oulton; and there were always some encampments of such people in the chase. She particularly favoured mountebanks and quacks of all kinds, and numbers of them were present at the funeral. Some few of the country gentry attended; but Eustace being almost unknown in the county, and his wife by no means popular, many who otherwise would have been present were not so. The Puritan authorities of the neighbourhood suspected Lady Cardiff’s establishment as a haunt of recusants. Dr. More was a known Royalist; Eustace had been only restrained from active exertion on the same side by his love of pleasure and his wife’s prudence; and the Puritans regarded the Quakers with no favour. The herd of idle and vicious people, as the authorities considered them, who frequented Oulton, was an abomination in their eyes; and understanding that a number of them would be at the funeral, two or three Puritan magistrates, with armed servants and constables, assembled to keep order, as they said; but, as it proved, to provoke a riot. To make matters worse, Dr. More began to read the Prayer Book service, which was forbidden by law. The Justices interposed; the mob of mountebanks, and players, and idle people sided with the Church party, which had always given them a friendly toleration, and commenced an assault upon the constables and Justices’ servants, driving them from the grave side with a storm of snowballs. The funeral was completed with great haste, and the mourning party returned to the house, whither the mob also resorted, and were regaled with provisions of all kinds during the afternoon, being with difficulty induced to disperse at night.