And I? What was I to do? Should I follow my father’s wishes, and draw my maiden sword on behalf of the insurgents, or should I stand aside and see how events shaped themselves? It was more fitting that I should go than he. But, on the other hand, I was no keen religious zealot. Papistry, Church, Dissent, I believed that there was good in all of them, but that not one was worth the spilling of human blood. James might be a perjurer and a villain, but he was, as far as I could see, the rightful king of England, and no tales of secret marriages or black boxes could alter the fact that his rival was apparently an illegitimate son, and as such ineligible to the throne. Who could say what evil act upon the part of a monarch justified his people in setting him aside? Who was the judge in such a case? Yet, on the other hand, the man had notoriously broken his own pledges, and that surely should absolve his subjects from their allegiance. It was a weighty question for a country-bred lad to have to settle, and yet settled it must be, and that speedily. I took up my hat and wandered away down the village street, turning the matter over in my head. But it was no easy thing for me to think seriously of anything in the hamlet; for I was in some way, my dear children, though I say it myself, a favourite with the young and with the old, so that I could not walk ten paces without some greeting or address. There were my own brothers trailing behind me, Baker Mitford’s children tugging at my skirts, and the millwright’s two little maidens one on either hand. Then, when I had persuaded these young rompers to leave me, out came Dame Fullarton the widow, with a sad tale about how her grindstone had fallen out of its frame, and neither she nor her household could lift it in again. That matter I set straight and proceeded on my way; but I could not pass the sign of the Wheatsheaf without John Lockarby, Reuben’s father, plunging out at me and insisting upon my coming in with him for a morning cup. ‘The best glass of mead in the countryside, and brewed under my own roof,’ said he proudly, as he poured it into the flagon. ‘Why, bless you, master Micah, a man with a frame like yours wants store o’ good malt to keep it up wi’.’ ‘And malt like this is worthy of a good frame to contain it,’ quoth Reuben, who was at work among the flasks. ‘What think ye, Micah?’ said the landlord. ‘There was the Squire o’ Milton over here yester morning wi’ Johnny Ferneley o’ the Bank side, and they will have it that there’s a man in Fareham who could wrestle you, the best of three, and find your own grip, for a good round stake.’ ‘Tut! tut!’ I answered; ‘you would have me like a prize mastiff, showing my teeth to the whole countryside. What matter if the man can throw me, or I him?’