With much more noise, and less power of reasoning, Will Smith hesitated not to ridicule and run down the whole discovery, as one of the wildest and most causeless alarms which had ever been sounded in the ears of a credulous public. “I shall never forget,” he said, “Sir Godfrey’s most original funeral. Two bouncing parsons, well armed with sword and pistol, mounted the pulpit, to secure the third fellow who preached from being murdered in the face of the congregation. Three parsons in one pulpit--three suns in one hemisphere--no wonder men stood aghast at such a prodigy.” “What then, Will,” answered his companion, “you are one of those who think the good knight murdered himself, in order to give credit to the Plot?” “By my faith, not I,” said the other; “but some true blue Protestant might do the job for him, in order to give the thing a better colour.--I will be judged by our silent friend, whether that be not the most feasible solution of the whole.” “I pray you, pardon me, gentlemen,” said Julian; “I am but just landed in England, and am a stranger to the particular circumstances which have thrown the nation into such a ferment. It would be the highest degree of assurance in me to give my opinion betwixt gentlemen who argue the matter so ably; besides, to say truth, I confess weariness--your wine is more potent than I expected, or I have drunk more of it than I meant to do.” “Nay, if an hour’s nap will refresh you,” said the elder of the strangers, “make no ceremony with us. Your bed--all we can offer as such--is that old-fashioned Dutch-built sofa, as the last new phrase calls it. We shall be early stirrers tomorrow morning.” “And that we may be so,” said Smith, “I propose that we do sit up all this night--I hate lying rough, and detest a pallet-bed. So have at another flask, and the newest lampoon to help it out-- ‘Now a plague of their votes Upon Papists and Plots, And be d--d Doctor Oates. Tol de rol.’” “Nay, but our Puritanic host,” said Ganlesse. “I have him in my pocket, man--his eyes, ears, nose, and tongue,” answered his boon companion, “are all in my possession.” “In that case, when you give him back his eyes and nose, I pray you keep his ears and tongue,” answered Ganlesse. “Seeing and smelling are organs sufficient for such a knave--to hear and tell are things he should have no manner of pretensions to.” “I grant you it were well done,” answered Smith; “but it were a robbing of the hangman and the pillory; and I am an honest fellow, who would give Dun[*] and the devil his due. So, ‘All joy to great Cæsar, Long life, love, and pleasure; May the King live for ever, ‘Tis no matter for us, boys.’” [*] Dun was the hangman of the day at Tyburn. He was successor of Gregory Brunden, who was by many believed to be the same who dropped the axe upon Charles I., though others were suspected of being the actual regicide.