“What! you mean the mask of the inns of court, on Candlemas-day, seven years ago?” asked Cuthbert. “Just so: that was got up to tickle the court party, and trample down Prynne and his book; but tables are turning.” “Well, though I think they were very tyrannical about Prynne, I did not like his book; and never saw any harm in a mask or an interlude.” “Why, to judge by your looks, you could only have been a boy when that mask was given, and perhaps you did not see it.” “That is true; but I read the account of it that was printed, and surely it was a brave and glorious show; and, methinks, there were some witty hints given his Majesty in the anti-masks, which he might be the wiser for.” “The man Charles Stuart,” said the stranger, “will never be the better for hints.” It was the first time that Cuthbert had ever heard from any lips so irreverent a mention of the King, and he coloured and was silent. “I say he will never be the better for hints,--though it is true that some of them were broad enough, and too humorous for offence; but you have forgotten that there was one anti-mask got up by the serviles to insult the poor. If it may not have a sneer of ridicule for poverty and misfortune, the pleasure of the proud wanteth its best relish.” “I do not understand you,” said Cuthbert; “of what speak you, master?” “Of that which has been played in joke, and shall come to pass in earnest. Little they thought, with their gibes and their mockery, that they were but foreshowing events, which the turn of the wheel is even now bringing to pass. I do remember all their gilded chariots and rich apparel, and gay liveries; and in the midst of that costly show, there rode an anti-mask of cripples and beggars, clothed in rags, and mounted on sorry lean jades, gotten out of dust carts, with dirty urchins snapping tongs and shovels before them for music,--and thus was the noble music, and thus were the gallant horses, and the velvets and silks and spangled habits, made more pleasing to the painted court Jezebels by the pitiful contrast. Shall not the Lord visit for these things?” he added, raising his voice, and changing the tone of it to a solemn sternness: “Yea, verily, he shall visit:--in his hand there is a cup,--and the dregs thereof shall be drunk out by the oppressors,--and the sword shall go through the land, and it shall be drunk with blood.”