Though Morgan affected to be made of the most stern republican materials, a visit from a nobleman, and an ostensible favourite of Cromwell's, was a high gratification. He received his guest with boisterous hospitality, and without any regard to his diminished strength, dragged him over his demesne, and shewed him all its beauties. It was, he said, a mere dog-hole, when he bought it for a song; his ponds, now well stocked with carp, were originally tan-pits; his garden was a slate-quarry; the phillireas now clipped into well-proportioned dragons, grew just as nature shaped them; and the hall he had neatly plaistered and white-washed was then disfigured with painted saints, and carved tracery. He hinted with a smile, that he had turned the times to a pretty good account, and was grown warm. Royalists were soon alarmed, and bled freely. Besides the per centage, when compounding for their estates, there was generally a little private oiling the hands of committee men. He talked of his stock of wines, liberal table, rich hangings, and the universal plenty of good things which he enjoyed; and strongly urged Lord Sedley, now he was able, to remove from the penurious dwelling which could just serve his turn, while his wounds were healing, and reestablish his health, by residing with his humble servant, Zedekiah Morgan, at Saint's-Rest, till he thought fit to return to his own princely mansion, Castle-Bellingham. Sedley made a civil reply, intimating that his duty required him to remain where he was, and that as a soldier, he must despise luxuries. "True," answered Morgan; "trained in the school of our noble general, you choose to see with your own eyes, what plots the malignants are hatching. There is not a more suspected family than Beaumont's in this neighbourhood." Sedley encouraged this communicativeness, and Morgan proceeded to say, "that since the last defeat, the chief crime the disaffected could commit, was concealing those who had distinguished themselves in the insurrections."