Look at yonder graybeard gazing up at the gay lights glittering in the windows. He has seen many changes in his sixty-five years of life, and he cannot but reflect on the strange vicissitudes through which the Stuart kings, now barred for ever from the British throne, have passed. Listen to him as he talks to the youth at his side. “My lad,” he says, “I remember well the Scotchman James the First feasting in this very hall, and expounding to his son Charles and the courtiers in right learned language the pestilent principles of what he called ‘statecraft’ and the divine right of kings to rule and to suspend the laws of the land at their will and pleasure. Right well did young Charles learn the lesson, and perchance we should blame his father and not him for all that happened. He held by the hateful doctrines which he had sucked in as a youth, like the obstinate man that he was, and ruthlessly destroyed our liberties till we were forced to take up arms and fight him for seven long, miserable years. I got this wound, that makes me go lame, at Naseby, the last great battle of the war. That was forty-three years ago save three months. I mind well seeing King Charles step through a hole in yonder wall on to the black-draped scaffold and lay his head on the block. It was a pitiful sight. I did not hold with killing him, mark you, but perchance it was better so. “Then came the Commonwealth and the days of ‘Old Noll.’ It was not a ‘Merrie England’ in his time, I warrant you. There were no Maypoles and no Bartholomew fairs in his day; it was almost a sin to eat a mince pie. You young fellows would think yourselves hardly done by if those times were to return. But we were a strong nation then, my lad. Foreigners feared us, the Dutchmen had to eat humble pie, and money flowed right merrily into our coffers. It was a harsh and cheerless time, no doubt, and there was no liberty to speak of, but trade was brisk, and this land has never seen such good prosperous days since.