"Here!" called Sol Gibbs. "Here's bad luck to Lemon and Ore for doing the work so foully!" and he put his jug of ale to his lips. "Lemon and Ore," said each who drank, "better luck next time." "Folks do say," put in the landlord, "that the King, God bless him, was really married to Lucy Walters. If that be so, why then the Duke of Monmouth should be King after him." Then he shook his head, and added, "But, Lord! I know nought about such matters." "Here's a health to the Protestant Duke!" said the miners, and looked about them. "Now, my masters! Won'ty all drink to the Protestant Duke?" "To be sure I will--drink to any one," said Solomon Gibbs. "Why should he not have married her?" asked the singer. "Didn't the Duke of York marry Mistress Ann Hyde? And Lucy Walters was a gentlewoman every whit as much. When the Duke of Monmouth was born, then His Majesty was Prince Charles, in France, with small chance of coming to his own again; for Old Noll was then in full flower, and making the earth quake at the name of England." "When the Duke of Savoy was persecuting the Protestants, did not Old Noll hold up his finger, and at the sight of his nail the Duke stayed his hands?" said Anthony Cleverdon. "By the Lord! If it had been in my time, I would have drawn the sword for them." "When all the giants are dead, every Tom Thumb boasts he would have been a Jack of Cornwall," sneered Fox Crymes. "What is that you say?" asked Anthony, hotly. "I was merely saying that it ill becomes a man of spirit to boast of what he would have done had things been other than they are." "Do you mean to hint that I am a coward?" "I hinted nothing of the sort. I made a general observation. If the time should come when your sword would be wanted to sustain the Protestant cause, I make no doubt that you will be ready to prop it up--on the point." "No quarrels here," shouted Solomon Gibbs; then he sang:-- Let nothing but harmony reign in your breast, Let comrade with comrade be ever at rest. We'll toss off our bumper, together we'll troll, Give me the punch-ladle--I'll fathom the bowl. Then he called to the united assembly, "What say you all--shall we have a punch-bowl? _Nem. con._ Carried. That is it which lacked to establish sweetest concord. Landlord! Bring us the needful, and we'll brew." From France cometh brandy, Jamaica gives rum, Sweet oranges, lemons from Portugal come. Of ale and good cyder we'll also take toll, Give me the punch-ladle--I'll fathom the bowl. The host called to his wife to produce the requisite ingredients, and went in quest of the ladle, which he kept upstairs, as it had a silver piece of Charles I. let into it. "I ax," said one of the miners, throwing out his arm as if proclaiming defiance, "how it came about that London was burnt? Warn't them Poperies seen a doing of it--a firing it in several places?"