“Why, partly this, sir,” said Holdenough, “although perhaps you may make less of it than I should have thought before we met.—I was myself—I, Nehemiah Holdenough, (he added consequentially,) was forcibly expelled from my own pulpit, even as a man should have been thrust out of his own house, by an alien, and an intruder—a wolf, who was not at the trouble even to put on sheep’s clothing, but came in his native wolfish attire of buff and bandalier, and held forth in my stead to the people, who are to me as a flock to the lawful shepherd. It is too true, sir—Master Mayor saw it, and strove to take such order to prevent it as man might, though,” turning to the Mayor, “I think still you might have striven a little more.” “Good now, good Master Holdenough, do not let us go back on that question,” said the Mayor. “Guy of Warwick, or Bevis of Hampton, might do something with this generation; but truly, they are too many and too strong for the Mayor of Woodstock.” “I think Master Mayor speaks very good sense,” said the Colonel; “if the Independents are not allowed to preach, I fear me they will not fight;—and then if you were to have another rising of cavaliers?” “There are worse folks may rise than cavaliers,” said Holdenough. “How, sir?” replied Colonel Everard. “Let me remind you, Master Holdenough, that is no safe language in the present state of the nation.” “I say,” said the Presbyterian, “there are worse folk may rise than cavaliers; and I will prove what I say. The devil is worse than the worst cavalier that ever drank a health, or swore an oath—and the devil has arisen at Woodstock Lodge!” “Ay, truly hath he,” said the Mayor, “bodily and visibly, in figure and form—An awful time we live in!” “Gentlemen, I really know not how I am to understand you,” said Everard. “Why, it was even about the devil we came to speak with you,” said the Mayor; “but the worthy minister is always so hot upon the sectaries”— “Which are the devil’s brats, and nearly akin to him,” said Master Holdenough. “But true it is, that the growth of these sects has brought up the Evil One even upon the face of the earth, to look after his own interest, where he finds it most thriving.” “Master Holdenough,” said the Colonel, “if you speak figuratively, I have already told you that I have neither the means nor the skill sufficient to temper these religious heats. But if you design to say that there has been an actual apparition of the devil, I presume to think that you, with your doctrine and your learning, would be a fitter match for him than a soldier like me.”