“They were improving them when I saw them,” replied Wildrake, “and made the bottle smoke for it—when, as the devil would have it, a stone, which had been dislodged from the crumbling buttress, gave way under my weight. A clumsy fellow like thee would have been so long thinking what was to be done, that he must needs have followed it before he could make up his mind; but I, Mark, I hopped like a squirrel to an ivy twig, and stood fast—was wellnigh shot, though, for the noise alarmed them both. They looked to the oriel, and saw me on the outside; the fanatic fellow took out a pistol—as they have always such texts in readiness hanging beside the little clasped Bible, thou know’st—the keeper seized his hunting-pole—I treated them both to a roar and a grin—thou must know I can grimace like a baboon—I learned the trick from a French player, who could twist his jaws into a pair of nut-crackers—and therewithal I dropped myself sweetly on the grass, and ran off so trippingly, keeping the dark side of the wall as long as I could, that I am wellnigh persuaded they thought I was their kinsman, the devil, come among them uncalled. They were abominably startled.” “Thou art most fearfully rash, Wildrake,” said his companion; “we are now bound for the house—what if they should remember thee?” “Why, it is no treason, is it? No one has paid for peeping since Tom of Coventry’s days; and if he came in for a reckoning, belike it was for a better treat than mine. But trust me, they will no more know me, than a man who had only seen your friend Noll at a conventicle of saints, would know the same Oliver on horseback, and charging with his lobster-tailed squadron; or the same Noll cracking a jest and a bottle with wicked Waller the poet.” “Hush! not a word of Oliver, as thou dost value thyself and me. It is ill jesting with the rock you may split on.—But here is the gate—we will disturb these honest gentlemen’s recreations.” As he spoke, he applied the large and ponderous knocker to the hall-door. “Rat-tat-tat-too!” said Wildrake; “there is a fine alarm to you cuckolds and round-heads.” He then half-mimicked, half-sung the march so called:— “Cuckolds, come dig, cuckolds, come dig; Round about cuckolds, come dance to my jig!” “By Heaven! this passes Midsummer frenzy,” said Everard, turning angrily to him. “Not a bit, not a bit,” replied Wildrake; “it is but a slight expectoration, just like what one makes before beginning a long speech. I will be grave for an hour together, now I have got that point of war out of my head.” As he spoke, steps were heard in the hall, and the wicket of the great door was partly opened, but secured with a chain in case of accidents. The visage of Tomkins, and that of Joceline beneath it, appeared at the chink, illuminated by the lamp which the latter held in his hand, and Tomkins demanded the meaning of this alarm. “I demand instant admittance!” said Everard. “Joliffe, you know me well?”