"Can't be," said the minister: "the tidings can never have come so
soon. Anyhow, he will want it all the more. Let us pray for His Gracious
Majesty."

And with that he proceeded as usual; but nobody cried "Amen," for fear
of being entangled with Popery. But after giving forth his text, our
parson said a few words out of book, about the many virtues of His
Majesty, and self-denial, and devotion, comparing his pious mirth to the
dancing of the patriarch David before the ark of the covenant; and he
added, with some severity, that if his flock would not join their pastor
(who was much more likely to judge aright) in praying for the King, the
least they could do on returning home was to pray that the King might
not be dead, as his enemies had asserted.

Now when the service was over, we killed the King, and we brought him to
life, at least fifty times in the churchyard: and Sam Fry was mounted on
a high gravestone, to tell every one all he knew of it. But he knew no
more than he had told us in the church, as before repeated: upon which
we were much disappointed with him, and inclined to disbelieve him;
until he happily remembered that His Majesty had died in great pain,
with blue spots on his breast and black spots all across his back, and
these in the form of a cross, by reason of Papists having poisoned him.
When Sam called this to his remembrance (or to his imagination) he was
overwhelmed, at once, with so many invitations to dinner, that he scarce
knew which of them to accept; but decided in our favour.

Grieving much for the loss of the King, however greatly it might be (as
the parson had declared it was, while telling us to pray against it) for
the royal benefit, I resolved to ride to Porlock myself, directly after
dinner, and make sure whether he were dead, or not. For it was not by
any means hard to suppose that Sam Fry, being John's first cousin, might
have inherited either from grandfather or grandmother some of those
gifts which had made our John so famous for mendacity. At Porlock I
found that it was too true; and the women of the town were in great
distress, for the King had always been popular with them: the men, on
the other hand, were forecasting what would be likely to ensue.

And I myself was of this number, riding sadly home again; although bound
to the King as churchwarden now; which dignity, next to the parson's in
rank, is with us (as it ought to be in every good parish) hereditary.
For who can stick