edge through the letters
they were from time to time called upon to write. Almost every
surrounding family had in some sort or another intrusted them with
some family secret or testamentary deposition, and would on this
account alone have been averse to quarrelling with them, for fear
they might let out the secret.

Martin found his neighbour Anthony by far the most interesting of
his acquaintances, and the fact of this common disappointment in
the new King, and the common persecution instituted against both
Romanists and Puritans, had drawn them more together of late than
ever before. Both were men of considerable enlightenment of mind;
both desired to see toleration extended to all (though each might
have regarded with more complacency an act of uniformity that
strove to bring all men to his own particular way of thinking and
worship), and both agreed in a hearty contempt for the mean and
paltry King, who had made such lavish promises in the days of his
adversity, only to cancel them the moment he had the power, and
fling himself blindly into the arms of the dominant faction of the
Episcopacy.

All the guests were cordially welcomed by the family of Martin
Holt. The three elder men sat round the fire, and plunged into
animated discussion almost at once. Jacob Dyson got into a chair
somehow beside Keziah, and stared uneasily round the room; whilst
Walter Cole took up his position beside Jemima, and strove to
entertain her by the account of some tilting and artillery practice
(as archery was still called) that he had been witnessing in Spital
Fields. He spoke of the courage and prowess of the young Prince of
Wales, and how great a contrast he presented to his father. The
contempt that was beginning to manifest itself towards the luckless
James in his English subjects was no more plainly manifested than
in the London citizens. Elizabeth, with all her follies and her
faults, had been the idol of London, as her father before her. Now
a reaction had set in, and no scorn could be too great for her
undignified and presumptuous successor. This contempt was well
shown by the dry reply of the Lord Mayor some few years later, when
the King, in a rage at being refused a loan he desired of the
citizens, threatened to remove his Court and all records and jewels
from the Tower and Westminster Hall to another place, as a mark of
his displeasure. The Lord Mayor listened calmly to this terrible
threat, and then made submissive answe