ners.

Oates, whom less provocation than he had that day received often induced
to behave like one frantic with passion, threw himself amongst the
crowd, and repeated till he was hoarse, "Theay are stoifling the
Plaat!--theay are straangling the Plaat!--My Laard Justice and Maaster
Attarney are in league to secure the escape of the plaaters and
Paapists!"

"It is the device of the Papist whore of Portsmouth," said one.

"Of old Rowley himself," said another.

"If he could be murdered by himself, why hang those that would hinder
it!" exclaimed a third.

"He should be tried," said a fourth, "for conspiring his own death, and
hanged _in terrorem_."

In the meanwhile, Sir Geoffrey, his son, and their little companion,
left the hall, intending to go to Lady Peveril's lodgings, which had
been removed to Fleet Street. She had been relieved from considerable
inconvenience, as Sir Geoffrey gave Julian hastily to understand, by
an angel, in the shape of a young friend, and she now expected them
doubtless with impatience. Humanity, and some indistinct idea of having
unintentionally hurt the feelings of the poor dwarf, induced the honest
Cavalier to ask this unprotected being to go with them. "He knew Lady
Peveril's lodgings were but small," he said; "but it would be strange,
if there was not some cupboard large enough to accommodate the little
gentleman."

The dwarf registered this well-meant remark in his mind, to be the
subject of a proper explanation, along with the unhappy reminiscence of
the trencher-hornpipe, whenever time should permit an argument of such
nicety.

And thus they sallied from the hall, attracting general observation,
both from the circumstances in which they had stood so lately, and from
their resemblance, as a wag of the Inner Temple expressed it, to the
three degrees of comparison, Large, Lesser, Least. But they had not
passed far along the street, when Julian perceived that more malevolent
passions than mere curiosity began to actuate the crowd which followed,
and, as it were, dogged their motions.

"There go the Papist cut-throats, tantivy for Rome!" said one fellow.

"Tantivy to Whitehall, you mean!" said another.

"Ah! the bloodthirsty villains!" cried a woman: "Shame, one of them
should be suffered to live, after poor Sir Edmondsbury's cruel murder."

"Out upon the mealy-mouthed Jury, that turned out the bloodhounds on an
innocent town!" cried a fourth.

In short, the tumult thickened,