some measure garrisoned,
with half-a-dozen tall watchmen and constables, without seeing himself
watched by a Papist in disguise, with a drawn sword under his cloak. It
was even whispered, that, in the agonies of his fears, the worshipful
Master Maulstatute mistook the kitchen-wench with a tinderbox, for a
Jesuit with a pistol; but if any one dared to laugh at such an error, he
would have done well to conceal his mirth, lest he fell under the heavy
inculpation of being a banterer and stifler of the Plot--a crime almost
as deep as that of being himself a plotter. In fact, the fears of the
honest Justice, however ridiculously exorbitant, were kept so much in
countenance by the outcry of the day, and the general nervous fever,
which afflicted every good Protestant, that Master Maulstatute was
accounted the bolder man and the better magistrate, while, under the
terror of the air-drawn dagger which fancy placed continually before his
eyes, he continued to dole forth Justice in the recesses of his private
chamber, nay, occasionally to attend Quarter-Sessions, when the hall
was guarded by a sufficient body of the militia. Such was the wight, at
whose door, well chained and doubly bolted, the constable who had Julian
in custody now gave his important and well-known knock.

Notwithstanding this official signal, the party was not admitted until
the clerk, who acted the part of high-warder, had reconnoitred them
through a grated wicket; for who could say whether the Papists might
not have made themselves master of Master Constable's sign, and have
prepared a pseudo watch to burst in and murder the Justice, under
pretence of bringing in a criminal before him?--Less hopeful projects
had figured in the Narrative of the Popish Plot.

All being found right, the key was turned, the bolts were drawn, and the
chain unhooked, so as to permit entrance to the constable, the prisoner,
and the assistants; and the door was then a suddenly shut against the
witnesses, who, as less trustworthy persons, were requested (through
the wicket) to remain in the yard, until they should be called in their
respective turns.

Had Julian been inclined for mirth, as was far from being the case,
he must have smiled at the incongruity of the clerk's apparel, who
had belted over his black buckram suit a buff baldric, sustaining a
broadsword, and a pair of huge horse-pistols; and, instead of the low
flat hat, which, coming in place of the city cap, completed the