expected news from Ireland should give them their cue, and a great
"rising of the West" should sweep from her throne that stiff-necked,
persecuting, excommunicate, reprobate, illegitimate, and profligate
usurper, who falsely called herself the Queen of England.

For they had as stoutly persuaded themselves in those days, as they
have in these (with a real Baconian contempt of the results of sensible
experience), that the heart of England was really with them, and that
the British nation was on the point of returning to the bosom of the
Catholic Church, and giving up Elizabeth to be led in chains to the feet
of the rightful Lord of Creation, the Old Man of the Seven Hills.
And this fair hope, which has been skipping just in front of them for
centuries, always a step farther off, like the place where the rainbow
touches the ground, they used to announce at times, in language which
terrified old Mr. Leigh. One day, indeed, as Eustace entered his
father's private room, after his usual visit to the mill, he could
hear voices high in dispute; Parsons as usual, blustering; Mr. Leigh
peevishly deprecating, and Campian, who was really the sweetest-natured
of men, trying to pour oil on the troubled waters. Whereat Eustace (for
the good of the cause, of course) stopped outside and listened.

"My excellent sir," said Mr. Leigh, "does not your very presence here
show how I am affected toward the holy cause of the Catholic faith? But
I cannot in the meanwhile forget that I am an Englishman."

"And what is England?" said Parsons: "A heretic and schismatic Babylon,
whereof it is written, 'Come out of her, my people, lest you be partaker
of her plagues.' Yea, what is a country? An arbitrary division of
territory by the princes of this world, who are naught, and come to
naught. They are created by the people's will; their existence depends
on the sanction of him to whom all power is given in heaven and
earth--our Holy Father the Pope. Take away the latter, and what is a
king?--the people who have made him may unmake him."

"My dear sir, recollect that I have sworn allegiance to Queen
Elizabeth!"

"Yes, sir, you have, sir; and, as I have shown at large in my writings,
you were absolved from that allegiance from the moment that the bull of
Pius the Fifth declared her a heretic and excommunicate, and thereby to
have forfeited all dominion whatsoever. I tell you, sir, what I thought
you should have known already, that since the year 15