in compliment to me,
and with me for his godfather, it is natural to suppose that I thought
a good deal about him; and when mother or Lizzie would ask me, all of a
sudden, and treacherously, when the fire flared up at supper-time (for
we always kept a little wood just alight in summer-time, and enough to
make the pot boil), then when they would say to me, "John, what are
you thinking of? At a word, speak!" I would always answer, "Little John
Faggus"; and so they made no more of me.

But when I was down, on Saturday the thirteenth of June, at the
blacksmith's forge by Brendon town, where the Lynn-stream runs so close
that he dips his horseshoes in it, and where the news is apt to come
first of all to our neighbourhood (except upon a Sunday), while we were
talking of the hay-crop, and of a great sheep-stealer, round the corner
came a man upon a piebald horse looking flagged and weary. But seeing
half a dozen of us, young, and brisk, and hearty, he made a flourish
with his horse, and waved a blue flag vehemently, shouting with great
glory,--

[Illustration: 582.jpg Waved a blue flag vehemently]

"Monmouth and the Protestant faith! Monmouth and no Popery! Monmouth,
the good King's eldest son! Down with the poisoning murderer! Down with
the black usurper, and to the devil with all papists!"

"Why so, thou little varlet?" I asked very quietly; for the man was too
small to quarrel with: yet knowing Lorna to be a "papist," as we choose
to call them--though they might as well call us "kingists," after the
head of our Church--I thought that this scurvy scampish knave might show
them the way to the place he mentioned, unless his courage failed him.

"Papist yourself, be you?" said the fellow, not daring to answer much:
"then take this, and read it."

And he handed me a long rigmarole, which he called a "Declaration": I
saw that it was but a heap of lies, and thrust it into the blacksmith's
fire, and blew the bellows thrice at it. No one dared attempt to stop
me, for my mood had not been sweet of late; and of course they knew my
strength.

The man rode on with a muttering noise, having won no recruits from us,
by force of my example: and he stopped at the ale-house farther down,
where the road goes away from the Lynn-stream. Some of us went thither
after a time, when our horses were shodden and rasped, for although we
might not like the man, we might be glad of his tidings, which seemed to
be something wonderful. He had set