many of us are now engaged. Have you not read what Mr.
Milton hath said here as touching this?" And he took up the book which
he had dropped in the window-seat "It is well said, as you will find."

Motioning Lempriere to a chair, he took another and read as follows:--

"'Behold now this vast city, a city of refuge, the mansion-house of
liberty, encompassed and surrounded with its protection ... pens and
hands there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching,
revolving new notions and ideas, wherewith to present, as with their
homage and their fealty, the approaching reformation.' As he saith a
little further on, the fields of our harvest are white already; and it
is your privilege and mine that live among this wise and active people,
to see it coming, perhaps to put in a sickle. The pamphlet is becoming a
force stronger than the sword; and those Ironsides and Woodenheads who
turn us out of the Chamber where our fellow citizens had seated us, may
find an ill time before them when our work is over. But our work will be
the work of freedom."

What more would have been said, now that Prynne was setting forth on
his dearly-loved hobby, of which the name was _Cedant arma_, is unknown;
for the serving-man entered at this moment with a simple but plentiful
repast carried on his head from the adjacent tavern; and even Prynne's
eagerness was dashed with caution enough to keep him to ordinary topics
of talk so long as the man was in the room. But Lempriere had seen and
heard enough to put him in good humour with his host. The intimacy of
the latter with the Carterets, and a suspicion of general lukewarmness
in the popular cause, had begotten old enmities, of which Lempriere, in
the long probation of failure, exile, and poverty, had already learned
to be ashamed; and to see the man he had misjudged, looking him eagerly
and earnestly in the face as he uttered the language of a genuine
reformer, completed the Jerseyman's conversion. After the servant had
brought pipes and glasses and left the gentlemen to their tobacco and
their wine, their talk grew more familiar as they looked at the flowing
river, and the deserted towers of Lambeth away on the other side.

"The truth is," said Prynne, "that I received from the cavaliers of your
island kindnesses that I cannot forget; yet as touching the trial and
execution of the late King, if I have gainsayed aught of the other side,
yet I need not repeat that I have ever been a friend