t to
have remained undiscovered?"

"Maay laard," said Oates, with much effrontery, "aye do not come here to
have my evidence questioned as touching the Plaat."

"I do not question your evidence, Doctor," said Scroggs, for the time
was not arrived that he dared treat him roughly; "nor do I doubt the
existence of the _Plaat_, since it is your pleasure to swear to it. I
would only have you, for your own sake, and the satisfaction of all good
Protestants, to explain why you have kept back such a weighty point of
information from the King and country."

"Maay laard," said Oates, "I will tell you a pretty fable."

"I hope," answered the Judge, "it may be the first and last which you
shall tell in this place."

"Maay laard," continued Oates, "there was once a faux, who having to
carry a goose over a frazen river, and being afraid the aice would not
bear him and his booty, did caarry aaver a staane, my laard, in the
first instance, to prove the strength of the aice."

"So your former evidence was but the stone, and now, for the first time,
you have brought us the goose?" said Sir William Scroggs; "to tell us
this, Doctor, is to make geese of the Court and Jury."

"I desoire your laardship's honest construction," said Oates, who saw
the current changing against him, but was determined to pay the score
with effrontery. "All men knaw at what coast and praice I have given my
evidence, which has been always, under Gaad, the means of awakening this
poor naation to the dangerous state in which it staunds. Many here knaw
that I have been obliged to faartify my ladging at Whitehall against the
bloody Papists. It was not to be thought that I should have brought
all the story out at aance. I think your wisdome would have advised me
otherwise."[*]

[*] It was on such terms that Dr. Oates was pleased to claim the
extraordinary privilege of dealing out the information which he
chose to communicate to a court of justice. The only sense in
which his story of the fox, stone, and goose could be applicable,
is by supposing that he was determined to ascertain the extent of
his countrymen's credulity before supplying it with a full meal.

"Nay, Doctor," said the Judge, "it is not for me to direct you in this
affair; and it is for the Jury to believe you or not; and as for myself,
I sit here to do justice to both--the Jury have heard your answer to my
question."

Doctor Oates retired from the witness-box reddening lik