e a turkey-cock,
as one totally unused to have such accounts questioned as he chose to
lay before the courts of justice; and there was, perhaps, for the first
time, amongst the counsel and solicitors, as well as the templars
and students of law there present, a murmur, distinct and audible,
unfavourable to the character of the great father of the Popish Plot.

Everett and Dangerfield, with whom the reader is already acquainted,
were then called in succession to sustain the accusation. They were
subordinate informers--a sort of under-spur-leathers, as the cant term
went--who followed the path of Oates, with all deference to his superior
genius and invention, and made their own fictions chime in and harmonise
with his, as well as their talents could devise. But as their evidence
had at no time received the full credence into which the impudence of
Oates had cajoled the public, so they now began to fall into discredit
rather more hastily than their prototype, as the super-added turrets of
an ill-constructed building are naturally the first to give way.

It was in vain that Everett, with the precision of a hypocrite,
and Dangerfield, with the audacity of a bully, narrated, with added
circumstances of suspicion and criminality, their meeting with Julian
Peveril in Liverpool, and again at Martindale Castle. It was in vain
they described the arms and accoutrements which they pretended to have
discovered in old Sir Geoffrey's possession; and that they gave a most
dreadful account of the escape of the younger Peveril from Moultrassie
Hall, by means of an armed force.

The Jury listened coldly, and it was visible that they were but little
moved by the accusation; especially as the Judge, always professing his
belief in the Plot, and his zeal for the Protestant religion, was ever
and anon reminding them that presumptions were no proofs--that hearsay
was no evidence--that those who made a trade of discovery were likely to
aid their researches by invention--and that without doubting the
guilt of the unfortunate persons at the bar, he would gladly hear some
evidence brought against them of a different nature. "Here we are told
of a riot, and an escape achieved by the younger Peveril, at the house
of a grave and worthy magistrate, known, I think, to most of us. Why,
Master Attorney, bring ye not Master Bridgenorth himself to prove the
fact, or all his household, if it be necessary?--A rising in arms is
an affair over public to be le