nd him. My
father's good wishes had been won by his piety and by the sacrifices
which he claimed to have made for the faith. My mother he had taught how
wimples are worn amongst the Serbs, and had also demonstrated to her a
new method of curing marigolds in use in some parts of Lithuania. For
myself, I confess that I retained a vague distrust of the man, and
was determined to avoid putting faith in him more than was needful. At
present, however, we had no choice hut to treat him as an ambassador
from friends.

And I? What was I to do? Should I follow my father's wishes, and draw
my maiden sword on behalf of the insurgents, or should I stand aside and
see how events shaped themselves? It was more fitting that I should
go than he. But, on the other hand, I was no keen religious zealot.
Papistry, Church, Dissent, I believed that there was good in all of
them, but that not one was worth the spilling of human blood. James
might be a perjurer and a villain, but he was, as far as I could see,
the rightful king of England, and no tales of secret marriages or black
boxes could alter the fact that his rival was apparently an illegitimate
son, and as such ineligible to the throne. Who could say what evil act
upon the part of a monarch justified his people in setting him aside?
Who was the judge in such a case? Yet, on the other hand, the man had
notoriously broken his own pledges, and that surely should absolve
his subjects from their allegiance. It was a weighty question for a
country-bred lad to have to settle, and yet settled it must be, and that
speedily. I took up my hat and wandered away down the village street,
turning the matter over in my head.

But it was no easy thing for me to think seriously of anything in the
hamlet; for I was in some way, my dear children, though I say it myself,
a favourite with the young and with the old, so that I could not walk
ten paces without some greeting or address. There were my own brothers
trailing behind me, Baker Mitford's children tugging at my skirts, and
the millwright's two little maidens one on either hand. Then, when I had
persuaded these young rompers to leave me, out came Dame Fullarton the
widow, with a sad tale about how her grindstone had fallen out of its
frame, and neither she nor her household could lift it in again. That
matter I set straight and proceeded on my way; but I could not pass the
sign of the Wheatsheaf without John Lockarby, Reuben's father, plunging
out at