"
"So may they all perish," replied the priest. "We start this evening?"
"Certainly. What news have you for St Germains?"
"Much that is important. Discontent prevails throughout the country. The
affair of Bishop Watson hath brought much odium on the usurper. He
himself writhes under the tyrannical commands of the Commons, and is at
issue with them."
"And, in Scotland, father?"
"All is there ripe and ready--and an army once landed, would be joined
by thousands. The injustice of the usurper in wishing to sacrifice the
Scotch Settlement, has worked deep upon the minds of those who advanced
their money upon that speculation--in the total, a larger sum than ever
yet was raised in Scotland. Our emissaries have fanned the flame up to
the highest pitch."
"To my thoughts, good father, there needed not further discontent. Have
we not our king dethroned, and our holy religion persecuted?"
"True, my son--true; but still we must lose no means by which we may
increase the number of our adherents. Some are swayed by one feeling,
and some by another. We have contrived to throw no small odium upon the
usurper and betrayer of his wife's father, by exposing and magnifying,
indeed, the sums of money which he has lavished upon his courtesan,
Mistress Villiers, now, by his heretic and unsanctified breath, raised
into the peerage by the title of Countess of Orkney.
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