'How fared it with you for the remainder of the evening?'
'But scurvily, for Charles's face, which was black enough at all times, was blackest of all to us; nor was his brother the Papist more complaisant. They had but brought us there that they might dazzle us with their glitter and gee-gaws, in order that we might bear a fine report of them back to the West with us. There were supple-backed courtiers, and strutting nobles, and hussies with their shoulders bare, who should for all their high birth have been sent to Bridewell as readily as any poor girl who ever walked at the cart's tail. Then there were the gentlemen of the chamber, with cinnamon and plum-coloured coats, and a brave show of gold lace and silk and ostrich feather. Neighbour Foster and I felt as two crows might do who have wandered among the peacocks. Yet we bare in mind in whose image we were fashioned, and we carried ourselves, I trust, as independent English burghers. His Grace of Buckingham had his flout at us, and Rochester sneered, and the women simpered; but we stood four square, my friend and I, discussing, as I well remember, the most precious doctrines of election and reprobation, without giving much heed either to those who mocked us, or to the gamesters upon our left, or to the dancers upon our right. So we stood throughout the evening, until, finding that they could get little sport from us, my Lord Clarendon, the Chancellor, gave us the word to retire, which we did at our leisure after saluting the King and the company.'
'Nay, that I should never have done!' cried the young Puritan, who had listened intently to his elder's narrative. 'Would it not have been more fitting to have raised up your hands and called down vengeance upon them, as the holy man of old did upon the wicked cities?'
'More fitting, quotha!' said the Mayor impatiently. 'It is most fitting that youth should be silent until his opinion is asked on such matters. God's wrath comes with leaden feet, but it strikes with iron hands. In His own good time He has judged when the cup of these men's iniquities is overflowing. It is not for us to instruct Him. Curses have, as the wise man said, a habit of coming home to roost. Bear that in mind, Master John Derrick, and be not too liberal with them.'
The young apprentice, for such he was, bowed his head sullenly to the rebuke, whilst the Mayor, after a short pause, resumed his story.
'Being a fine night,' said he, 'we chose to walk back to our lodgings; but never shall I forget the wicked scenes wherewith we were encountered on the way. Good Master Bunyan, of Elstow, might have added some pages to his account of Vanity Fair had he been with us. The women, be-patched, be-ruddled, and brazen; the men swaggering, roistering, cursing--the brawling, the drabbing, and the drunkenness! It was a fit kingdom to be ruled over by such a court. At last we had made our way to more quiet streets, and were hoping that our adventures were at an end, when of a sudden there came a rush of half-drunken cavaliers from a side street, who set upon the passers-by with their swords, as though we had fallen into an ambuscade of savages in some Paynim country. They were, as I surmise, of the same breed as those of whom the excellent John Milton wrote: "The sons of Belial, flown with insolence and wine." Alas! my memory is not what it was, for at one time I could say by rote whole books of that noble and godly poem.'
'And, pray, how fared ye with these rufflers, sir?' I asked.
'They beset us, and some few other honest citizens who were wending their ways homewards, and waving their naked swords they called upon us to lay down our arms and pay homage. "To whom?" I asked. They pointed to one of their number who was more gaudily dressed and somewhat drunker than the rest. "This is our most sovereign liege," they cried. "Sovereign over whom?" I asked. "Over the Tityre Tus," they answered. "Oh, most barbarous and cuckoldy citizen, do you not recognise that you have fallen into the hands of that most noble order?" "This is not your real monarch," said I, "for he is down beneath us chained in the pit, where some day he will gather his dutiful subjects around him." "Lo, he hath spoken treason!" they cried, on which, without much more ado, they set upon us with sword and dagger.