who had been ruined on account of their religion during the last
reign; and now they gained a somewhat scanty livelihood by keeping
a second-hand book shop on the bridge, selling paper and parchment
and such like goods, and acting as scriveners to any who should
desire to avail themselves of their skill in penmanship.

They were both reputed to be men of considerable learning, and as
they had fallen from a different position, they were looked up to
with a certain amount of respect. Some were disposed to sneer at
and flout them, but they were on the whole well liked amongst their
neighbours. They were very quiet people, and never spoke one word
of the matters which came to their knowledge through the letters
they were from time to time called upon to write. Almost every
surrounding family had in some sort or another intrusted them with
some family secret or testamentary deposition, and would on this
account alone have been averse to quarrelling with them, for fear
they might let out the secret.

Martin found his neighbour Anthony by far the most interesting of
his acquaintances, and the fact of this common disappointment in
the new King, and the common persecution instituted against both
Romanists and Puritans, had drawn them more together of late than
ever before. Both were men of considerable enlightenment of mind;
both desired to see toleration extended to all (though each might
have regarded with more complacency an act of uniformity that
strove to bring all men to his own particular way of thinking and
worship), and both agreed in a hearty contempt for the mean and
paltry King, who had made such lavish promises in the days of his
adversity, only to cancel them the moment he had the power, and
fling himself blindly into the arms of the dominant faction of the