"Thou hast a villainously glib tongue, fellow!" said Amyas, who was
thoroughly out of humor; "and a sneaking down visage too, when I come to
look at you. I doubt but you are a Papist too, I do!"

"Well, sir! and what if I am! I trust I don't break the queen's laws by
that. If I don't attend Northam church, I pay my month's shilling for
the use of the poor, as the act directs; and beyond that, neither you
nor any man dare demand of me."

"Dare! act directs! You rascally lawyer, you! and whence does an ostler
like you get your shilling to pay withal? Answer me." The examinate
found it so difficult to answer the question, that he suddenly became
afflicted with deafness.

"Do you hear?" roared Amyas, catching at him with his lion's paw.

"Yes, missus; anon, anon, missus!" quoth he to an imaginary landlady
inside, and twisting under Amyas's hand like an eel, vanished into the
house, while Frank got the hot-headed youth away.

"What a plague is one to do, then? That fellow was a Papist spy!"

"Of course he was!" said Frank.

"Then, what is one to do, if the whole country is full of them?"

"Not to make fools of ourselves about them, and so leave them to make
fools of themselves."