The same afternoon, as it happened, a little company of rustics, who
had just issued from the low hatch-door of the village inn, stood
for a moment under the sign of the Crown and Mitre, which swung
huskily creaking from the bough of an ancient thorn tree, then
passed on to the road, and took their way together.

'Hope you then,' said one of them, as continuing their previous
conversation, 'that we shall escape unhurt? It is a parlous
business. Not as one of us is afeard as I knows on. But the old
earl, he do have a most unregenerate temper, and you had better look
to't, my masters.'

'I tell thee, master Upstill, it's not the old earl as I'm afeard
on, but the young lord. For thou knows as well as ere a one it be
not without cause that men do call him a wizard, for a wizard he be,
and that of the worst sort.'

'We shall be out again afore sundown, shannot we?' said another.
'That I trust.'

'Up to the which hour the High Court of Parliament assembled will
have power to protect its own--eh, John Croning?'

'Nay, that I cannot tell. It be a parlous job, and for mine own
part, whether for the love I bear to the truth, or the hatred I