cherish toward the scarlet Antichrist, with her seven tails--'

'Tush, tush, John! Seven heads, man, and ten horns. Those are the
numbers master Flowerdew read.'

'Nay, I know not for your horns; but for the rest I say seven tails.
Did not honest master Flowerdew set forth unto us last meeting that
the scarlet woman sat upon seven hills--eh? Have with you there,
master Sycamore!'

'Well, for the sake of sound argument, I grant you. But we ha'got to
do with no heads nor no tails, neither--save and except as you may
say the sting is in the tail; and then, or I greatly mistake, it's
not seven times seven as will serve to count the stings, come of the
tails what may.'

'Very true,' said another; 'it be the stings and not the tails we
want news of. But think you his lordship will yield them up without
gainsaying to us the messengers of the High Parliament now
assembled?'

'For mine own part,' said John Croning, 'though I fear it come of
the old Adam yet left in me, I do count it a sorrowful thing that
the earl should be such a vile recusant. He never fails with a
friendly word, or it may be a jest--a foolish jest--but honest, for
any one gentle or simple he may meet. More than once has he boarded
me in that fashion. What do you think he said to me, now, one day as
I was a mowin' of the grass in the court, close by the white horse
that spout up the water high as a house from his nose-drills? Says
he to me--for he come down the grand staircase, and steps out and