which, driven on by the wind of words, had already begun to beat so
furiously against the moles and ramparts of Church and kingdom. The
execution of lord Strafford was news that had not yet begun to 'hiss
the speaker.'

'It is indeed an evil time,' said the old man. 'The world has seldom
seen its like.'

'But tell me, master Herbert,' said the lady, 'why comes it in this
our day? For our sins or for the sins of our fathers?'

'Be it far from me to presume to set forth the ways of Providence!'
returned her guest. 'I meddle not, like some that should be wiser,
with the calling of the prophet. It is enough for me to know that
ever and again the pride of man will gather to "a mighty and a
fearful head," and, like a swollen mill-pond overfed of rains, burst
the banks that confine it, whether they be the laws of the land or
the ordinances of the church, usurping on the fruitful meadows, the
hope of life for man and beast. Alas!' he went on, with a new
suggestion from the image he had been using, 'if the beginning of
strife be as the letting out of water, what shall be the end of that
strife whose beginning is the letting out of blood?'

'Think you then, good sir, that thus it has always been? that such
times of fierce ungodly tempest must ever follow upon seasons of
peace and comfort?--even as your cousin of holy memory, in his
verses concerning the church militant, writes:

"Thus also sin and darkness follow still The church and sun, with
all their power and skill."'