favourite claret. And so I am neither more nor less than a page,
which rhymes with my age better than suits it. But the earl has a
will of his own. He is a master worth serving though. And there is
my lady Elizabeth and my lady Mary--not to mention my lord
Herbert!--But,' he concluded, rubbing his injured knee with both
hands, 'why do I prate of them to a roundhead?'

'Why indeed?' returned Richard. 'Are they not, the earl and all his
people, traitors, and that of the worst? Are they not the enemies of
the truth--worshippers of idols, bowing the knee to a woman, and
kissing the very toes of an old man so in love with ignorance, that
he tortures the philosopher who tells him the truth about the world
and its motions?'

'Go on, master Roundhead! I can chastise you, and that you know.
This cursed knee--'

'I will stand unarmed within your thrust, and never budge a foot,'
said Richard. 'But no,' he added, 'I dare not, lest I should further
injure one I have wronged already. Let there be a truce between us.'

'I am no papist,' returned Scudamore. 'I speak only as one of the
earl's household--true men all. For them I cast the word in your
teeth, you roundhead traitor! For myself I am of the English
church.'

'It is but the wolf and the wolf's cub,' said. Richard. 'Prelatical
episcopacy is but the old harlot veiled, or rather, forsooth, her
bloody scarlet blackened in the sulphur fumes of her coming
desolation.'