Vous autres dictes que ignorance est mere de tous maulx, et dictes vray: mais toutesfoys vous ne la bannissez mye de vos entendemens, et vivez en elle, avecques elle, et par elle. C’est pourquoy tant de maulx vous meshaignent de jour en jour.— RABELIAS, 1. 5. c. 7.

The party which was assembled on Christmas Day in Chainmail Hall comprised all the guests of Crotchet Castle, some of Mr. Chainmail’s other neighbours, all his tenants and domestics, and Captain Fitzchrome. The hall was spacious and lofty; and with its tall fluted pillars and pointed arches, its windows of stained glass, its display of arms and banners intermingled with holly and mistletoe, its blazing cressets and torches, and a stupendous fire in the centre, on which blocks of pine were flaming and crackling, had a striking effect on eyes unaccustomed to such a dining-room. The fire was open on all sides, and the smoke was caught and carried back under a funnel-formed canopy into a hollow central pillar. This fire was the line of demarcation between gentle and simple on days of high festival. Tables extended from it on two sides to nearly the end of the hall.

Mrs. Chainmail was introduced to the company. Young Crotchet felt some revulsion of feeling at the unexpected sight of one whom he had forsaken, but not forgotten, in a condition apparently so much happier than his own. The lady held out her hand to him with a cordial look of more than forgiveness; it seemed to say that she had much to thank him for. She was the picture of a happy bride, rayonnante de joie et d’amour.

Mr. Crotchet told the Reverend Doctor Folliott the news of the morning. “As you predicted,” he said, “your friend, the learned friend, is in office; he has also a title; he is now Sir Guy de Vaux.”

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Thank heaven for that! he is disarmed from further mischief. It is something, at any rate, to have that hollow and wind-shaken reed rooted up for ever from the field of public delusion.

MR. CROTCHET. I suppose, Doctor, you do not like to see a great reformer in office; you are afraid for your vested interests.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Not I, indeed, sir; my vested interests are very safe from all such reformers as the learned friend. I vaticinate what will be the upshot of all his schemes of reform. He will make a speech of seven hours’ duration, and this will be its quintessence: that, seeing the exceeding difficulty of putting salt on the bird’s tail, it will be expedient to consider the best method of throwing dust in the bird’s eyes. All the rest will be

[Greek text in verse]

as Aristophanes has it; and so I leave him, in Nephelococcygia.

Mr. Mac Quedy came up to the divine as Mr. Crotchet left him, and said: “There is one piece of news which the old gentleman has not told you. The great firm of Catchflat and Company, in which young Crotchet is a partner, has stopped payment.”

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Bless me! that accounts for the young gentleman’s melancholy. I thought they would overreach themselves with their own tricks. The day of reckoning, Mr. Mac Quedy, is the point which your paper-money science always leaves out of view.

MR. MAC QUEDY. I do not see, sir, that the failure of Catchflat and Company has anything to do with my science.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. It has this to do with it, sir, that you would turn the whole nation into a great paper-money shop, and take no thought of the day of reckoning. But the dinner is coming. I think you, who are so fond of paper promises, should dine on the bill of fare.

The harper at the head of the hall struck up an ancient march, and the dishes were brought in, in grand procession.

The boar’s head, garnished with rosemary, with a citron in its mouth, led the van. Then came tureens of plum-porridge; then a series of turkeys, and in the midst of them an enormous sausage, which it required two men to carry. Then came geese and capons, tongues and hams, the ancient glory of the Christmas pie, a gigantic plum pudding, a pyramid of mince pies, and a baron of beef bringing up the rear.

“It is something new under the sun,” said the divine, as he sat down, “to see a great dinner without fish.”

MR. CHAINMAIL. Fish was for fasts in the twelfth century.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Well, sir, I prefer our reformed system of putting fasts and feasts together. Not but here is ample indemnity.

Ale and wine flowed in abundance. The dinner passed off merrily: the old harper playing all the while the oldest music in his repertory. The tables being cleared, he indemnified himself for lost time at the lower end of the hall, in company with the old butler and the other domestics, whose attendance on the banquet had been indispensable.

The scheme of Christmas gambols, which Mr. Chainmail had laid for the evening, was interrupted by a tremendous clamour without.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. What have we here? Mummers?

MR. CHAINMAIL. Nay, I know not. I expect none.

“Who is there?” he added, approaching the door of the hall.

“Who is there?” vociferated the divine, with the voice of Stentor.

“Captain Swing,” replied a chorus of discordant voices.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Ho, ho! here is a piece of the dark ages we did not bargain for. Here is the Jacquerie. Here is the march of mind with a witness.

MR. MAC QUEDY. Do you not see that you have brought disparates together? the Jacquerie and the march of mind.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Not at all, sir. They are the same thing, under different names. [Greek text]. What was Jacquerie in the dark ages is the march of mind in this very enlightened one — very enlightened one.

MR. CHAINMAIL. The cause is the same in both; poverty in despair.

MR. MAC QUEDY. Very likely; but the effect is extremely disagreeable.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. It is the natural result, Mr. Mac Quedy, of that system of state seamanship which your science upholds. Putting the crew on short allowance, and doubling the rations of the officers, is the sure way to make a mutiny on board a ship in distress, Mr. Mac Quedy.

MR. MAC QUEDY. Eh! sir, I uphold no such system as that. I shall set you right as to cause and effect. Discontent arises with the increase of information. That is all.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. I said it was the march of mind. But we have not time for discussing cause and effect now. Let us get rid of the enemy.

And he vociferated at the top of his voice, “What do you want here?” “Arms, arms,” replied a hundred voices, “Give us the arms.”

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. You see, Mr. Chainmail, this is the inconvenience of keeping an armoury not fortified with sand bags, green bags, and old bags of all kinds.

MR. MAC QUEDY. Just give them the old spits and toasting irons, and they will go away quietly.

MR. CHAINMAIL. My spears and swords! not without my life. These assailants are all aliens to my land and house. My men will fight for me, one and all. This is the fortress of beef and ale.

MR. MAC QUEDY. Eh! sir, when the rabble is up, it is very indiscriminating. You are e’en suffering for the sins of Sir Simon Steeltrap and the like, who have pushed the principle of accumulation a little too far.

MR. CHAINMAIL. The way to keep the people down is kind and liberal usage.

MR. MAC QUEDY. That is very well (where it can be afforded) in the way of prevention; but in the way of cure the operation must be more drastic. (Taking down a battle-axe.) I would fain have a good blunderbuss charged with slugs.

MR. CHAINMAIL. When I suspended these arms for ornament, I never dreamed of their being called into use.

MR. SKIONAR. Let me address them. I never failed to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away.

MR. MAC QUEDY. Eh! sir, I can bring them to that conclusion in less time than you.

MR. CROTCHET. I have no fancy for fighting. It is a very hard case upon a guest, when the latter end of a feast is the beginning of a fray.

MR. MAC QUEDY. Give them the old iron.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Give them the weapons! Pessimo, medius fidius, exemplo. Forbid it the spirit of Frere Jean des Entommeures! No! let us see what the church militant, in the armour of the twelfth century, will do against the march of mind. Follow me who will, and stay who list. Here goes: Pro aris et focis! that is, for tithe pigs and fires to roast them.

He clapped a helmet on his head, seized a long lance, threw open the gates, and tilted out on the rabble, side by side with Mr. Chainmail, followed by the greater portion of the male inmates of the hall, who had armed themselves at random.

The rabble-rout, being unprepared for such a sortie, fled in all directions, over hedge and ditch.

Mr. Trillo stayed in the hall, playing a march on the harp, to inspirit the rest to sally out. The water-loving Mr. Philpot had diluted himself with so much wine as to be quite hors d............