Thus they did extract from him Forty Crowns in gold for Redeeming out of Slavery among the Sallee Rovers ten Citizens of Ratisbon fallen into that doleful captivity; although I do on my conscience believe that there were not five native-born men in the whole city who had ever seen the Salt Sea, much less a Sallee Rover. Next was a donation for a petticoat for this Saint, and a wig for that one; a score of Ducats for a School, another for an Hospital for Lepers; until it was Ducats here and Ducats there all day long. Nor was this the worst; for my Master began to be Troubled in the Spirit, and to cry out against the Vanities of the World, and to sigh after the Blessedness of a Life passed in Seclusion and Contemplation.
"I'll turn Monk, I will," he cried out one day; "my Lord Duke of Wharton did it, and why should not I?"
"Monk, and a Murrain to them and Mercy to us all!" says Mr. Hodge, quite aghast. "What new Bee will you put under your Bonnet next, sir?"
"You're a Heretic," answered Mr. Pinchin. "An Anglican Heretic, and so is my knave John here. There's nothing like the old Faith. There's nothing like Relics. Didn't I see a prodigious claw set in gold only yesterday in the Barnabite Church, and wasn't that the true and undoubted relic of a Griffin?"
"Was the Griffin a Saint?" asks the Chaplain humbly.
"What's that to you?" retorts my Master. "You're a Heretic, you're a Scoffer, an Infidel! I tell you that I mean to become a Monk."
"What, and wear peas in your shoes! nay, go without shoes at all, and leave off cutting your toe-nails?" quoth the Chaplain, much irate. "Forsake washing and the Thirty-nine Articles! Shave your head and forswear the Act of Settlement! Wear a rope girdle and a rosary instead of a handsome sword with a silver hilt at your side! Go about begging and bawling of paternosters! Was it for this that I, a Clergyman of the Church of England, came abroad with you to keep you in the True Faith and a Proper respect for the Protestant Succession?" Mr. Hodge had quite forgotten the value of his Patron's favour, and was growing really angry. In those days men would really make sacrifices for conscience' sake.
"Hang the Protestant Succession, and you too!" screams Mr. Pinchin.