I am a priest, madam, and can join you both in an instant, CONNUBIO STABILI, as I suppose the knot has not been tied already.""Hold your mumping gibberish," said Belle, "and leave the dingle this moment, for though 'tis free to every one, you have no right to insult me in it.""Pray be pacified," said I to Belle, getting up, and placing myself between her and the man in black, "he will presently leave, take my word for it - there, sit down again," said I, as I led her to her seat; then, resuming my own, I said to the man in black: "I advise you to leave the dingle as soon as possible.""I should wish to have your answer to my proposal first,"said he.
"Well, then, here you shall have it: I will not entertain your proposal; I detest your schemes: they are both wicked and foolish.""Wicked," said the man in black, "have they not - he! he! -the furtherance of religion in view?"
"A religion," said I, "in which you yourself do not believe, and which you contemn.""Whether I believe in it or not," said the man in black, "it is adapted for the generality of the human race; so I will forward it, and advise you to do the same.It was nearly extirpated in these regions, but it is springing up again, owing to circumstances.Radicalism is a good friend to us;all the liberals laud up our system out of hatred to the Established Church, though our system is ten times less liberal than the Church of England.Some of them have really come over to us.I myself confess a baronet who presided over the first radical meeting ever held in England - he was an atheist when he came over to us, in the hope of mortifying his own church - but he is now - ho! ho! - a real Catholic devotee - quite afraid of my threats; I make him frequently scourge himself before me.Well, Radicalism does us good service, especially amongst the lower classes, for Radicalism chiefly flourishes amongst them; for though a baronet or two may be found amongst the radicals, and perhaps as many lords - fellows who have been discarded by their own order for clownishness, or something they have done - it incontestably flourishes best among the lower orders.Then the love of what is foreign is a great friend to us; this love is chiefly confined to the middle and upper classes.Some admire the French, and imitate them; others must needs be Spaniards, dress themselves up in a zamarra, stick a cigar in their mouth, and say, 'Carajo.' Others would pass for Germans; he!
he! the idea of any one wishing to pass for a German! but what has done us more service than anything else in these regions - I mean amidst the middle classes - has been the novel, the Scotch novel.The good folks, since they have read the novels, have become Jacobites; and, because all the Jacobs were Papists, the good folks must become Papists also, or, at least, papistically inclined.The very Scotch Presbyterians, since they have read the novels, are become all but Papists; I speak advisedly, having lately been amongst them.There's a trumpery bit of a half papist sect, called the Scotch Episcopalian Church, which lay dormant and nearly forgotten for upwards of a hundred years, which has of late got wonderfully into fashion in Scotland, because, forsooth, some of the long-haired gentry of the novels were said to belong to it, such as Montrose and Dundee; and to this the Presbyterians are going over in throngs, traducing and vilifying their own forefathers, or denying them altogether, and calling themselves descendants of - ho! ho!
ho! - Scottish Cavaliers!!! I have heard them myself repeating snatches of Jacobite ditties about 'Bonnie Dundee,'
and -
"'Come, fill up my cup, and fill up my can, And saddle my horse, and call up my man.'
