Thistlewood, who was, perhaps, the most calm and collected of all, just
before he was turned off, said, 'We are now going to discover the great
secret.' Ings, the moment before he was choked, was singing 'Scots wha
hae wi' Wallace bled.' Now there was no humbug about those men, nor
about many more of the same time and of the same principles. They might
be deluded about Republicanism, as Algernon Sidney was, and as Brutus
was, but they were as honest and brave as either Brutus or Sidney, and as
willing to die for their principles. But the Radicals who succeeded them
were beings of a very different description; they jobbed and traded in
Republicanism, and either parted with it, or at the present day are eager
to part with it, for a consideration.
* * * * *
'Does your honour remember anything about Durham city?'
'Oh yes! I remember a good deal about it.'
'Then, your honour, pray tell us what you remember about it--pray do!
perhaps it will do me good.'
'Well then, I remember that it was a fine old city standing on a hill
with a river running under it, and that it had a fine old church, one of
the finest in the whole of Britain; likewise a fine old castle; and last,
not least, a capital old inn, where I got a capital dinner off roast
Durham beef, and a capital glass of ale, which I believe was the cause of
my being ever after fond of ale.'
* * * * *
I was the last of the file, but I now rushed past John Jones, who was
before me, and next to the old lady, and sure enough there was the chair,
in the wall, of him who was called in his day, and still is called by the
mountaineers of Wales, though his body has been below the earth in the
quiet churchyard one hundred and forty years, Eos Ceiriog, the
Nightingale of Ceiriog, the sweet caroller Huw Morus, the enthusiastic
partizan of Charles and the Church of England, and the never-tiring
lampooner of Oliver and the Independents.
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