" "Well," said Lucifer, "since thou canst do so much good in
the pulpit, I bid thee dwell seven years in the mouth of a barndoor
preacher who always utter what first comes to his mind; there thou wilt
have an opportunity of putting in a word now and then to thine own
purpose."
There were many more devils and damned darting to and fro like lightning
about the awful throne, to count and to receive offices. But suddenly
without any warning there came a command for all the messengers and
prisoners to depart from the court, each one to his den, leaving the King
and his chief counsellors alone together. "Is it not better for us also
to depart, lest they find us?" I asked my friend. "Thou needest have no
fear," answered the angel, "no unclean spirit can ever pierce this veil."
Wherefore we remained there invisible, to see the issue.
Then Lucifer began graciously to address his peers thus:- "Ye mightiest
spirits of evil, ye archfiends of hellish guile, the utmost of your
malicious wiles am I now constrained to demand. All here know that
Britain and its adjacent isles is the realm most dangerous to my state,
and fullest of mine enemies; and what is a hundredfold worse, there
reigns now a queen most dangerous of all, who has never once inclined
hither, nor along the old way of Rome on the one hand nor yet along the
way of Geneva on the other: to think what great good the Pope has for a
long time done us there and Oliver even to this day! What therefore
shall we do? I fear me we shall entirely lose our ancient possession of
that mart unless we instantly set-to to pave a new way for them to travel
over, for they know too well all the old roads that lead hitherwards.
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