It was the same cry when I was here a year agone, and no great thing has happened; wherefore this new fear ?" Jacob shook his head.

His answer was spoken in a slow, ponderous fashion.
"Men will speak and whisper; yet the world wags on as before, and men well-nigh cease to listen or heed.

But mark my word, Cuthbert, there be no smoke where there is not fire; and these Papists, who are for ever plotting, plotting, plotting, will one day spring some strange thing upon the world.

There be so many cries of 'Wolf!' that folks begin to smile and say the real wolf will never come.
But that follows not.

I like not this ever-restless secret scheming and gathering together in dark corners.