urt
therefore became a place of great and lucrative pilgrimage, much
resorted to by the neighbours on all occasions of difficulty.

[Sidenote: Its powers are submitted to trial,]

Now it happened that within the circuit of a few miles there lived four
young men, to whom the virtues of the rood had become greatly
questionable. If it could work miracles, it must be capable, so they
thought, of protecting its own substance; and they agreed to apply a
practical test which would determine the extent of its abilities.
Accordingly (about the time of Bainham's first imprisonment), Robert
King of Dedham, Robert Debenham of Eastbergholt, Nicholas Marsh of
Dedham, and Robert Gardiner of Dedham, "their consciences being burdened
to see the honour of Almighty God so blasphemed by such an idol,"
started off "on a wondrous goodly night" in February, with hard frost
and a clear full moon, ten miles across the wolds, to the church.

[Sidenote: And are found unequal to the emergency.]

[Sidenote: The rood is burnt.]

The door was open as the legend declared; but nothing daunted, they
entered bravely, and lifting down the "idol" from its shrine, with its
coat and shoes, and the store of tapers which were kept for the
services, they carried it on their shoulders for a quarter of a mile
from the place where it had stood, "without any resistance of the said
idol." There setting it on the ground, they struck a light, fastened the
tapers to the body, and with the help of them, sacrilegiously burnt the
image down to a heap of ashes; the old dry wood "blazing so brimly,"
that it lighted them a full mile of their way home.[108]

[Sidenote: Execution of three of the perpetrators.]

For this night's performance, which, if the devil is the father of lies,
was a stroke of honest work against him and his family, the world
rewarded these men after the usual fashion. One of them, Robert
Gardiner, escaped the search which was made, and disappeared till better
times; the remaining three were swinging in chains six months later on
the scene of their exploit. Their fate was perhaps inevitable. Men who
dare to be the first in great movements are ever self-immolated victims.
But I suppose that it was better for them to be bleaching on their
gibbets, than crawling at the feet of a wooden rood, and believing it to
be God.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Protestant Paladins.]

[Sidenote: The two greatest men on the side of t