men are seized with
a desire to superintend the cooking, probably to be attributed to the
fact that Mary is cook.

Presently Yeo comes in again.

"There's a gentleman just coming up, sir, all alone."

"Ask him to make one of our party, then, with my compliments." Yeo goes
out, and returns in five minutes.

"Please, sir, he's gone in back ways, by the court."

"Well, he has an odd taste, if he makes himself at home here."

Out goes Yeo again, and comes back once more after five minutes, in high
excitement.

"Come out, sir; for goodness' sake come out. I've got him. Safe as a rat
in a trap, I have!"

"Who?"

"A Jesuit, sir."

"Nonsense, man!"

"I tell you truth, sir. I went round the house, for I didn't like the
looks of him as he came up. I knew he was one of them villains the
minute he came up, by the way he turned in his toes, and put down his
feet so still and careful, like as if he was afraid of offending God at
every step. So I just put my eye between the wall and the dern of the
gate, and I saw him come up to the back door and knock, and call 'Mary!'
quite still, like any Jesuit; and the wench flies out to him ready to
eat him; and 'Go away,' I heard her say, 'there's a dear man;' and then
something about a 'queer cuffin' (that's a justice in these canters'
thieves' Latin); and with that he takes out a somewhat--I'll swear it
was one of those Popish Agnuses--and gives it her; and she kisses it,
and crosses herself, and asks him if that's the right way, and then puts
it into her bosom, and he says, 'Bless you, my daughter;' and then I was
sure of the dog: and he slips quite still to the stable, and peeps in,
and when he sees no one there, in he goes, and out I go, and shut to the
door, and back a cart that was there up against it, and call out one of
the men to watch the stable, and the girl's crying like mad."

"What a fool's trick, man! How do you know that he is not some honest
gentleman, after all?"

"Fool or none, sir; honest gentlemen don't give maidens Agnuses. I've
put him in; and if you want him let out again, you must come and do it
yourself, for my conscience is against it, sir. If the Lord's enemies
are delivered into my hand, I'm answerable, sir," went on Yeo as Amyas
hurried out with him. "'Tis written, 'If any let one of them go, his
life shall be for the life of him.'"

So Amyas ran out, pulled back the cart grumbling, opened the door, and
began a string of apologies to--his cousin