t all thus, in the signification of
obeying the Pope, or suffering himself to be ridden of priests: in no
wise. But he hates a Puritan worse than a Papist. Mind you not that in
his speech when he opened his first Parliament, he said that he did
acknowledge the Roman Church to be our mother Church, though defiled
with some infirmities and corruptions?"

"Yet he said also, if I err not, that he sucked in God's truth with his
nurse's milk."

"Ay. But what one calls God's truth is not what an other doth. All the
Papistry in the world is not in the Roman Church; and assuredly she is
in no sense our mother."

"Truly, I thought Saint Austin brought the Gospel hither from Rome."

"Saint Austin brought a deal from Rome beside the Gospel, and he was not
the first to bring that. The Gallican Church had before him brought it
to Kent; and long ere that time had the ancient British Church been
evangelised from no sister Church at all, but right from the Holy Land
itself, and as her own unchanging voice did assert, by the beloved
Apostle Saint John."

"That heard I never afore," said Lady Louvaine, who seemed greatly
interested. "Pray you, Mr Marshall, is this true?"

"I do ensure you it is," replied he; "that is, so far as the wit of man
at this distance of time may discern the same."

"Was the French Church, then, lesser corrupted than that of Rome?"
queried Edith.

"Certainly so," he said: "and it hath resisted the Pope's usurpations
nigh as much as our own Church of England. I mean not in respect of the
Reformation, but rather the time before the Reformation, when our kings
were ever striving with the Pope concerning his right to appoint unto
dignities and livings. Yet the Reformation itself began first in
France, and had they in authority been willing to aid it as in England,
France had been a Protestant country at this day."

That evening, as they sat round the fire, Hans astonished them all.

"Lady Lettice," said he, "were you willing that I should embark in
trade?"

"Hans, my dear boy!" was the astonished response.

"I will not do it without your good-will thereto," said he; "nor would I
at all have done it, could I have seen any better way. But I feel that
I ought to be a-work on some matter, and not tarry a burden on your
hands: and all this time have I been essaying two matters--to look out
for a service, and to make a little money for you. The second I have in
some sense accomplished, though not to