Ablethorpe all about
everything. He just sat open-mouthed as I told him about father and
about the mare coming into our yard through a locked door. I was
watching him. He turned a bit paler, but his face was not the face of
a guilty man.

"Of course, I see now, Joe," he said, "it looked bad. And I don't
wonder the mob acted as they did, seeing me leave the barn so
hurriedly."

Now, though I did not say so, I thought that pretty good, just about as
good as a dozen glass marbles for a halfpenny. "Leave the barn
hurriedly!" says he. My respectable Aunt Sally! Why, he simply
scooted like the wind! What is it? He "stood not on the order of his
going, but--went?" I bet he did! There wasn't anybody in Mr.
Mustard's school--no, nor yet in Breckonside, who could have caught the
Hayfork Parson but me. He had legs like a whacking pair of compasses,
and went along like the wild ass that sniffeth up the wind.

"Yes," he repeated, tying a white handkerchief about the size of a
tablecloth round his brow--I kept mum about what had given him the
headache; pretended that I had brought out the hook to fish with--"yes,
Joe, I did leave the barn in a hurry. But it was for the sake of those
poor, foolish women, for whose souls none cares but myself. I know
well that in going there at all I am taking my life in my hands. But
the eldest, Miss Aphra Orrin, shows a little more stability than the
others. And it was borne in upon me as a duty that I should try and
make them put away their mad vanities, no better than stocks and
stones, by substituting a real worship in a real chapel. I found out
by chance that the barn of Deep Moat Grange had been an oratory in the
days of the ancient Cistercian Abbey, which had been built on that site
about 1460. It was, therefore, in my opinion, duly and properly
consecrated. True, I have not obtained the authorization of my bishop,
and for that, Joseph, you may blame me."

I told him that it was all right as far as I was concerned. I did not
think of doing so. His dread secret, if that were all, was quite safe
with me.

"I thank you, Joseph," he said, with the solemn air he always had when
engaged in making me a good Churchman. "I admit that the action is, on
the face of it, irregular. But then the saving of these poor souls,
Joseph! Consider! None to give them a thought but me! And I have
already induced them to substitute a crucifix for their foolish gauds,
which had only a m