Padley be closed to them? You have heard of our
friend Mr. Garlick's capture? But that was no fault of yours. The man
was warned. I hear that they will send him into banishment, only, this
time."

* * * * *

The news came to her as she sat in the garden over her needlework on a
hot evening in June. There it was as cool as anywhere in the
countryside. She sat at the top of the garden, where her mother and she
had sat with Robin so long before; the breeze that came over the moor
bore with it the scent of the heather; and the bees were busy in the
garden flowers about her.

It was first the gallop of a horse that she heard; and even at that
sound she laid down her work and stood up. But the house below her
blocked the most of her view; and she sat down again when she heard the
dull rattle of the hoofs die away again. When she next looked up a man
was running towards her from the bottom of the garden, and Janet was
peeping behind him from the gate into the court. As she again stood up,
she saw that it was Dick Sampson.

He was so out of breath, first with his ride and next with his run up
the steep path, that for a moment or two he could not speak. He was
dusty, too, from foot to knee; his cap was awry and his collar
unbuttoned.

"It is Mr. Thomas, mistress," he gasped presently. "I was in Derby and
saw him being taken to the gaol.... I could not get speech with him....
I rode straight up to Padley, and found none there but the servants, and
them knowing nothing of the matter. And so I rode on here, mistress."

He was plainly all aghast at the blow. Hitherto it had been enough that
Sir Thomas was in ward for his religion; and to this they had become
accustomed. But that the heir should be taken, too, and that without a
hint of what was to happen, was wholly unexpected. She made him sit
down, and presently drew from him the whole tale.

Mr. Anthony Babington, his master, was away to London again, leaving the
house in Derby in the hands of the servants. He then--Dick Sampson--was
riding out early to take a horse to be shoed, and had come back through
the town-square, when he saw the group ride up to the gaol door near the
Friar Gate. He, too, had ridden up to ask what was forward, and had been
just in time to see Mr. Thomas taken in. He had caught his eye, but had
feigned not to know him. Then the man had attempted to get at what had
happened from one of the fellows at the door, but cou