een no
room in the parlour for all who wished to hear. (He heard the tale of
Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert, traitor, apostate and sworn man of her Grace,
later, when he had come down again from the chapel-room, and the
servants had gone.) But now it was of less tragic matters, and more
triumphant, that they talked: he told of his adventures since he had
landed in August; of his riding in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and of the
fervour that he met with there (in one place, he said, he had reconciled
the old minister of the parish, that had been made priest under Mary
thirty years ago, and now lay dying); but he said nothing at that time
of what he had seen of her Grace of Scotland, and Chartley: and the
rest, on the other hand, talked of what had passed in Derby, of all that
Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Garlick had done; of the arrest and banishment of the
latter, and his immediate return; of the hanging of Mr. Francis Ingolby,
in York, which had made a great stir in the north that summer, since he
was the son of Sir Francis, of Ripley Castle; as well as of the deaths
of many others--Mr. Finglow in August; Mr. Sandys, in the same month, in
Gloucester; and of Mr. Lowe, Mr. Adams and Mr. Dibdale, all together at
Tyburn, the news of which had but just come to Derbyshire; and of
Mistress Clitheroe, that had been pressed to death in York, for the very
crime which Mistress Marjorie Manners was perpetrating at this moment,
namely, the assistance and harbourage of priests; or, rather, for
refusing to plead when she had been arrested for that crime, lest she
should bring them into trouble.

And then at last they began to speak of Mary in Fotheringay and at that
a maid came in to say that it was eight o'clock, and would his Reverence
come up, as a few had to travel home that night and to come again next
day....

* * * * *

It was after nine o'clock before he came downstairs again, to find the
gentlefolk alone in the little parlour that opened from the hall. It
gave him a strange thrill of pleasure to see them there in the
firelight; the four of them only--Mr. John in the midst, with the three
ladies; and an empty chair waiting for the priest. He would hear their
confessions presently when the servants were gone to bed. A great mug of
warm ale stood by his place, to comfort him after his long ride and his
spiritual labours.

Mr. John told him first the news of his own son, as was his duty to do;
and he told it witho