ed she. "My Lord Protector, being no Lutheran,
but a Gospeller, is not over well liked of some that be Lutherans, and
no Gospellers: and as for us poor Catholics, we never (you know) held
him for a saint. So this being the case (this in thine ear,
Isoult--'tis under _benedicite_ [under the seal of confession]),
certain, if not all of the King's Council, be resolved to be rid of my
high and mighty Lord. And ere thou be ten days older, I count thou
shalt hear somewhat thereof. I have so much from a good hand, that can
be trusted; the name I utter not."

"Then," said Isoult, "be the Catholics and Lutherans conspiring together
for this?"

"Truth," answered she; "they that be least Christians of both."

"You say well, Mrs Philippa," replied Isoult.

"Do I so, Mrs Avery?" she answered.

"I cry you mercy!" said Isoult; "Philippa, then, if you will have it
so."

"Ay, I will have it so," said she, laughing.

"But," answered Isoult, "what saith the King's Highness thereto?"

"The King!" exclaimed she. "The King marketh but his twelfth birthday
this month, dear heart. What can he know? or an' he spake, who would
heed him?"

"But," said Isoult, "we hear for ever of his Highness' sageness and
wisdom, such as 'tis said never had Prince afore him."

"Did we not so of his father?" asked she, with a short laugh. "There be
alway that will sing loud hymns to the rising or risen sun. Sageness
and wisdom, forsooth! of a lad of twelve years! He may be as sage as he
will, but he will not match Dr Stephen Gardiner yet awhile."

A shudder ran through Isoult Avery at the name of the deviser of the
Bloody Statute. But the danger of the Protector was too serious a
question to every Gospeller not to be recurred to and prayed against.

"It doth seem to me, Jack," said Isoult that evening, when the story had
been told, "as though the cause of the Gospel should stand or fall with
my Lord Protector. What thinkest thou?"

"Sweet wife," he answered, "if my Lord Protector were the only prop of
the Gospel, it had fallen long ago. The prop of the Gospel is not my
Lord or thy Lord, but the Lord of the whole earth. His strength is
enough to bear it up."

"I know that, Jack," she said. "Yet God worketh by means; and my Lord
Protector gone, who else is there?"

"Nay, child!" answered Dr Thorpe. "Is God so lately become unable of
these stones to raise up children unto Abraham? Shall He, by whose word
a nation shall be born in a