derhill gives no date for this
incident beyond saying "In King Edward's time."

Note 3. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, an old priest was found who
for forty years had read the word _sumpsimus_ in his breviary as
_mumpsimus_. On being remonstrated with, he retorted that "He would not
leave his old _mumpsimus_ for their new _sumpsimus_." This story was
long popular with the Gospellers, who dubbed the Popish priests
_mumpsimuses_.

CHAPTER FIVE.

GATHERING CLOUDS.

"God lays His burden on each back;
But who
What is within the pack
May know?"

Half of the reign of Josiah, as his people loved to call him, was run
out in the summer of 1550. The breathing-time of hope was nearly over.

A June morning in that summer found Isoult Avery seated by the window at
work, and Robin Tremayne holding a book which he was _not_ reading. His
eyes were intently watching the light feathery clouds which floated
across the blue space beyond, and his thoughts were equally intent on
some subject not yet apparent. Except Walter, who was busy in the
corner, manufacturing paper boats, there was no one else in the room.

Robin broke the silence, and rather suddenly.

"Mother,"--he had come to call her so,--"what think you of Mr Rose?"

"What think I of him, Robin?" repeated Isoult, looking up, while a faint
expression of surprise crossed her gentle countenance. "Why, he liketh
me very well!"

"And what think you of Mrs Rose, Mother?"

The surprise increased in Isoult's look, and it was accompanied now by
perplexity. But she only answered--

"She liketh me only less than her husband. I would she had been
English-born, but that cannot she well help; and I have none other fault
to find with her."

"And what think you, Mother, of Mrs Thekla?"

Robin said this in a very low voice. Dr Thorpe was coming in as he
spoke, and the old man turned and faced round on the lad.

"O ho!" cried the Doctor, "blows the wind from that quarter?"

Apparently it did so, for Robin coloured scarlet.

"Come, come, lad!" said he, "thou art but now out of thy
swaddling-clothes, and what dost thou with such gear? Put it away, and
go whip thy top, like a good lad!"

"Dr Thorpe!" said Robin in an aggrieved voice, and drawing himself to
his utmost height, "I was nineteen years of age last Saint Agnes!"
[January 21.]

"Thou art as many years of discretion as there be crowns o' the sun
[Note 1] in a halfpenny," said he. "Nineteen,