orne the worst yet.

"Isoult!" said Dr Thorpe, coming in on the 8th of April, "there is a
jolly sight in the Chepe. I take it, a piece of some Lutheran's or
Gospeller's work, whose wit and zeal be on the thither side of his
discretion. On the gallows in Cheapside is a cat hanged, arrayed in
vestments, all proper, her head shaven, and her forefeet tied over her
head with a round of paper betwixt them for a wafer. What say you to
that for a new thing?"

"Poor cat!" said Robin; yet he laughed.

"Nay, I know not that they killed the cat o' purpose," said Dr Thorpe.
"They may have taken a dead one."

"But what say the folk thereto?" asked Isoult.

"Some laugh," he answered, "and some rail, and some look mighty solemn.
Underhill was jolly pleased therewith; it served his turn rightly. I
met him on my way home, and he asked me first thing if I had seen Sir
Cat."

"I warrant you," said John, "'tis a piece of his work, or else of George
Ferris. Mind you not how he told us the tale of his [Underhill]
stealing the copper pix from the altar at Stratford on the Bow? I will
be bound one of those merry twain hath done it."

"Little unlike," said Dr Thorpe.

Proclamation was made of a reward of twenty nobles, increased afterward
to twenty marks, to find the irreverent hanger up of the cat, but in
vain. It was never discovered who did it. On Cantate Sunday--April
22--Mr Rose preached at Mr Sheerson's house in Bow Churchyard. John and
Isoult were there, with Esther, Thekla, and Robin. After service (for
they were late, and it was beginning when they entered), Mr Rose came to
them, and, after a few minutes' conversation, asked if they had heard
the news from Oxford.

"Nay," said John, "is there so?"

"The sorest we might well have," he answered. "My Lord Archbishop, Dr
Ridley, and Mr Latimer, be all three cast for death."

Such a cry broke from Isoult, that some turned to look at her, and Mrs
Holland came up and asked if she was ill, or what was the matter.

"Are you assured thereof?" asked John.

"With little question," answered he, "seeing Augustine Bernher came unto
me with the news, and is lodged with me: who was himself present at the
sentencing and all the whole disputation."

"If Austin brought it, it is true," said John, sorrowfully.

"But they will never burn Mr Latimer," cried Isoult in anguish. "An
aged man such as he is, that must die in a few years at the furthest!"

"And my Lord Archbishop, th