ed
to haunt him.

"I saw it, I saw it," he said, "all over those halls at York House. I
seemed to behold the grisly shape standing behind one and another, as
they ate and laughed; and when the Archbishop and his priests and the
King came in it seemed only to make the pageant complete! Only now and
then could I recall those blessed words, `Ye are free indeed.' Did he
say from the bondage of death?"

"Yea," said Tibble, "into the glorious freedom of God's children."

"Thou knowst it. Thou knowst it, Tibble. It seems to me that life is
no life, but living death, without that freedom! And I _must_ hear of
it, and know whether it is mine, yea, and Stephen's, and all whom I
love. O Tibble, I would beg my bread rather than not have that freedom
ever before mine eyes."

"Hold it fast! hold it fast, dear sir," said Tibble, holding out his
hands with tears in his eyes, and his face working in a manner that
happily Ambrose could not see.

"But how--how? The barefoot friar said that for an _Ave_ a day, our
Blessed Lady will drag us back from purgatory. I saw her on the wall of
her chapel at Winchester saving a robber knight from the sea, yea and a
thief from the gallows; but that is not being free."

"Fond inventions of pardon-mongers," muttered Tibble.

"And is one not free when the priest hath assoilsied him?" added
Ambrose.

"If, and if--" said Tibble. "But none shall make me trow that shrift in
words, without heart--sorrow for sin, and the Latin heard with no
thought of Him that bore the guilt, can set the sinner free. 'Tis none
other that the Dean sets forth, ay, and the book that I have here. I
thank my God," he stood up and took off his cap reverently, "that He
hath opened the eyes of another!"

His tone was such that Ambrose could have believed him some devout
almost inspired hermit rather than the acute skilful artisan he appeared
at other times; and in fact, Tibble Steelman, like many another
craftsman of those days, led a double life, the outer one that of the
ordinary workman, the inner one devoted to those lights that were
shining unveiled and new to in any; and especially here in the heart of
the City, partly from the influence of Dean Colet's sermons and
catechisings at Saint Paul's, but also from remnants of Lollardism,
which had never been entirely quenched. The ordinary clergy looked at
it with horror, but the intelligent and thoughtful of the burgher and
craftsman classes studied it with