ed further when I was broken in upon by a voice of
thunder--

"Silence, I say! What, is it for the frailness of a reed like you that
such noble enterprise must perish? Make no remonstrance, sir, but do
what is needed, or----"

Although the great lady did not finish her words, I felt an assurance
steal like ice over my soul that my hours were numbered if I
hesitated, and I bowed low, while Mr William Snowton did privily pull
me down into my seat by the hinder parts of my cassock.

"You--you, Master Willis, of all men, should least oppose this godly
step. For the noise thereof will sound unto the ends of the earth, and
make the old Antichrist on his seven hills quake and tremble, and
shake the pitiful spirit of the apostate of Whitehall. Say I not well,
my lords?"

"You say well," ran round the room in a murmur of consent.

"And you--you, Master Willis," she went on, "least of all, should
object to keep a lamb within the true fold--yea, a lamb which you did
see with your own eyes introduced into the same. Remember you nought
of godly Master Waller's in Berkshire, or of the scene you saw in a
certain chamber, where the baptismal waters were poured forth, and
murmured like a pleasant fountain in the dying ears of a devout
Christian woman?"

I was so held back with awe that I said not a word, and she went on--

"Oh, if good Master Lees had yet been spared, we should not have asked
for the ministry of trembling and unwilling hands like yours! And now,
my lords--and you, kind gentlemen, my plan as arranged with good Lord
Fitzoswald is this:--I give my grandchild's hand where her heart has
long been bestowed; I then go with her through lanes and byways, under
good escort, to the city of Exeter, where ere long we shall cast in
our lot with certain friends. The bridegroom shall see nought of his
bride till happier days arrive, except at this altar; and you shall go
directly to your respective stations, and be ready at the first
blowing of the horns before which the walls of this Jericho are to
fall. In the next chamber I have made preparation for the ceremony,
and in a few minutes, when I have arranged me for the journey, I will
summon you."

Something of this I heard--the sense namely forced its way into my
brain; but I was confused and panic-stricken. The whole sad scene
enacted so many years before, at the house of good Master Waller, on
my way home from Oxford, came back upon my heart, and I marvelled at
the method