he profanation of the Cathedral would have been
utterly shocking to his good father. His mind, however, worked slowly,
and he would have had nothing to say even if he could have ventured to
speak; but he was very anxious to get away; and when Jeph would have
kept him to hear the serjeant expound a chapter of Revelation, he
pleaded the necessity of getting home in time to milk the cows, and made
his escape.

On the whole it was a relief that Jeph was too much occupied with his
military duties to make visits to his home. It might not have been over
easy to keep the peace between him and Emlyn, fiery little Royalist as
she was, and too much used to being petted and fascinating everyone by
her saucy audacity to be likely to be afraid of him.

If Patience crossed her she would have recourse to Stead, and he could
seldom resist her coaxing, or be entirely disabused of the notion that
his sister expected too much of her. And perhaps it was true. Patience
was scarcely likely to understand differences of character and
temperament, and not merely to recollect that Emlyn was only eighteen
months younger than she had been when she had been forced into the
position of the house mother. So, while Emlyn's wayward fancies were a
great trial, Steadfast's sympathy with them was a greater one.

Stead continued to see Jeph when taking in the market produce, for which
he was always duly paid. Jeph also wished the whole family to come in
on Sunday to profit by the preaching of some of the great Independent
lights; but Stead, after trying it once, felt so sure that Patience
would be miserable at anything so unaccustomed, so thunderous, and, as
it seemed to him, so abusive, that he held to it that the distance was
too great, and that the cattle could not be left. The soldiery seemed to
him to spend their spare time in defacing the many churches of the city,
chiefly in order to do what they called purifying them from all idols,
in which term they included every sort of carving or picture, or even
figures on monuments.

And in this work of destruction a chest containing church plate had been
come upon, making their work greedy instead of only mischievous.

When all the churches in Bristol had been ransacked, they began to
extend their search to the parish churches in the neighbourhood, and
Stead began to be very anxious, though he hoped and believed that the
cave was a perfectly safe place.

CHAPTER XIV. THE QUESTION.

"Dogg