e?"

"No, no one. We put those stones and those sticks when we made a fire
there last year, and no one has meddled with them since."

"Thou and Patience," said Mr. Holworth thoughtfully. "Not Jephthah nor
the little maid?"

"No, sir," replied Steadfast, "we would not let them know, because we
wanted a place to ourselves."

For in truth the quiet ways and little arrangements of these two had
often been much disturbed by the rough elder brother who teased and
laughed at them, and by the troublesome little sister, who put her
fingers into everything.

The Vicar and the Churchwarden looked at one another, and John Kenton
muttered, "True as steel."

"Your father answers for you, my boy," said the Vicar. "So we will e'en
let you know what we are about. I was told this morn by a sure hand that
the Parliament men, who now hold Bristol Castle, are coming to deal with
the village churches even as they have dealt with the minster and with
St. Mary's, Redcliffe."

"A murrain on them!" muttered Kenton.

"I wot that in their ignorance they do it," gently quoted the Vicar.
"But we would fain save from their hands the holy Chalice and paten
which came down to our Church from the ancient times--and which bearing
on them, as they do, the figure of the Crucifixion of our blessed Lord,
would assuredly provoke the zeal of the destroyers. Therefore have we
placed them in this casket, and your father devised hiding them within
this cave, which he thought was unknown to any save himself--"

"Yea," said John, "my poor brother Will and I were wont to play there
when we herded the cattle on the hill. It was climbing yon ash tree that
stands out above that he got the fall that was the death of him at
last. I've never gone nigh the place with mine own good will since that
day--nor knew the children had done so--but methought 'twas a lonesome
place and on mine own land, where we might safest store the holy things
till better times come round."

"And so I hope they will," said Mr. Holworth.

"I hear good news of the King's cause in the north."

Then they began to consult where to place the precious casket. They had
brought tinder and matches, and Steadfast, who knew the secrets of the
cave even better than his father, showed them a little hollow, far back,
which would just hold the chest, and being closed in front with a big
stone, fast wedged in, was never likely to be discovered readily.

[Illustration: The Hiding Of The Casket]