on's Cross, to stand by theirs too should God ever call them to
die upon one.

The next day Mr. Brian took Anthony a long walk as soon as dinner was
over, across the moors towards the north side of Skiddaw. Anthony found
the old man a delightful and garrulous companion, full of tales of the
countryside, historical, religious, naturalistic, and supernatural. As
they stood on a little eminence and looked back to where the church-tower
pricked out of the deep crack in the moors where it stood, he told him
the tale of the coming of the pursuivants.

"They first troubled us in '72," he said; "they had not thought it worth
while before to disturb themselves for one old man like my brother, who
was like to die soon; but in April of that year they first sent up their
men. But it was only a pair of pursuivants, for they knew nothing of
the people; they came up, the poor men, to take my brother down to
Cockermouth to answer on his religion to some bench of ministers that sat
there. Well, they met him, in his cassock and square cap, coming out of
the church, where he had just replaced the Most Holy Sacrament after
giving communion to a dying body. 'Heh! are you the minister?' say they.

"'Heh! I am the priest, if that is what you mean,' he answers back. (He
was a large man, like myself, was my brother.)

"'Well, come, old man,' say they, 'we must help you down to Cockermouth.'

"Well, a few words passed; and the end was that he called out to Tim, who
lived just against the church; and told them what was forward.

"Well, the pursuivants got back to Cockermouth with their lives, but not
much else; and reported to the magistrates that the wild Irish themselves
were little piminy maids compared to the folk they had visited that day.

"So there was a great to-do, and a deal of talk; and in the next month
they sent up thirty pikemen with an officer and a dozen pursuivants, and
all to take one old priest and his brother. I had been in Kendal in April
when they first came--but they put it all down to me.

"Well, we were ready for them this time; the bells had been ringing to
call in the folk since six of the clock in the morning; and by
dinner-time, when the soldiers were expected, there was a matter of two
hundred men, I should say, some with scythes and sickles, and some with
staves or shepherds' crooks; the children had been sent down sooner to
stone the men all the way up the path; and by the time that they had
reached the chur