“But this scene is very fair,” said the youth, “bright sun, beautiful vale, lovely sea, grand moorland hills; loth should I be to leave it too soon, for this is God’s world too, is it not, father?”
“Thou art young, dear son.”
“Tell me all, have I been ill long?”
“This is the third day since the rescue.”
“How came it about?”
“Public opinion made it possible for a few score of men to do the work of hundreds; the mob alone, if hostile, might have hindered, nay prevented our escape, but many who dared not assist actively, did so passively, and closing together covered our retreat, until we found temporary concealment in the house of a friend to the cause, who had a passage leading from his shop in High Street into the cathedral yard. But ere we had been there long, thou didst faint, and we had much ado to restore thee to life.”
“How weak I must be!”
“Nay, my child, consider the torture chamber of which thy poor hands bear sufficient evidence, and the terrible strain of the approaching cruel death, of which we bore all the anticipation. Well, at midnight we smuggled thee through the west gate, in a litter, by the connivance of a sentinel, and so down stream to Topsham, dragging the boat with difficulty over the Countess’s Weir; thereby we escaped the pursuers on the road, and favoured by the night, reached this secluded hall unobserved.”
“And when shall we go to Glastonbury and complete our task?”