The nursemaid was the first to go, and her place was filled by a Roman Catholic. Then the cook received warning. But this did not pass off so quietly: Jane Bannister was a buxom hearty woman, well liked by her fellow-servants; her parents lived in the village, and she had been six years with the Gaunts, and her honest heart clung to them. She took to crying; used to burst out in the middle of her work, or while conversing with fitful cheerfulness on ordinary topics.
One day Griffith found her crying, and Ryder consoling her as carelessly and contemptuously as possible.
"Hey-day, lasses," said he; "what is your trouble?"
At this Jane's tears flowed in a stream, and Ryder made no reply, but waited.
At last, and not till the third or fourth time of asking, Jane blurted out that she had got the sack; such was her homely expression, dignified, however, by honest tears.
"What for?" asked Griffith, kindly.
"Nay, sir," sobbed Jane, "that is what I want to know. Our Dame ne'er found a fault in me; and now she does pack me off like a dog. Me that have been here this six years, and got to feel at home. What will father say? He'll give me a hiding. For two pins I'd drown myself in the mere."
"Come, you must not blame the mistress," said the sly Ryder. "She is a good mistress as ever breathed: 'tis all the priest's doings. I'll tell you the truth, master, if you will pass me your word I shan't be sent away for it."
"I pledge you my word as a gentleman," said Griffith.
"Well, then, sir, Jane's fault is yours and mine. She is not a papist; and that is why she is to go. How I come to know, I listened in the next room, and heard the priest tell our dame she must send away two of us, and have Catholics. The priest's word it is law in this house; 'twas in March he gave the order: Harriet, she went in May, and now poor Jane is to go—for walking to church behind you, sir. But there, Jane, I believe he would get our very master out of the house if he could; and then what would become of us all?"