Mr Roberts was thankfully able to answer that he knew not.
“But surely, with so much baggage as Mistress Collenwood must have borne withal, the number of horses that left your house could not but be noted of them in the vicinage. Yet I am told no sound was heard.”
“My sister sent the most part of her baggage away before her,” was the answer.
“Remember,” said the Rector sternly, “the sin you incur if you deceive a priest!”
“I have not spoken one untrue word, Father.”
At that moment the door-bell was rung, and answered by Osmund, who, coming into the room, deferentially informed the priest that my Lord Cardinal had sent his sumner to the Rectory, with a command that he, Mr Bastian, should attend his court at eight o’clock on the following morning. The interruption was welcome to both parties. The priest was perplexed, and wanted time to think, no less than Mr Roberts. He had anticipated an easy victory, and found himself unaccountably baffled.
In the present day, no English gentleman would bear such questioning by a priest. The latter would very soon be told, in however civil language, that an Englishman’s house was his castle, and that he held himself responsible for his actions to God alone. But the iron terror of Rome was then over every heart. No priest could be defied, nor his questions evaded, with impunity. If those days ever come back, it will be the fault and the misery of Englishmen who would not take warning by the past, but who suffered the enemy to creep in again “while men slept.” The liberties of England, let us never forget, were bought with the blood of the Marian martyrs.
No sooner had the priest departed than Mistress Grena silently slid into the room. She had evidently been on the watch.
“Brother,” she said, in a voice which trembled with doubt and fear, “what have you told him?”
“What you told him, Grena.”