“Ah, I reckon they are,” added Charity, clinching the nail. “They’re right naught (Note 3), the whole boilin’ of ’em.”
The news was broken to Lady Louvaine more gently than it had been to Edith; but she clasped her hands with a faint cry of—“Aubrey! If these be they with whom he hath consorted, God keep the lad!”
“I trust, Mother dear, God will keep him,” responded Edith, softly. “Would you have him hither?”
“Truly, I know not what to say, daughter. Maybe he is the safest with my Lady of Oxford. Nay, I think not.”
Now came Temperance with her market-basket, and she had to be told. Her first thought was of a practical nature, but it was not Aubrey.
“Dear heart, you say not so? How ever am I to get to market? Lancaster and Derby! but I would those Papist companions were swept clean away out of the realm. I don’t believe there’s a loyal man amongst ’em!”
“Nay, Temperance, we know not yet if they be Papists.”
“Know not if they be! Why, of course they are!” was the immediate decision of Temperance. “What else can they be? There’s none other sort ill enough to hammer such naughty work out of their fantasy. ‘Don’t know,’ indeed! don’t tell me!”
And Temperance and her basket marched away in dudgeon.
The previous evening had been spent by Christopher Wright, Rookwood, and Keyes at the Duck; and they were the first among the conspirators to hear of the discovery and arrest. At five o’clock in the morning, Christopher Wright made a sudden appearance in Thomas Winter’s chamber, where that worthy was sleeping, certainly not the sleep of the just.