Mr Holland laughed a moment, but immediately grew grave.
“But heard you my news?” said he. “Do you know Father Rose is deprived?”
All cried out together. They had looked for this indeed, but not now. Six months thence, when the Protestant Bishops were all sequestered, and the Prebendaries in the Marshalsea, Bishop Gardiner might stoop to lesser game; but that one of the very first blows should be struck at Mr Rose, this they had not expected. It showed how formidable an enemy he was considered.
“Deprived!” cried all the voices together.
“Ay, ’tis too true,” said Mr Holland. “As a preacher, we shall hear his voice no more.”
“The lambs are like to fare ill,” growled Dr Thorpe, “when all the great wolves be let forth in a pack.”
“Ah, mine old friend!” answered John, “not many weeks gone, you said of my Lord of Northumberland, ‘Will none put this companion in the Tower?’ Methinks so many henceforward will scarce be over, ere you may say the like with tears of Stephen Gardiner. The fox is in the Tower; but the wolf is out.”
“You speak but truth,” said Mr Holland. “And now, my masters, after mine ill news, I fear you will scarcely take it well of me to bid you to a wedding; yet for that came I hither.”
“Is this a time for marrying and giving in marriage?” groaned Dr Thorpe.
“I think it is,” answered Mr Holland, stoutly. “The more disease (discomfort) a man hath abroad, the more comfort he lacketh at home.”