“Won’t you go on trying a bit longer, Will? Any day the tide may turn. I don’t know how, but God knows. He can bring us out of this prison all in a minute. You know He keeps count of the hairs on our heads. Now, Will, you know as well as I do what God said,—He did not say only, ‘Thou shalt not worship them,’ but ‘Thou shalt not bow down to them.’ Oh Will, Will! have you forgotten all the texts Father taught us?—are you forgetting Father himself?”
“Cis, I wish you wouldn’t!”
“I wish you wouldn’t, Will.”
“You don’t think Father can hear, do you?” asked Will uncomfortably glancing around.
“I hope he can’t, indeed, or he’ll be sore grieved, even in Heaven, to think what his little Will’s coming to.”
“Oh, well—come, I’ll try a bit longer, Cis, if you— But I say, I do hope it won’t be long, or I can’t stand it.”
That night, or rather in the early hours of the following morning, a horseman came spurring up to the Head Gate of Colchester. He alighted from his panting horse, and threw the reins on its neck.
“Gate, ho!”
Nothing but silence came in answer.