'The poor calf will kick itself wild if you stay here much longer. So, good-day to you, good Ned; and I will send Avice a wedding gift. I have a pretty blue kerchief that will suit her of which I have no need; for we are all in sombre mourning garments for the great and good lord and lady of Penshurst.'
Lucy found her stepmother seated in the old place on the settle, but not alone. 'Her master,' as she called him with great truth, was with her, and two of 'the chosen ones,' who were drinking mead and munching cakes from a pile on the board.
He invited Lucy to partake of the fare, but she declined, and, having told her stepmother the news about Mary, she did not feel much disposed to remain.
'The boy found, do you say?' snarled her stepmother's husband. 'It would have been a cause of thankfulness if that young limb of the Evil One had never been found. You may tell your sister, Mistress Lucy, that neither her boy nor herself will ever darken these doors. We want no Papists here.'
'Nay, nay, no Papists,' echoed one of the brethren, with his mouth full of cake.
'Nay, nay,' chimed in another, as he set down the huge cup of mead after a prolonged pull. 'No Papists here to bring a curse upon the house.'
Lucy could not help feeling pity for her stepmother, who sat knitting on the settle—her once voluble tongue silenced, her mien dejected and forlorn. Lucy bent down and kissed her, saying in a low voice,—
'You are glad, I know, Mary has found her child.'
And the answer came almost in a whisper, with a scared glance in the direction of her husband and his guests,—
'Ay, ay, sure I am glad.'