These Sunday sports were denounced by some as sinful—and a sign of return to the thraldom of Popery from which the kingdom had been delivered; others saw in them no harm, if they did not actually countenance them by their presence; while others, like herself, had many misgivings as to the desirability of turning the day of rest into a day of merry-making, more, perhaps, from personal taste and personal feeling than from principle.
When Mary Gifford reached Ford Manor, she found it deserted, and only one old serving-man keeping guard. The mistress had gone with the rest of the household to a prayer and praise meeting, held in the barn belonging to a neighbouring yeoman, two miles away; and he only hoped, he said, that she might return in a sweeter temper than she went. She had rated him and scolded all round till she had scarce a breath left in her.
The old man was, like all the other servants, devoted to the gentle lady who had gone out from her home a fair young girl, and had returned a sad widow with her only child, overshadowed by a great trouble, the particulars of which no one knew.
The rest of that Sabbath day was quiet and peaceful.
Mary read from Tyndale's version of the Testament her favourite chapter from the Epistle of St John, and the love of which it told seemed to fill her with confidence and descend dove-like upon her boy's turbulent young heart.
He was in his softest, tenderest mood, and, as Mary pressed him close to her side, she felt comforted, and said to herself,—
'While I have my boy, I can bear all things, with God's help.'
Mary Gifford was up long before sunrise the next morning, and, calling Ambrose, she bid him come out with her and see if the shepherd had brought in a lamb which had wandered away from the fold on the previous day. The shepherd had been afraid to tell his mistress of the loss, and Mary had promised to keep it from her till he had made yet another search; and then, if indeed it was hopeless, she would try to soften Mistress Forrester's anger against him.
'We may perchance meet him with the news that he has found the lamb, and then there will be no need to let grannie know that it had been lost,' she said.
It was a dull morning, and the clouds lay low in a leaden sky, while a mist was hovering over the hills and blurring out the landscape.