"Mistress Mary, suppose you tell your lady mother all, and ask for her advice; and I will think over a notion which has but just now entered my head. Let us meet again upon the third day from this, and speak of what we have done. If you could get Mistress Mary safely to Ilminster in a secret fashion, perchance the rest might be managed; but until the pardon be issued, my lord cannot openly show himself, for he does not know that his own father might not give him up to justice, so grieved and wroth was he at seeing his son in arms against the King."
"Ah no; he is not so bad as that!" answered Mistress Mary. "And men talk very differently of the King from what they did a few weeks back. He has lost many of his friends, and will likely lose more."
"Then things will be all the better for us and our plans, Mistress," I said; and after some more conversation of no especial moment, I left her and returned to Taunton full of my own plan, which was indeed one of much boldness, seeing how humble mine own birth was, and that it was something bold of me to think of speaking with the great ones of the earth.
Yet my idea was nothing less than to strive to win the good Bishop Ken to stand our friend; and as he had always given me a friendly smile and nod since the day when he had seen me in the prison, I thought I might even presume to seek speech of him, since all men said how gentle and courteous he was to all who approached him, and how he was striving to bring back peace and prosperity to his distracted diocese.
Moreover, he was still in Taunton at this time; and I had heard it said that he was shortly going to visit Mr. Speke of White Lackington House, near to Ilminster, of which mention has been made before. Mr. Speke had lost a son in the rebellion, executed at Ilminster, and he himself lay under charges to pay a very heavy fine for his supposed or real share in the rebellion. The Bishop's visit was one of condolence and friendship, and was likely to last a week or more. If I could but get speech of him before he started, I felt hopeful of bringing this matter of my lord's to a happy conclusion.
Fortune favoured me; for I met the Bishop the very next morning, walking and meditating quite alone in some of the meadows beside the stream. I had heard that he had been seen to leave the town, but I scarce hoped to light upon him thus easily. He gave me a smile and a nod as usual, and then paused to ask how Will Wiseman fared, and was pleased to hear that he had been released and taken back to his master's house, where he was treated now as a son. And when we had spoken a few minutes of him, and the Bishop would have passed on, I plucked up my courage and said,—
"My lord, may I speak a word to you concerning something that lies heavy upon my heart?"
He gave me a quick, keen look, and then motioned me to walk beside him; and although he was so high and great a man, before whom all men bowed as he went along the streets, yet I am very sure that he told me as he walked that he was my servant, and that I need not fear to speak openly of what was burdening me. And I have thought, both then and since, that the holier and greater men are, the humbler and gentler they show themselves. Sure no man could have listened with so much kindliness to my story had not his heart been as full of the love of God as our good Bishop's was.
And I told him everything from first to last—all that I have been laboriously striving to set forth in these pages—all of it, at least, that in any way concerned my lord and Mistress Mary; and how that she was living all the while, though held dead by her towns-folk and acquaintance; and how my lord was in hiding with mine aunt, and that I believed it was commonly reported that he had died of his wounds in the prison, though of that I could not speak certainly. But I spoke of the love those twain had ever borne one another, and how that death would be more welcome to either than to be sundered through this life; and at last, with tears starting to my eyes (for I had worked myself up to a state of great excitement), I stopped short and threw myself at the Bishop's feet, and cried through my sobs,—
"And, O my lord, if you would but be their friend and marry them, so that none could sunder them more, they would bless you for ever, and I trow you never would repent it; and methinks even Lord Lonsdale would rejoice to have his son given back to him—with so fair and sweet a bride at his side. He loves Mistress Mary—he always loved her; and sure to have them both brought back as if from the grave would gladden any father's heart! O my lord, think of it—think of it, I pray you on my bended knees!"