"Oh, my good child, I thought not to have seen thee in these thy grown-up years. Master Rugeley," he added, turning to his host, "this is the little girl I forsook four years ago, for to obtain the hundredfold our Lord doth promise."
"My very dear father," I said, "joy is swallowed up in fear. God help me, I came to warn a stranger (if so be any priest in these times should be a stranger to a Catholic), and I find you."
"Oh, but I am mightfully pleased," quoth he, "to see thee, my child, even in this wise, and to hear thee speak like a true daughter of Holy Church. And Lady l'Estrange is then thy friend?"
"Yea, my dear father; but for God and our lady's sake hide yourself. I warrant yon the constables may soon be here. Master Rugeley, where can he be concealed, or whither fly, and I with him?"
"Nay, prithee not so fast," quoth he. "Flight would be useless; and in the matter of hiding, one should be more easily concealed than two; beside that, the hollow of a tree, which Master Rugeley will, I ween, appoint me for a bed-chamber to-night, should hardly lodge us both with comfort."
"Oh, sir," said Rugeley, "do not tarry."
"For thy sake, no; not for more than one minute, Thomas; but ere I part from this wench, two questions I must needs ask her."
Then he drew me aside and inquired what facilities I continued to have in London for the exercise of Catholic religion, and if I was punctual in the discharge of my spiritual duties. When I had satisfied him thereon, he asked if the report was true which he heard from a prisoner for recusancy in Wisbeach Castle, concerning my troth-plight with Mr. Rookwood.
"Yea," I said, "it is true, if so be you now do add your consent to it."
He answered he should do so with all his heart, for he knew him to be a good Catholic and a virtuous gentleman; and as we might lack the opportunity to receive his blessing later, he should now give it unto me for both his most dear children. Which he did, laying his hand on my head with many fervent benisons, couched in such words as these, that he prayed for us to be stayed up with the shore of God's grace in this world; and after this transitory life should end, to ascend to him, and appear pure and unspotted before his glorious seat. Then he asked me if it was Lady l'Estrange who had detected him; whereupon I briefly related to him what had occurred, and how sore her grief was therein.