"As to that," replied my father, "he knew enough not to return to brave the king's anger. He ran away to Holland, and the king having been much beholden to Fitzroy's father hath not sent after him. Nevertheless, Charles was very angry. He was much struck with the maid's beauty; moreover, from what I can hear, his discomfiture hath been much laughed at by the wits of the town. Oh, the maid was clever, there can be no doubt of that, and verily she hath made me believe, almost in spite of myself, in the virtue of women."
"But you said you know where she is now," I said, for although my heart rejoiced at what I had heard, I longed much to know how she fared after these long weary months of my imprisonment.
"Did I say that?" said my father. "Then I said too much; but methinks I may be able to tell you that which may set you thinking."
"What?" I cried feverishly.
"As you know," went on my father, "the bishops and clergy of the Episcopal Church have prevailed on the king to pass stringent laws concerning these prating Puritans. In truth these men of God have so hedged them around, that a Nonconformist is nearly as badly placed as were Protestants during the reign of Mary. They are not allowed to preach, or to pray, except according to the bishops' will. In fact they are hardly able to live at all, for they be hunted like foxes and rats from one place to another. It is true they ought to subscribe to the Prayer-book, and take all the oaths which the king prescribes, but you see they will not. Thus they are fined and imprisoned by the hundreds."
"I have heard this," I cried; "but what hath it to do with the whereabouts of Constance?"
"I am coming to that," replied my father; "and the less you interrupt me the sooner you will know all I have to tell. As a consequence of these laws, there be hundreds of families without homes or friends, whom God must indeed pity. They have no shelter but the hedgeside; no food but what is free to the rabbits and the fowls of the air. Many of them were parish ministers, and since the Act of Uniformity and the other Acts their condition hath been piteous. Of course they be fools, for why cannot they swallow their scruples and be done with it? But they will not. The clergy refuse to be episcopally ordained, and they will continue to preach, and hence the trouble. Well, it seems that a Master Leslie, who was own cousin to Sir John, was one of these Presbyterian or Independent ministers who refused to be ordained by a bishop, and thus he was cast into the lanes, with a wife and six children. For a long time I suppose he had no shelter but the hedges, for the farmers were afraid even to give them a hiding place in their barns. At length, however, a farmer was brave enough to give them shelter in an outhouse; at any rate, he did not inform the vicar or the magistrates about them. Some say he even brought them food, but concerning that I have no certain knowledge. About a fortnight ago, however, the magistrates heard of them, and sent the constables to take them, on what pretext I don't know. It seems that just as the constables were entering the barn they saw a woman come out, and one of them swears it was Mistress Constance Leslie."
"Where was this?" I cried.
"At a parish about three miles from Bedford; I have forgotten the name."
"And how long ago?"