'Madam,' he cried, 'let me hand the meat up to you.'
The lady looked down and saw the worn, thin face. Perhaps she thought the boy looked hungry enough to need the food himself, but something in his eager glance touched her, and when he added, 'For I have come one hundred and fifty miles to see GEORGE FOX,' her kind heart was won.
'Nay, then, thou hast a better right to help him even than I,' she said, 'though I am his very good friend and Colonel Benson's wife. Thou shall hand up the dishes to me, and when our friend is satisfied, thou and I will finish what remains, for in the Lord's power I am moved to eat no meat at my own house, but to share all my sustenance with His faithful servant who lies within this noisome gaol.'
'Madam,' said the boy, speaking with the concentrated intensity of weeks of suppressed longing, 'for the food, it is no matter, though I am much beholden to you. I hunger after but one thing. Bring me within the gaol where I may speak with him face to face. There is that, that I have come afoot a hundred miles to ask him.
'Bring me to him, speedily I pray you, for, though even unseen I love him,
'I MUST SEE GEORGE FOX.'