'Meeting?' Dorcas looked up in surprise. 'I thought thou saidst that all the Friends had been taken.'
'All the men and women, yes,' answered Hester; 'but we children are left. We know what our Fathers and Mothers would have us do.'
Here Peter broke in, 'Yes, of course, Dorcas, we must go to show them that Friends are not cowards, and that we will keep up our Meetings come what may. Dost thou not mind what friend Thomas Curtis' wife, Mistress Nan, has often told us of her father, the Sheriff of Bristol? How he was hung before his own door, because men said he was endeavouring to betray the city to Prince Rupert, and thus serve his king in banishment. Shall we be less loyal than he?'
'Loyal to our King, Dorcas,' added Hester gently.
Dorcas hesitated no longer.
'Thou art right, Hester,' she answered, 'and Peter, thou art right too. We will go all together. I had forgotten. Of course children as well as grown-up people can wait upon God.'
The children arrived at the Friends' usual meeting place, only to find it locked and strongly guarded. They went on, undismayed, to Friend Lamboll's orchard, but, there also, two heavy padlocks, sealed with the King's seal, were upon the green gate. An old goody from a cottage hard by waved them away. 'Be off, children! Here is no place for you,' she said; adding not unkindly, 'your parents were taken near here yester eve, and the officers of the law are still prowling round. This orchard is sure to be one of the first places they will visit.'
Then seeing the tired look on Dorcas' face, as she turned to go, with heavy Stephen in her arms: 'Here, give the babe to me,' she said, 'I'll care for him this forenoon. Thy mother managed to get a word with me last night as the officers dragged her away, and I promised her I would do what I could to help you, though you be Quakers and I hold to the Church. See, he'll be safe in this cradle while you go and play, though it is forty years and more since it held a babe of my own.'
Very thankfully Dorcas laid Stephen, now sleeping peacefully, down in the oaken cradle in the old woman's flagged kitchen. Then she ran off to join the others assembled at a little distance from the orchard gate. By this time a few more children had joined them: two or three girls, and four or five older boys.
Where were they to meet? The sight of the closed house, and the sealed gate, even the mention of the officers of the law, far from frightening the children, had only made them more than ever clear that, somewhere or other, the Meeting must be held.