"Nay, my dear father, say not so," replied Jack earnestly. "Truly, this cross is a heavy one, and hard for flesh to bear; yet I cannot regret that I have taken it up. The truth as I have learned it, first from Uncle Thomas, and afterward from the Scripture itself, is worth more to me than all the world hath to offer. I only pray that I may have grace to hold it to the end."
"Well, well! It skills not, arguing that matter now," said his father rather impatiently. "The question now is, how are we to use the good man's warning. You might go to Harrowdale where Madam Barbara is. I am sure the squire would give you welcome—or you might go out to Holford."
"I doubt that would be stepping from the frying-pan into the fire, as matters are at present," said Jack; "and yet I would fain see my uncle."
"Well, well, we will talk farther, presently, when the folks are abed," returned his father; "we must not remain longer here, or Anne will suspect something. I would she were away."
"Father," said Jack earnestly, "I beg of you, and it were the last favor I should ever ask of you, as it well may be—I pray you, be kind and patient with Anne. She is very unhappy, and at times, I think, she is hardly herself."
"If she be honest and true, I will be a kind father to her, as I have ever been, I think," said the baker; "but if she prove a traitor, and do aught to betray her brother—"
"She may not be able to help it," said Jack. "Do you not see, dear father, that she must answer any questions the priest chooses to ask her? With that engine of confession in their hands, the churchmen hold the inmost keys of every man's house and family."
"A plague take the whole of them!" exclaimed Master Lucas.
"A plague is like to take them, and that before long, if all we hear about the breaking up of the religious houses be true," said Jack. "It is because they know how it will take the power out of their hands, that the priests so oppose the spread of the true gospel. But I pray you, father, be kind to Anne, for my sake."
"Are you and Jack going to stay in the cellar all night and catch your deaths with the damp?" called Cicely from the top of the stairs. "Here is supper all but ready, and you would but draw the wine and ale, and I am sure you must need your food, as well as the good father yonder. Marry, I was fain to give him a dish of cakes to stay his appetite till supper was ready."