"Alas! Poor maid, was she so far left to herself?" said the shepherd, when he heard of Anne's part in the transaction. "We must put up many prayers for her. And how is your father disposed?"
"He gave me his blessing ere I left him, and do not think he is angry with me. I left him with old Father John, who rode all the way from Holford to give me warning, but he was too late. But how were you taken, dear uncle?"
"Even as I would have desired—on my knees," replied the old man smiling. "I was in the little thicket whither I have long resorted for prayer and reading, as my father did before me, when a band of men, headed by Brother Joseph the sacristan, broke in on me. I told them it was paying a fair compliment to an old man-at-arms, that at nearly ninety, he should need six men to secure him."
"But surely Sir John Brydges will take your part?" said Jack.
"I believe he can do nothing," replied Thomas Sprat. "They have raked up the old matter of Lollardie, and Father Barnaby assures me that as a relapsed heretic, I have no chance of being admitted to mercy, though if I will recant my errors I may perhaps, in time, be delivered from purgatory."
"Many thanks to him," said Jack. "He hath been profuse in his promises to me if I will recant, even to promising me church advancement. But do you know aught of Arthur?"
"They have not apprehended him, but more than that I do not know," replied the shepherd.
"But here comes the jailer with our bread and water."
"Methinks on a feast day they might offer us better fare," said Jack. "It is scarce canonical to fast upon St. Michael's day."
"Don't cry out before you are hurt, young sir," said the jailer, depositing a jug of broth on the table. "I have so far stretched my orders as to bring you the same breakfast as the other prisoners who are only confined for highway robbery, murder, and the like."