"No, Master Lucas, you have been very forbearing, but—"
"But me no buts!" interrupted Master Lucas. "Take the loaf and go your way, woman, unless you will stop to supper with us; and as for the money, when I want it, I will ask for it."
"I thank you with all my heart," said the woman, evidently relieved from some great anxiety. "My poor children must needs have gone supperless to bed, but for your bounty."
"How then?" demanded the baker. "Did you not get your share of the dole at the convent gate this morning? I saw old Margery carrying home a fine beef-bone, and surely you have as good a right as she—the old mumping beggar that she is!"
"Nay," replied poor Mary, smiling sadly. "I get nothing now from the convent, less or more. The fathers were so angry with poor Davy for preferring rather to go to sea than to become a lay brother, that they say they will do nothing for me. And that is not the worst either. They say my husband was a believer in the new doctrines, and accuse me of the same, though there is no one in Bridgewater who keeps her church more closely than I. New doctrines or not, he was a good husband to me, and never let me want, or lost a day's work through drink or idleness."
"And that is more than many of them can say," returned the baker. "Out on them one and all for a set of lazy crows, preying on other folks' substance!"
"Well, I am surprised to hear you say as much, Master Lucas. I had thought you were ever a favorer of the religious houses. Mistress Cicely told me that your Anne was to enter the convent where she had her schooling, and that she was a wonder for her gravity, her penances, and piety; and also that your son Jacky was likely to follow the same course."
Master Lucas shook his head. "It is by no good will of mine, dame, that Anne turns her thoughts towards the cloister. The girl is well enough, if she would but laugh or speak or do anything else in a natural way, and not go round like a waxen image or an animated corpse. As for Jack, poor fellow, I much fear he will not be long for this world in any vocation. Look at him now coming along the street, so pale and spiritless, never looking above or around him. When I was of his age, I should have raced all the way, and come in as hungry as a wolf. I much fear the lad will die in a waste like his mother before him."
"Why now, Jack, what ails thee?" he continued, as a delicate, pale boy of fifteen came slowly into the shop and dropped his strap-load of books on the counter. "Art thou ill, or have the examinations gone so much against thee? Fie, never take it to heart, lad! Better luck another time. One failure is no such great matter to break one's heart about. Many a man goes well enough through the world who never learned to know great A from little B."
"But I have not failed, dear father," said John, smiling, and, leaning on his father's broad shoulder, he drew from his breast a gold medal, and held it up before him. "See, I have gained the prize!"