And the chance was that they had not gone a mile before they passed the man Farry standing by the cross roads, who closely looked at them.
Mr. Bunyan did not salute him, not being of his acquaintance, and Mrs. Endicott stared at him with eyes that might have been of glass, so blank they were; thereupon Gilbert Farry went softly to Edworth and spoke to George Endicott, and said–
“I have seen your daughter riding pillion with John Bunyan to Gamlingay as if they were man and wife.”
Now whether or no she pictured Mr. Farry poisoning her father, Mrs. Endicott stayed to the end of the meeting and seemed wrapt in the ecstasy of worship and the joy of the moment.
Yet when the meeting was over her sorrows began again; Mr. Bunyan was riding another way, and there was no manner of means for her to get home. There was much delay and argument, and then she found a woman who had a cart and who would take her as far as her sister-in-law’s house, but from there was no convenience, yet mindful of her promise to her father Mrs. Endicott set out on the dark, miry and rough roads and so came to her home, spent with walking and affrighted with loneliness. Still it was not more than eleven of the clock, and it caused her amaze to see the windows dark and the door locked.
With trembling hands she knocked at the door, and her father came to an upper window with a candle in his hand and demanded who was there.
“It is I, father, come home wet and dirty,” replied Mrs. Endicott. “I pray you let me in.”
“Nay,” he answered. “Where you have been all the evening you may go all the night–and never do you cross my threshold until I have your promise not to see John Bunyan again.”
“That is to give up my soul’s life,” she said; “and I cannot.”
Thereupon he shut the window and took away the light.