The pity was not spoken in words; but the two fathers, old and long friends, understood each other not the less.
“I can but spend a night with my little ones,” said Master Chester, after a long pause; “and God knoweth how many nights shall be spent ere I look on them again. Is it to-morrow, brother, that this dark oppression becomes law?”
“Lady-day—yes, to-morrow,” was the answer; “and then, brother Chester, you join us in the North?”
“My sister Magdalene dwells in mine old parish,” said Master Chester, “and so I may not take refuge with her, though she hath wherewith to give my children bread; but, brother, thou sayest well—it is bitter and hard that I should not dare venture to tarry with them a day, lest pains of imprisonment and evil report come upon me. God strengthen us to bear all. For Cumberland? Yes; thy kinsman, Philip Dacre, offers me shelter in his house, for thy sake, and for mine own. God wot, a painful shelter, brother Field; eating of that for which I have not labored; yet to the Lord, who hath ordained this poverty, be all thanks, because He hath ordained also succor for His poor. And thou, brother, goest thou not also to Thornleigh?”
“Nay,” said Master Field, “my Edith goeth with me wherever I go; and, albeit, Philip Dacre is her kinsman; it can not be to Thornleigh.”
“Our Father bless the little one; she hath a stout heart, and a valiant,” said Master Chester; “and truly I admire and marvel how the Lord bringeth the sweet out of the bitter, as truly, brother, it is oft His good pleasure to bring the bitter out of the sweet. A dark dawn, and a bright noonday, for thy twain, and as fair a morrow as ever broke, and as sad an early even as ever fell for mine. So are our meetings and our sunderings here; and, truly, for the brief joy of them, what better are we than sundered in our very meetings; but the Lord’s will be done.”
“He will console thee, brother,” said Caleb Field. “Thy Mary is young, and fresh, and hopeful. The blast will bend the youthful spirit, but it will not break it.”
“Yea—yea,” said Master Chester, “it is even so, I know; but truly painful it is, brother, to think that we shall some time forget our pain—thou knowest? She is a good child—a blessed child, as ever made mortal household glad; and I must carry sadness to her. Nevertheless, surely it is well; and it had not been well, He had not sent it.”
An hour after, they were riding forth from the city, which, for a second time, had rejected them, pursued by the rigorous cruelty of that famed “Five-Mile Act,” which Charles and his counselors had devised in the retreat of their cowardice at Oxford, while those very men, whom they sentenced to perpetual banishment, wandering, and poverty, were laboring for the people stricken by God’s judgment. Edith, protected from the cold, as well as her scanty wardrobe would allow, rode behind her father. Master Chester was beside them. As they reached the high road to the north, they encountered Master Franklin.
“Brother Franklin,” said Master Chester, “what is thy destination, that thou art still tarrying here?”