"He hath not yet been to church, thank God!" he said. "So much I know for certain. But he hath promised to go."
"Why is he not yet gone? He promised a great while ago."
"I hear he hath been sick. Derby gaol is a pestiferous place. They are waiting, I suppose, till he is well enough to go publicly, that all the world may be advertised of it!"
Mr. Garlick gave a bursting sigh.
"I cannot understand it at all," he said. "There has never been so zealous a priest. I have ridden with him again and again before I was a priest. He was always quiet; but I took him to be one of those stout-hearted souls that need never brag. Why, it was here that we heard him tell of Mr. Nelson's death!"
Mr. John threw out his hands.
"These prisons are devilish," he said; "they wear a man out as the rack can never do. Why, see my son!" he cried. "Oh! I can speak of him if I am but moved enough! It was that same Derby gaol that wore him out too! It is the darkness, and the ill food, and the stenches and the misery. A man's heart fails him there, who could face a thousand deaths in the sunlight. Man after man hath fallen there—both in Derby, and in London and in all the prisons. It is their heart that goes—all the courage runs from them like water, with their health. If it were the rack and the rope only, England would be Catholic, yet, I think."
The old man's face blazed with indignation; it was not often that he so spoke out his mind. It was very easy to see that he had thought continually of his son's fall.
"Mistress Manners hath told me the very same thing," said Robin. "She visited Mr. Thomas in gaol once at least. She said that her heart failed her altogether there."
Mr. Ludlam smiled.