"If I can," answered Reginald; "but I doubt if that be possible. For myself, I shall go abroad. Surely better days will dawn ere long!"
He might well say this, he might well hope this. Throughout England and Scotland a religious persecution was waging: the Act of Uniformity was passed. Against the Independents and the Presbyterians the utmost rigour of the law was enforced; the prisons were filled with nonconformist ministers and their people. Many compared this time to the great St. Bartholomew massacre of the Huguenots. And what was still more grievous to all righteous souls, the court was a hideous place, full of evil-doings, grieving those who retained still the faintest semblance of morality.
The marriage of the king did not improve the state of things; indeed, it made matters worse, for the misery endured by the young queen, Catherine of Braganza, was very great. She was left in solitude, her own country-people were taken away from her, and she was forced to consort with the king's friends, who, for the most part, were distasteful to her.
All the ideal dreams which Reginald and Ann had dreamt fell crumbling to the ground. They looked back with something almost of regret to the days of Cromwell's rule, when the strictest observance of religious duty and of virtue was at least commended. Their hearts were sore within them. How would it end? There seemed much trouble in the future for both of them.
"If only a war would break out I would volunteer," said Reginald. "I will not stay at home. If I cannot serve my king at home, I will serve my country by sea or by land."
"And I will serve my mother," said Ann; and timidly, because she feared her, and yet fondly, because she knew she was her mother, Ann threw her arms round her neck and whispered softly in her ears:
"Where thou goest I will go; thy God shall be my God."
Mistress Newbolt did not return the caress, she merely answered:
"It is the will of the Lord. Thou shalt abide with me."
That same day she dismissed all her servants, acting justly by them, even kindly, for she gave them their full wages and something over; then she and Ann went together into the city, and found two or three rooms at the top of a house in the Old Bailey.