"How so?" I asked, investigating his countenance, for I misdoubted his meaning. Lady Surrey likewise seemed desirous to hear what he should say on that matter.
"Conscience," he answered, "should make persons, and mostly women, careful how they injure others, and cause heedless suffering, by a too great stiffness in refusing conformity to the outward practices which the laws of the country enforce, when it affects not the weightier points of faith, which God forbid any Catholic should deny. There is often as much of pride as of virtue in such rash obstinacy touching small yieldings as doth involve the ruin of a family, separation of parents and children, and more evils than can be thought of."
"Hubert," I said, fixing mine eyes on him with a searching look he cared not, I ween, to meet, for he cast his on a paper he had in his hand, and raised them not while I spoke, "'sit is by such reasonings first, and then by such small yieldings as you commend, that some have been led two or three times in their lives, yea, oftener perhaps, to profess different religions, and to take such contradictory oaths as have been by turns prescribed to them under different sovereigns, and God each time called on to witness their perjuries, whereby truth and falsehood in matters of faith shall come in time to be words without any meaning."
Then he: "You do misapprehend me, Mistress Constance, if you think I would counsel a man to utter a falsehood, or feign to believe that which in his heart he thinketh to be false. But, in heaven's name, I pray you, what harm will your father do if he listens to a minister's discourse, and suffers it to be set forth he doth ponder thereon, and in the meantime escapes to France? whereas, if he refuses the loophole now offered to him, he causeth not to himself alone, but to you and his other friends, more pain and sorrow than can be thought of, and deprives the Church of one of her servants, when her need of them is greatest."
I made no reply to this last speech; for albeit I thought my father would not accede to these terms, I did not so far trust mine own judgment thereon as to predict with certainty what his answer should be. And then Hubert said he had an order from Sir Francis that would admit me on the morrow to see my father; and he offered to go with me, and Mistress Ward too, if I listed, to present it, albeit I alone should enter his cell. I thanked him, and fixed the time of our going.
When he had left us, Lady Surrey commended his zeal, and also his moderate spirit, which did charitably allow, she said, for such as conformed to the times for the sake of others which their reconcilement would very much injure.
Before I could reply she changed this discourse, and, putting her hands on my shoulders and kissing my forehead, said,
"My Lady Lumley hath heard so much from her poor niece of one [{178}] Mistress Constance Sherwood, that she doth greatly wish to see this young gentlewoman and very resolved papist." And then taking me by the arm she led me to that lady's chamber, where I had as kind a welcome as ever I received from any one from her ladyship, who said "her dear Nan's friends should be always as dear to her as her own," and added many fine commendations greatly exceeding my deserts.
[TO BE CONTINUED.] [Page 304]