er
Commissary's chamber, wherein stood a great pair of very high stocks.
Then Master Commissary asked me for my purse and girdle, and took away
my money and my knives; and then they put my legs into the stocks, and
so locked me fast in them, in which I sate, my feet being almost as high
as my head; and so they departed, locking fast the door, and leaving me
alone.

"When they were all gone, then came into my remembrance the worthy
forewarning and godly declaration of that most constant martyr of God,
Master John Clark, who, well nigh two years before that, when I did
earnestly desire him to grant me to be his scholar, said unto me after
this sort: 'Dalaber, you desire you wot not what, and that which you
are, I fear, unable to take upon you; for though now my preaching be
sweet and pleasant to you, because there is no persecution laid on you
for it, yet the time will come, and that, peradventure, shortly, if ye
continue to live godly therein, that God will lay on you the cross of
persecution, to try you whether you can as pure gold abide the fire. You
shall be called and judged a heretic; you shall be abhorred of the
world; your own friends and kinsfolk will forsake you, and also hate
you; you shall be cast into prison, and none shall dare to help you; you
shall be accused before bishops, to your reproach and shame, to the
great sorrow of all your friends and kinsfolk. Then will ye wish ye had
never known this doctrine; then will ye curse Clark, and wish that ye
had never known him because he hath brought you to all these troubles.'

"At which words I was so grieved that I fell down on my knees at his
feet, and with tears and sighs besought him that, for the tender mercy
of God, he would not refuse me; saying that I trusted, verily, that he
which had begun this in me would not forsake me, but would give me grace
to continue therein to the end. When he heard me say so, he came to me,
took me in his arms and kissed me, the tears trickling from his eyes;
and said unto me: 'The Lord God Almighty grant you so to do; and from
henceforth for ever, take me for your father, and I will take you for my
son in Christ.'"

[Sidenote: He still refuses to confess where Garret is gone.]

In these meditations the long Sunday morning wore away. A little before
noon the commissary came again to see if his prisoner was more amenable;
finding him, however, still obstinate, he offered him some dinner--a
promise which we will hope he fulfi