enty of shot and
powder at their service. Father Parsons, you will be so kind as to
accompany us; it is but fitting that the shepherd should be hostage for
his sheep."

"If you carry me off this spot, sir, you carry my corpse only," said
Parsons. "I may as well die here as be hanged elsewhere, like my
martyred brother Campian."

"If you take him, you must take me too," said Eustace.

"What if we won't?"

"How will you gain by that? you can only leave me here. You cannot make
me go to the Gubbings, if I do not choose."

Amyas uttered sotto voce an anathema on Jesuits, Gubbings, and things in
general. He was in a great hurry to get to Bideford, and he feared that
this business would delay him, as it was, a day or two. He wanted to
hang Parsons, he did not want to hang Eustace; and Eustace, he knew,
was well aware of that latter fact, and played his game accordingly; but
time ran on, and he had to answer sulkily enough:

"Well then; if you, Eustace, will go and give my message to your
converts, I will promise to set Mr. Parsons free again before we come to
Lydford town; and I advise you, if you have any regard for his life,
to see that your eloquence be persuasive enough; for as sure as I am
an Englishman, and he none, if the Gubbings attack us, the first
bullet that I shall fire at them will have gone through his scoundrelly
brains."

Parsons still kicked.

"Very well, then, my merry men all. Tie this gentleman's hands behind
his back, get the horses out, and we'll right away up into Dartmoor,
find a good high tor, stand our ground there till morning, and then
carry him into Okehampton to the nearest justice. If he chooses to delay
me in my journey, it is fair that I should make him pay for it."

Whereon Parsons gave in, and being fast tied by his arm to Amyas's
saddle, trudged alongside his horse for several weary miles, while Yeo
walked by his side, like a friar by a condemned criminal; and in order
to keep up his spirits, told him the woful end of Nicholas Saunders the
Legate, and how he was found starved to death in a bog.

"And if you wish, sir, to follow in his blessed steps, which I heartily
hope you will do, you have only to go over that big cow-backed hill
there on your right hand, and down again the other side to Crawmere
pool, and there you'll find as pretty a bog to die in as ever Jesuit
needed; and your ghost may sit there on a grass tummock, and tell your
beads without any one asking for you til