the head said in a hoarse whisper from its place low down
on the door-jamb. It was Monsey Laman, red and puffing after a sharp
run.

"It's the laal Frenchman. Come thy ways in," said Matthew. Rotha, who
was coming and going from the kitchen to the larder, found a chair for
the schoolmaster, and he slid into it with the air of one who was
persuading himself that his late advent was unobserved.

"I met that Garth--that--Joe Garth on the road, and he kept me,"
whispered Monsey apologetically to Matthew across the table. The
presence of Death somewhere in the vicinity had banished the
schoolmaster's spirit of fun.

While this was going on at one end of the table, Rotha had made her
way to the other end, with the ostensible purpose of cutting up the
cheese, but with the actual purpose of listening to a conversation in
which his reverence Nicholas Stevens was beginning to bear an
unusually animated part. Some one had made allusion to the sudden and,
as was alleged, the unseemly departure of Ralph Ray on the eve of his
father's funeral. Some one else had deplored the necessity for that
departure, and had spoken of it as a cruel outrage on the liberties of
a good man. From this generous if somewhat disloyal sentiment his
reverence was expressing dissent. He thought it nothing but just that
the law should take its course.

This might involve the mortification of our private feelings; it would
certainly be a grief to him, loving, as he did, the souls committed to
his care; but individual affections must be sacrificed to the general
weal. The young man, Ralph Ray, had outraged the laws of his country
in fighting and conspiring against his anointed King. It was hard, but
it was right, that he should be punished for his treason.

His reverence was speaking in cold metallic tones, that fell like the
clank of chains on Rotha's ears.

"Moreover, we should all do our best for the King," said the
clergyman, "to bring such delinquents to justice."

"Shaf!" cried Matthew Branthwaite from the other end of the table. The
little knots of talkers had suddenly become silent.

"Shaf!" repeated Matthew; "what did ye do yersel for the King in
Oliver's days? Wilt thoo mak me tell thee? Didst thoo not tak what
thoo called the oath of abjuration agen the King five years agone?
Didst thoo not? Ey? And didst thoo not come round and ask ivery man on
us to do the same?"

The clergyman looked confounded. He dropped his knife and, unable to
mak