st to persuade the Governor of the Netherlands to suppress it.
However, said Mr. Simpson, it was not yet done.

Anthony, too, in his turn gave the news of the county; he spoke of Mr.
Fenton, of the FitzHerberts and others that were safe and discreet
persons; but he said nothing at that time of Mr. Audrey of Matstead, at
which Robin was glad, since his shame deepened on him every hour, and
all the more now that he had met with those three men who rode so
gallantly through the country in peril of liberty or life itself. Nor
did he say anything of the FitzHerberts except that they might be relied
upon.

"We must be riding," said Garlick at last; "these moors are strange to
me; and it will be dark in half an hour."

"Will you allow me to be your guide, sir?" asked Anthony of the priest.
"It is all in my road, and you will not be troubled with questions or
answers if you are in my company."

"But what of your friend, sir?"

"Oh! Robin knows the country as he knows the flat of his hand. We were
about to separate as we met you."

"Then we will thankfully accept your guidance, sir," said the priest
gravely.

An impulse seized upon Robin as he was about to say good-day, though he
was ashamed of it five minutes later as a modest lad would be. Yet he
followed it now; he leapt off his horse and, holding Cecily's rein in
his arm, kneeled on the stones with both knees.

"Your blessing, sir," he said to the priest. And Anthony eyed him with
astonishment.

III

Robin was moved, as he rode home over the high moors, and down at last
upon the woods of Matstead, in a manner that was new to him, and that he
could not altogether understand. He had met travelling priests before;
indeed, all the priests whose masses he had ever heard, or from whom he
had received the sacraments, were travelling priests who went in peril;
and yet this young man, upon whose consecrated hands the oil was
scarcely yet dry, moved and drew his heart in a manner that he had never
yet known. It was perhaps something in the priest's face that had so
affected him; for there was a look in it of a kind of surprised timidity
and gentleness, as if he wondered at himself for being so foolhardy, and
as if he appealed with that same wonder and surprise to all who looked
on him. His voice, too, was gentle, as if tamed for the seminary and the
altar; and his whole air and manner wholly unlike that of some of the
priests whom Robin knew--loud-voiced, confident, bur