ter when the
work is done. Instead of the rich friars and monks we will have godly
citizens, each with his house and land. The King's Grace has promised
it, and you know that he keeps his word. We have had enough of the
jackdaws and their stolen goods; we will have honest birds instead. Only
be patient a little longer--"

The listening silence was broken by a loud cry--

"You damned plundering hound--"

A stone suddenly out of the gloom whizzed past Ralph and crashed through
the window behind. A great roaring rose in a moment, and the crowd
swayed and turned.

Ralph felt his heart suddenly quicken, and his hand flew to his hilt
again, but there was no need for him to act. There were terrible screams
already rising from the seething twilight in front, as the stone-thrower
was seized and trampled. He stayed a moment longer, dropped his hilt and
went into the house.

CHAPTER IX

RALPH'S WELCOME

"You will show Mistress Atherton into the room below," said Ralph to his
man, "as soon as she comes."

He was sitting on the morning following his arrival in his own chamber
upstairs. His table was a mass of papers, account-books, reckonings,
reports bearing on his Visitation journey, and he had been working at
them ever since he was dressed; for he had to present himself before
Cromwell in the course of a day or two, and the labour would be
enormous.

The room below, opposite that in which he intended to see Beatrice and
where she had waited herself a few months before while he talked with
Cromwell and the Archbishop, was now occupied by his collection of plate
and vestments, and the key was in his own pocket.

He had heard from his housekeeper on the previous evening that Beatrice
had called at the house during the afternoon, and had seemed surprised
to hear that he was to return that night; but she had said very little,
it appeared, and had only begged the woman to inform her master that she
would present herself at his house the next morning.

And now Ralph was waiting for her.

He was more ill-at-ease than he had expected to be. The events of the
evening before had given him a curious shock; and he cursed the whole
business--the snapping of the cord round the bundle, his own action and
words, the outrage that followed, and the death of the fellow that had
thrown the stone--for the body had been rescued by the watch a few
minutes later, a tattered crushed thing, beaten out of all likeness to a
man. One