'Sir,' she said to Cromwell, 'mine own foster-sister had the veil
there; mine own mother's sister was there the abbess.' She stretched
out a hand. 'Sir, they dwelled there simply and godly, withdrawn from
the world; succouring the poor; weaving of fine linens, for much flax
grew upon those lands by there; and praying God and the saints that
blessings fall upon this land.'

Wriothesley spoke to her slowly and heavily:

'Such little abbeys ate up the substance of this land in the old days.
Well have we prospered since they were done away who ate up the
fatness of this realm. Now husbandmen till their idle soil and cattle
are in their buildings.'

'Gentleman whose name I know not,' she turned upon him, 'more wealth
and prosperity God granted us in answer to their prayers than could be
won by all the husbandmen of Arcadia and all the kine of Cacus. God
standeth above all men's labours.' But Cromwell's servants had sworn
away the lands of the small abbey, and now the abbess and her nuns lay
in gaol accused--and falsely--of having secreted an image of Saint
Hugh to pray against the King's fortunes.

'Before God,' she said, 'and as Christ is my Saviour, I saw and make
deposition that these poor simple women did no such thing but loved
the King as he had been their good father. I have seen them at their
prayers. Before God, I say to you that they were as folk astonished
and dismayed; knowing so little of the world that ne one ne other knew
whence came the word that had bared them to the skies. I have seen
them--I.'

'Where went they?' Wriothesley said; 'what worked they?'

'Gentleman,' she answered; 'being cast out of their houses and their
veils, they knew nowhither to go; homes they had none; they lived with
their own hinds in hovels, like frightened lambs, the saints their
pastors being driven from their folds.'

'Aye,' Wriothesley said grimly, 'they cumbered the ground; they did
meet in knots for mutinies.'

'God had appointed them the duty of prayer,' Katharine answered him.
'They met and prayed in sheds and lodges of the house that had been
theirs, poor ghosts revisiting and bewailing their earthly homes. I
have prayed with them.'

'Ye have done a treason in that day,' Wriothesley answered.

'I have done the best that ever I did for this land,' she met him
fully. 'I prayed naught against the King and the republic. I have
prayed you and your like might be cast down. So do I still. I stand
here to avow it. But