turned
round.

"What's your own name?"

It was a terrible temptation! If he gave a false name, the strong
probability was that they would pass on, and he would very likely get
safe away. It was Johnson of whom they were thinking, not himself. But
that would enable them to reach Johnson's cottage a minute sooner, and
it would be a cowardly lie. No! Robert Purcas had not so learned
Christ. He gave his name honestly.

"Robert Purcas! If that's not on my list--" said the Bailiff, feeling
in his pocket. "Ay, here it is--stay! _William_, Purcas, of Booking,
fuller, aged twenty, single; is that you?"

"My name is Robert, not William," said the young man.

"But thou art a fuller? and single? and aged twenty?"

"Ay, all that is so."

"Dost thou believe the bread of the sacred host to be transmuted after
consecration into the body of Christ, so that no substance of bread is
left there at all?"

"I do not. I cannot, for I see the bread."

"He's a heretic!" cried Simnel. "Robert or William, it is all one.
Take the heretic!"

And so Robert Purcas was seized, and carried to the Moot Hall in
Colchester--a fate from which one word of falsehood would have freed
him, but it would have cost him his Father's smile.

The Moot Hall of Colchester was probably the oldest municipal building
in England. It was erected soon after the Conquest, and its low
circular arches and piers ornamented the High Street until 1843, when
the town Vandals were pleased to destroy it because it impeded the
traffic. Robert was taken into the dungeon, and the great door slammed
to behind him. He could not see for a few minutes, coming fresh from
the light of day: and before he was able to make anything out clearly,
an old lady's voice accosted him.

"Robert Purcas, if I err not?" she said. "I am sorry to behold thee
here, friend."

"Truly, Mistress, more than I am, that am come hither in Christ's
cause."

"Ay? Then thou art well come."

"Methinks it is Mistress Silverside?"

"Thou sayest well. I shall have company now," said the old lady with a
smile. "Methought some of my brethren and sisters should be like to
have after."

"I reckon," responded Purcas, "we be sure at the least of our Father's
company."

The great door just then rolled back, and they heard the gaoler's voice
outside.

"Gramercy, but this is tidy work!" cried he. "Never had no such
prisoners here afore. I don't know what to do with 'em. There, get y