ight with it--Rose
calmly went her way, wetted a rag, and bound up her injured hand, and
then drew the ale and carried it to her mother.

"How long hast thou been, child!" said her mother, who of course had no
notion what had been going on downstairs.

"Ay, Mother; I am sorry for it," was the quiet reply. "Master Tyrrel
stayed me in talk for divers minutes."

"What said he to thee?" anxiously demanded Alice.

"He asked me if I did mean to entreat you and my father to be good
Catholics; and when I denied the same, gave me some ill words."

Rose said nothing about the burning, and as she dexterously kept her
injured hand out of her mother's sight, all that Alice realised was that
the girl was a trifle less quick and handy than usual.

"She's a good, quick maid in the main," said she to herself: "I'll not
fault her if she's upset a bit."

While Rose was helping her mother to dress, the Bailiff was questioning
her step-father whether any one else was in the house.

"I'm here," said John Thurston, rising from the pallet-bed where he lay
in a corner of the little scullery. "You'd best take me, if you want
me."

"Take them all!" cried Tyrrel. "They be all in one tale, be sure."

"Were you at mass this last Sunday?" said the Bailiff to Thurston. He
was not quite so bad as Tyrrel.

"No, that was I not," answered Thurston firmly.

"Wherefore?"

"Because I will not worship any save God Almighty."

"Why, who else would we have you to worship?"

"Nay, it's not who else, it's what else. You would have me to worship
stocks and stones, that cannot hear nor see; and cakes of bread that the
baker made overnight in his oven. I've as big a throat as other men,
yet can I not swallow so great a notion as that the baker made Him that
made the baker."

"Of a truth, thou art a naughty heretic!" said the Bailiff; "and I must
needs carry thee hence with the rest. But where is thy wife?"

Ay, where was Margaret? Nobody had seen her since the Bailiff knocked
at the door. He ordered his men to search for her; but she had hidden
herself so well that some time passed before she could be found. At
length, with much laughter, one of the Bailiff's men dragged her out of
a wall-closet, where she crouched hidden behind an old box. Then the
Bailiff shouted for Alice Mount and Rose to be brought down, and
proceeded to tie his prisoners together, two and two,--Rose contriving
to slip back, so that she should be marched behind h