t repeat the offence. "Five
slices of meat be enough for one man's supper."

This allusion to the number of the prisoners, and the rapacity of the
Bailiff, was received with laughter by the crowd. The Bailiff's temper,
never of the best, was quite beyond control by this time. He relieved
it by giving Mount a heavy blow, as he pushed him into line after tying
his wife to him.

"Hit him back, Father Mount!" cried one of the voices. William Mount
shook his head with a smile.

"I'll hit some of you--see if I don't!" responded the incensed Bailiff,
who well knew his own unpopularity.

"Hush, fellows!" said an authoritative voice. "Will ye resist the
Queen's servants?"

John Thurston and his wife were next tied together, and placed behind
the Mounts, the crowd remaining quiet while this was being done. Then
they brought Rose Allen, and fastened her, by a cord round her wrists,
to the same rope.

"Eh, Lord have mercy on the young maid!" said a woman's voice in a
compassionate tone.

"Young witch, rather!" responded a man, roughly.

"Hold thy graceless tongue, Jack Milman!" replied a woman's shrill
tones. "Didn't Rose Allen make broth for thee when we were both sick,
and go out of a cold winter night a-gathering herbs to ease thy pain?
Be shamed to thee, if thou knows what shame is, casting ill words at her
in her trouble!"

Just as the prisoners were marched off, another voice hitherto silent
seemed to come from the very midst of the crowd. It said,--

"Be ye faithful unto death, and Christ shall give you a crown of life."

"Take that man!" said the Bailiff, stopping.

But the man was not to be found. Nobody knew--at least nobody would
own--who had uttered those fearless words.

So the prisoners were marched away on the road to Colchester. They went
in at Bothal's Gate, up Bothal Street, and past the Black Friars'
monastery to the Castle.

Colchester Castle is one of the oldest castles in England, for it was
built by King Edward the Elder, the son of Alfred the Great. It is a
low square mass, with the largest Norman keep, or centre tower, in the
country. The walls are twelve feet thick, and the whole ground floor,
and two of the four towers, are built up perfectly solid from the
bottom, that it might be made as strong as possible. It was built with
Roman bricks, and the Roman mortar still sticks to some of them.
Builders always know Roman mortar, for it is so much harder than any
mortar people k