the recent tumult though for a moment or two
Ambrose heard some distant cries.

Where should he go? Priests indeed were plentiful, but both his friends
were in bad odour with the ordinary ones. Lucas had avoided both the
Lenten shrift and Easter Communion, and what Miguel might have done,
Ambrose was uncertain. Some young priests had actually been among the
foremost in sacking the dwellings of the unfortunate foreigners, and
Ambrose was quite uncertain whether he might not fall on one of that
stamp--or on one who might vex the old man's soul--perhaps deny him the
Sacraments altogether. As he saw the pale lighted windows of Saint
Paul's, it struck him to see whether any one were within. The light
might be only from some of the tapers burning perpetually, but the pale
light in the north-east, the morning chill, and the clock striking
three, reminded him that it must be the hour of Prime, and he said to
himself, "Sure, if a priest be worshipping at this hour, he will be a
good and merciful man. I can but try."

The door of the transept yielded to his hand. He came forward, lighted
through the darkness by the gleam of the candles, which cast a huge and
awful shadow from the crucifix of the rood-screen upon the pavement.
Before it knelt a black figure in prayer. Ambrose advanced in some awe
and doubt how to break in on these devotions, but the priest had heard
his step, rose and said, "What is it, my son? Dost thou seek sanctuary
after these sad doings?"

"Nay, reverend sir," said Ambrose. "'Tis a priest for a dying man I
seek;" and in reply to the instant question, where it was, he explained
in haste who the sufferer was, and how he had received a fatal blow, and
was begging for the Sacraments. "And oh, sir!" he added, "he is a holy
and God-fearing man, if ever one lived, and hath been cruelly and foully
entreated by jealous and wicked folk, who hated him for his skill and
industry."

"Alack for the unhappy lads; and alack for those who egged them on,"
said the priest. "Truly they knew not what they did. I will come with
thee, my good youth. Thou hast not been one of them?"

"No, truly sir, save that I was carried along and could not break from
the throng. I work for Lucas Hansen, the Dutch printer, whom they have
likewise plundered in their savage rage."

"'Tis well. Thou canst then bear this," said the priest, taking a thick
wax candle. Then reverently advancing to the Altar, whence he took the
pyx