brother at Rotterdam, bearing with him what he hath been able
to save out of the havoc. I wot not if I shall ever see the good man
more."

"I am glad thou dost not go with him," said Stephen, with a hand on his
brother's leather-covered knee.

"I would not put seas between us," returned Ambrose. "Moreover, though
I grieve to lose my good master, who hath been so scurvily entreated
here, yet, Stephen, this trouble and turmoil hath brought me that which
I longed for above all, even to have speech with the Dean of Saint
Paul's."

He then told Stephen how he had brought Dean Colet to administer the
last rites to Abenali, and how that good man had bidden Lucas to take
shelter at the Deanery, in the desolation of his own abode. This had
led to conversation between the Dean and the printer; Lucas, who
distrusted all ecclesiastics, would accept no patronage. He had a
little hoard, buried in the corner of his stall, which would suffice to
carry him to his native home and he wanted no more; but he had spoken of
Ambrose, and the Dean was quite ready to be interested in the youth who
had led him to Abenali.

"He had me to his privy chamber," said Ambrose, "and spake to me as no
man hath yet spoken--no, not even Tibble. He let me utter all my mind,
nay, I never wist before even what mine own thoughts were till he set
them before me--as it were in a mirror."

"Thou wast ever in a harl," said Stephen, drowsily, using the Hampshire
word for whirl or entanglement.

"Yea. On the one side stood all that I had ever believed or learnt
before I came hither of the one true and glorious Mother-Church to whom
the Blessed Lord had committed the keys of His kingdom, through His holy
martyrs and priests to give us the blessed host and lead us in the way
of salvation. And on the other side, I cannot but see the lewd and
sinful and worldly lives of the most part, and hear the lies whereby
they amass wealth and turn men from the spirit of truth and holiness to
delude them into believing that wilful sin can be committed without
harm, and that purchase of a parchment is as good as repentance. That
do I see and hear. And therewith my master Lucas and Dan Tindall, and
those of the new light, declare that all has been false even from the
very outset, and that all the pomp and beauty is but Satan's bait, and
that to believe in Christ alone is all that needs to justify us, casting
all the rest aside. All seemed a mist, and I was swayed hith