chamber, over Master
Commissary's chamber, wherein stood a great pair of very high stocks. Then
Master Commissary asked me for my purse and girdle, and took away my money
and my knives; and then they put my legs into the stocks, and so locked me
fast in them, in which I sate, my feet being almost as high as my head; and
so they departed, locking fast the door, and leaving me alone.

"When they were all gone, then came into my remembrance the worthy
forewarning and godly declaration of that most constant martyr of God,
Master John Clark, who, well nigh two years before that, when I did
earnestly desire him to grant me to be his scholar, said unto me after this
sort: 'Dalaber, you desire you wot not what, and that which you are, I
fear, unable to take upon you; for though now my preaching be sweet and
pleasant to you, because there is no persecution laid on you for it, yet
the time will come, and that, peradventure, shortly, if ye continue to live
godly therein, that God will lay on you the cross of persecution, to try
you whether you can as pure gold abide the fire. You shall be called and
judged a heretic; you shall be abhorred of the world; your own friends and
kinsfolk will forsake you, and also hate you; you shall be cast into
prison, and none shall dare to help you; you shall be accused before
bishops, to your reproach and shame, to the great sorrow of all your
friends and kinsfolk. Then will ye wish ye had never known this doctrine;
then will ye curse Clark, and wish that ye had never known him because he
hath brought you to all these troubles.'

"At which words, I was so grieved that I fell down on my knees at his feet,
and with tears and sighs besought him that, for the tender mercy of God, he
would not refuse me; saying that I trusted, verily, that he which had begun
this in me would not forsake me, but would give me grace to continue
therein to the end. When he heard me say so, he came to me, took me in his
arms and kissed me, the tears trickling from his eyes; and said unto me:
'The Lord God Almighty grant you so to do; and from henceforth for ever,
take me for your father, and I will take you for my son in Christ.'"

In these meditations the long Sunday morning wore away. A little before
noon the commissary came again to see if his prisoner was more amenable;
finding him, however, still obstinate, he offered him some dinner--a
promise which we will hope he fulfilled, for here Dalaber's own narrative
abruptl