said to Stead, who had stayed with the cattle.
"He had no book, and it was all out of his own head, not a bit like old
times."

"Of course not," said Emlyn. "He had got no surplice, and I knew him for
a prick-eared Roundhead! I should have run off home if you had not held
me, Patience. I'll never go there again."

"I am sure you made it a misery to me, trying to make Rusha and Ben as
idle and restless as yourself," said Patience.

"They ought not to listen to a mere Roundhead sectary," said Emlyn,
tossing her head. "I couldn't have borne it if I had not had the young
ladies to look at. They had got silk hoods and curls and lace collars,
so as it was a shame a mere Puritan should wear."

"O Emlyn, Emlyn, it is all for the outside," said Patience. "Now, I
did somehow like to hear good words, though they were not like the old
ones."

"Good, indeed! from a trumpery Puritan."

Stead went to church in the afternoon. He was eighteen now, and that
great struggle and effort had made him more of a man. He thought much
when he was working alone in the fields, and he had spent his time on
Sundays in reading his Bible and Prayer-book, and comparing them with
Jeph's tracts. Since Emlyn had come, he had made a corner of the cowshed
fit to sleep in, by stuffing the walls with dry heather, and the
sweet breath of the cows kept it sufficiently warm, and on the winter
evenings, he took a lantern there with one of Patience's rush lights,
learnt a text or two anew, and then repeated passages to himself and
thought over them. What would seem intolerably dull to a lad now, was
rest to one who had been rendered older than his age by sorrow and
responsibility, and the events that were passing led people to consider
religious questions a great deal.

But Stead was puzzled. The minister was not like the soldiers whom he
had heard raving about the reign of the saints, and abusing the church.
He prayed for the King's having a good deliverance from his troubles,
and for the peace of the kingdom, and he gave out that there was to be
a week of fasting, preaching, and preparation for the Sacrament of the
Lord's Supper.

The better sort of people in the village were very much pleased, nobody
except Goody Grace was dissatisfied, and people told her that was only
because she was old and given to grumbling at everything new. Blane the
Smith tapped Stead on the shoulder, and said, "Hark ye, my lad. If it
be true that thou wast in old Parson's secr