if we walk up and down here we
shall be private. It does my heart good to commune with a faithful young
son of the Church."

Steadfast told his story, at which the good old Canon was much affected.
His brother Holworth, as he called him, was not in prison but in the
Virginian plantations. He was still the only true minister of Elmwood,
and Mr. Woodley, though owned by the present so-called law of the land,
was not there rightly by the law of the Church, and, therefore, Stead
was certainly not bound to surrender the trust to him, but rather the
contrary.

The Doctor could have gone into a long disquisition about Presbyterian
Orders, contradicting the arguments many good and devout people adduced
in favour of them, but there was little time, so he only confirmed with
authority Stead's belief that a Bishop's Ordination was indispensable
to a true pastor, "the only door by which to enter to the charge of the
fold."

Then came the other question of attendance on his ministry, and whether
to attend the feast given out for the Sunday week, after the long-forced
abstinence: Patience's, ever since the break-up of the parish;
Steadfast's, since the siege of Bristol. Dr. Eales considered, "I cannot
bid you go to that in the efficacy of which neither you nor I believe,
my son," he said. "It would not be with faith. Here, indeed, I have
ministered privately to a few of the faithful in their own houses, but
the risk is over great for you and your sister to join us, espied as we
are. How is it with your home?"

"O, sir, would you even come thither?" exclaimed Steadfast, joyfully,
and he described his ravine, which was of course known to the Elmwood
neighbours, but very seldom visited by them, never except in the
middle of the day, and where the thicket and the caverns afforded every
facility for concealment.

Whitsun Day was coming, and Dr. Eales proposed to come over to the glen
and celebrate the Holy Feast in the very early morning before anyone was
astir. There were a few of his Bristol flock who would be thankful for
the opportunity of meeting more safely than they could do in the city,
since at Easter they had as nearly as possible been all arrested in a
pavilion in Mr. Rivett's garden which they had thought unsuspected.

There would be one market day first, and on that Stead would come and
explain his preparations, and hear what the Doctor had arranged. And
so it was. The time was to be three o'clock, the very dawn of the