still; and I will cleave to it.'

As I gazed at the old man's face, pale and wrinkled and awful, I thought
that so might have looked the prophet Moses when he brake the tables of
the Law. Mr. Truelocke's deepset dark eyes flashed fire under his long
white eyebrows, which themselves seemed to stir and to rise and fall, as
he spoke with great passion, and he struck his staff against the floor.

Althea was looking from one to another, something puzzled; presently her
silver voice broke the silence that had fallen upon us; she said, 'All
that you say is so dark to me, it makes me feel like a fool for my lack
of comprehension; will you, madam, tell me in a few words what it is
that troubles you and Mr. Truelocke?'

'It's our new masters, dear heart, who have been making of new laws,'
said Mrs. Golding; and Andrew added instantly,--

'Our pastors, madam, must consent to renounce the Covenant, and must use
the Common Prayer-Book as newly set forth by authority of King Charles
the Second and his Parliament; or they must leave to preach and to pray
in the churches called of England, and must renounce their livings too;
and this by the twenty-fourth of August next, which the Papists and
such-like cattle call St. Bartholomew's Day. That is the story in little
of the doings which afflict our good mother and our reverend friend.'

'It's a dry short setting forth of the matter, friend Andrew,' said the
old man.

'But is it a true one?' asked Althea.