but had heard the real mass wherever he could with a certain secrecy.
And there might be further perils in future, as there might be
thunderstorms or floods. There was still the memory of the descent of
the Commissioners a year or two after his birth; he had been brought up
on the stories of riding and counter-riding, and the hiding away of
altar-plate and beads and vestments. But all this was in his bones and
blood; it was as natural that professors of the false religion should
seek to injure and distress professors of the true, as that the foxes
should attack the poultry-yard. One took one's precautions, one hoped
for the best; and one was quite sure that one day the happy ancient
times his mother had told him of would come back, and Christ's cause be
vindicated.

And now the foundations of the earth were moved and heaven reeled above
him; for his father, after a month or two of brooding, had announced, on
St. Stephen's Day, that he could tolerate it no longer; that God's
demands were unreasonable; that, after all, the Protestant religion was
the religion of her Grace, that men must learn to move with the times,
and that he had paid his last fine. At Easter, he observed, he would
take the bread and wine in Matstead Church, and Robin would take them
too.


II

The sun stood half-way towards his setting as Robin rode up from the
valley, past Padley, over the steep ascent that led towards Booth's
Edge. The boy was brighter a little as he came up; he had counted above
eighty snipe within the last mile and a half, and he was coming near to
Marjorie. About him, rising higher as he rose, stood the great