brains of his own, matured by responsibility. "I'll tell you what,
Patience, I'll go and see Dr. Eales about it. I wot he is a minister
of the old sort, that father would say I might trust to."

Dr. Eales was still living in Mrs. Lightfoot's lodgings, at the sign
of the Wheatsheaf, or more properly starving, for he had only ten
pounds a year paid to him out of the benefice that had been taken
away from him; and though that went farther then than it would do
now, it would not have maintained him, but that his good hostess
charged him as little as she could afford, and he also had a few
pupils among the gentry's sons, but there were too many clergymen in
the same straits for this to be a very profitable undertaking. There
were no soldiers in Mrs. Lightfoot's house now, and the doctor lived
more at large, but still cautiously, for in the opposite house, named
the "Ark," whose gable end nearly met the Wheatsheaf's, dwelt a rival
baker, a Brownist, whose great object seemed to be to spy upon the
clergyman, and have something to report against him, nor was Mrs.
Lightfoot's own man to be trusted. Stead lingered about the open
stall where the bread was sold till no customer was at hand, and then
mentioned under his breath to the good dame his desire to speak with
her lodger.

"Certainly," she said, but the Doctor was now with his pupils at
Mistress Rivett's. He always left them at eleven of the clock, more
shame of Mrs. Rivett not to give the good man his dinner, which she
would never feel. Steadfast had better watch for him at the gate
which opened on the down, for there he could speak more privately and
securely than at home.

He took the advice, and passed away the time as best he could,