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.