visible on every brow. What would his lordship do? Were the recusant
anybody else, gyves to the heels and hemp to the throat were but too
good for him; but it was Father Fothergill who had said "I won't;" and
though the Baron was a very great man, the Pope was a greater, and the
Pope was Father Fothergill's great friend--some people said he was his
uncle.

Father Fothergill was busy in the refectory trying conclusions with a
venison pasty, when he received the summons of his patron to attend him
in the chapel cemetery. Of course he lost no time in obeying it, for
obedience was the general rule in Shurland Castle. If anybody ever said
"I won't" it was the exception; and, like all other exceptions, only
proved the rule the stronger. The Father was a friar of the Augustine
persuasion; a brotherhood which, having been planted in Kent some few
centuries earlier, had taken very kindly to the soil, and overspread
the county much as hops did some few centuries later. He was plump and
portly, a little thick-winded, especially after dinner, stood five feet
four in his sandals, and weighed hard upon eighteen stone. He was,
moreover, a personage of singular piety; and the iron girdle, which, he
said, he wore under his cassock to mortify withal, might have been well
mistaken for the tire of a cart-wheel. When he arrived, Sir Robert was
pacing up and down by the side of a newly opened grave.

"_Benedecite!_ fair son"--(the Baron was brown as a cigar)--
"_Benedecite!_" said the Chaplain.

The Baron was too angry to stand upon compliment. "Bury me that
grinning caitiff there!" he, pointing to the defunct.

"It may not be, fair son," said the friar, "he hath perished without