Part 20 (2/2)
”I am bound to know no prudence save for the Lord's work”
”That's giving away Agnus Deis, and deceiving poor heathen wenches, I suppose,” said Yeo
Eustace answered pretty roundly-- ”Heathens? Yes, truly; you Protestants leave these poor wretches heathens, and then insult and persecute those ith a devotion unknown to you, labor at the danger of their lives to ive ed at Exeter, if it shall so please you to disgrace your own family; but from this spot neither you, no, nor all the myrmidons of your queen, shall drive me, while there is a soul here left unsaved”
”Come out of the stable, at least,” said Amyas; ”you don't want to make the horses Papists, as well as the asses, do you? Coo to the devil your oay I sha'n't inforue if I tell hiainstthat he is your cousin, of course--”
”Of course; and now coones shall be bygones, if you will have theiveness Eustace felt in his heart, I know not: but he knew, of course, that he ought to forgive; and to go in and eat with Aiveness, and for the best of ht be furthered; and acts andcorrect, what ot that scar upon his cheek; and Amyas could not look him in the face but Eustace must fancy that his eyes were on the scar, and peep up from under his lids to see if there was any se They talked away over the venison, guardedly enough at first; but as they went on, Ahtforward kindliness warmed poor Eustace's frozen heart; and ere they were aware, they found thees of their boyhood--uncles, aunts, and cousins; and Eustace, without any sinister intention, asked A to Bideford, while Frank and his mother were in London
”To tell you the truth, I cannot rest till I have heard the whole story about poor Rose Salterne”
”What about her?” cried Eustace
”Do you not know?”
”How should I know anything here? For heaven's sake, what has happened?”
Aerness, for he had never had the least suspicion of Eustace's love
Eustace shrieked aloud
”Fool, fool that I have been! Caught in my own trap! Villain, villain that he is! After all he pro up, Eustace sta his head fro with outstretched hands at the erant that no reader has ever witnessed it!) of that despair which still seeks blindly for the object which it knows is lost forever
Amyas sat thunderstruck His first impulse was to ask, ”Lundy? What knew you of him? What had he or you to do at Lundy?” but pity conquered curiosity
”Oh, Eustace! And you then loved her too?”
”Don't speak to ht to love her as any one of your precious Brotherhood of the Rose Don't speak to me, I say, or I shall do you a mischief!”
So Eustace knew of the brotherhood too! Aed to ask him how; but what use in that? If he knew it, he knew it; and what harood cousin, why be wroth with me? If you really love her, now is the time to take counsel with me how best we shall--”
Eustace did not let him finish his sentence Conscious that he had betrayed himself upon more points than one, he stopped short in his walk, suddenly collected hireat effort, and eyed Amyas from underneath his broith the old down look
”How best we shall do what,and half-scornful voice ”What does your most chivalrous Brotherhood of the Rose purpose in such a case?”
Auard in return, and answered bluntly-- ”What the Brotherhood of the Rose will do, I can't yet say What it ought to do, I have a pretty sure guess”
”So have I To hunt her down as you would an outlaw, because forsooth she has dared to love a Catholic; to ain stained with his blood, to be forced by threats and persecution to renounce that Church into whosesince found rest and holiness!”
”If she has found holiness, it matters little to me where she has found it, Master Eustace, but that is the very point that I should be glad to know for certain”
”And you will go and discover for yourself?”
”Have you no wish to discover it also?”
”And if I had, ould that be to you?”
”Only,” said A hard to keep his teht sail in the same shi+p”
”You intend to sail, then?”
”I ether”
”Our paths lie on very different roads, sir!”
”I am afraid you never spoke a truer word, sir In the meanwhile, ere we part, be so kind as to tellthat you had met this Spaniard at Lundy?”
”I shall refuse to answer that”
”You will please to recollect, Eustace, that however good friends we have been for the last half-hour, you are in ht to know the bottom of this matter; and, by heaven, I will know it”
”In your power? See that you are not in mine! Remember, sir, that you are within a--within a few miles, at least, of those ill obey iance to those Protestant authorities who have left them to the lot of the beasts which perish”
Ary He wanted but little more to make him catch Eustace by the shoulders, shake the life out of hiuardianshi+p of Yeo; but he knew that to take hirace on the faht at Clovelly, he kept himself down
”Take me,” said Eustace, ”if you will, sir You, who complain of us that we keep no faith with heretics, will perhaps recollect that you asked ood faith I trusted when I entered it”
The argument was a worthless one in law; for Eustace had been a prisoner before he was a guest, and A very likehio to the door, open it, and bowing to his cousin, bid hio to the devil, since he see his days in the coe
Whereon Eustace vanished
”Pooh!” said Ah, and too much, I fear, without the help of such crooked vermin I must see Cary; I must see Salterne; and I suppose, if I am ready to do my duty, I shall learn somehohat it is Now to sleep; to-morrow up and away to what God sends”
”Coe, ”and sleep here Haven't you had enough of this villainous sour cider?”
The , and settled themselves to sleep on the floor
”Where's Yeo?”
No one knew; he had gone out to say his prayers, and had not returned