Mistress Alice Babington was
there, still serene looking, but with a new sorrow in her eyes; and,
clinging to her, a thin, pale girl all in black, who only two months
before had lost both daughter and husband; for the child had died
scarcely a week or two before her father, Anthony Babington, had died
miserably on the gallows near St. Giles' Fields, where he had so often
met his friends after dark. It was a ghastly tale, told in fragments to
Robin here and there during his journeyings by men in taverns, before
whom he must keep a brave face. And a few farmers were there, old Mr.
Merton among them, come in to welcome the son of the Squire of Matstead,
returned under a feigned name, unknown even to his father, and there,
too, was honest Dick Sampson, come up from Dethick to see his old
master. So here, in the hall he knew so well, himself splashed with red
marl from ankle to shoulder, still cloaked and spurred, one by one these
knelt before him, beginning with Marjorie herself, and ending with the
youngest farm-boy, who breathed heavily as he knelt down and got up
round-eyed and staring.
"And his Reverence will hear confessions," proclaimed Marjorie to the
multitude, "at eight o'clock to-night; and he will say mass and give
holy communion at six o'clock to-morrow morning."
II
He had to hear that night, after supper, and before he went to keep his
engagement in the chapel-room, the entire news of the county; and, in
his turn, to tell his own adventures.
Pages:
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344