"What did you hear?"
"I heard that my lord Shrewsbury wondered at his absence from the trial;
and ... and that a message would be sent to Mr. Audrey to look to it to
be more zealous on her Grace's commission."
"That was all?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then you had best be gone. There is no more to be said. Bring me what
news you can when you come again. Good-night, Dick."
"Good-night, sir.... God bless your reverence."
* * * * *
An hour later, with the first coming of the dawn, the storm ceased. (It
was that same storm, if he had only known it, that had blown upon the
Spanish Fleet at sea and driven it towards destruction. But of this he
knew nothing.) He had not slept since Dick had gone, but had lain on his
back on the turfed and blanketed bed in the corner, his hands clasped
behind his head, thinking, thinking and re-thinking all that he had read
just now. He had known it must happen; but there seemed to him all the
difference in the world between an event and its mere certainty.... The
thing was done--out to every bitter detail of the loathsome, agonizing
death--and it had been two of the men whom he had seen say mass after
himself--the ruddy-faced, breezy countryman, yet anointed with the
sealing oil, and the gentle, studious, smiling man who had been no less
vigorous than his friend....
But there was one thing he had not known, and that, the recovery of the
faint heart which they had inspirited.
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