Cuthbert drew a deep breath of relief when he stood once again in the fresh air.  He walked rapidly through the familiar sunny streets and strove to forget the impression made upon him by the recent interview.

“Plots, plots, plots!” he muttered—­“nothing but dark plots, and the hope that things will thus be set right.  I misdoubt me if it will ever be by such means.  Poor souls!  I pity them with all my heart; but I like not their ways.  They are not the ways of truth, of uprightness, of equity.  Methinks I had better hold aloof and have no dealings with them.  They seem to think because I like them—­the men themselves—­and mislike these persecutions even as they do, that I am one with them and understand their ways and their deeds.  But I do not, I do not, and I think not that I ever shall.  I will go mine own way, and they must go theirs.  It were best not to meddle too much in strange matters.  Now I will go and seek honest Jacob.  From him methinks I shall get as warm a welcome, but a welcome that is not tinged with these mysteries and dark words.”

Chapter 22:  Whispers Abroad.

“Have naught to do with them, Cuthbert!  I like them not.”

“Yet they be good men, and stanch and true.  Thou hast said so thyself a score of times in my hearing, good Jacob.  Why should I avoid them now?  What have they done amiss?”

Jacob passed his large hand across his face, and looked at Cuthbert with an expression of perplexity.

“They are Papists,” he said at last, in a slightly vague and inconclusive fashion.

Cuthbert laughed aloud.

“Why, that I know well; and I am not scared by the name, as some of your Puritan folk seem to be.  Papists, after all, are fellow men—­and fellow Christians too, if it comes to that.  It was a Christian act of theirs to take to their home that hunted priest whom we rescued that foggy night, Jacob.  Many would have made much ado ere they had opened their doors to one in such plight.  Thou canst not deny that there was true Christian charity in that act.”

“Nay, nay, I would not try to deny it,” answered Jacob, in his calm, lethargic way, still regarding Cuthbert with a look of admiration and curiosity, somewhat as a savage regards a white man, scarce knowing from moment to moment what his acts will be.  “Yet for all that I would warn thee to keep away from that house.  Men whisper that there be strange doings there.  I know not the truth of what is spoken.  But we walk in slippery places; it were well to take heed to our steps.”

Cuthbert returned Jacob’s look with one equally tinged with curiosity.

“Nay now, speak more openly.  What dost thou mean, good Jacob?  What do men say anent these Coles?”

Jacob glanced round and instinctively lowered his voice.

“It is not of the Coles alone that they speak; it is of the whole faction of the Papists.  I know not what is said or what is known in high places; but this I know, that there be strange whispers abroad.”