Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/432

412 wisp of straw would best remove; the thatch was lighted, and when the smoke and the blaze had cleared away, the assailants found the road open, but the town deserted, and the rebels scattered in the open country, where they could not reach them. At once the cry spread everywhere that the gentlemen were destroying the commons. 'The barns of Crediton' became a gathering word, and a flaming beacon of insurrection; and the Carews returned to Exeter only to learn that the commotion had broken out close at hand, almost within sight of the walls.

The day happened to be a holyday. Walter Raleigh, of Budleigh Salterton, was riding home from the city; his road lay through St Mary's Clyst, a village two miles from Exeter, towards Topsham; and on the way he passed an old woman going to church, who was telling her beads. Raleigh, a sea-going man, and like most men of his calling, inclined to novelties, told her she must leave her follies alone now; times were changed and the law was changed; she must live like a Christian woman, or it would be the worse for her. The old woman tottered on to the parish church, where service had begun when she entered; and 'she, being impatient and in an agony with the speeches past between her and the gentleman, began to upbraid in the open church very hard and unseemly speeches