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. 9, 1862.] “Sampson Rudd.”

“If Sampson Rudd is married, or likely to be, the thing cannot be done, because the Queen does not approve of a married clergy.”

“She would allow a married priest rather than none,” the Earl observed.

“Perhaps so; but in this place it is necessary to be very careful in the choice of a preacher, as long as the papists throng hither as they do. As the young woman seems unwilling to speak,” the Countess observed to her husband, “I suppose Sampson Rudd is not one to answer our purpose.”

Polly admitted that Sampson certainly intended not to be a bachelor; and then she was glad of a subject to speak on. She told of her little brother’s coffin, covered over in the garden, for want of a priest to bury it; and she could answer any questions about the itinerant preachers who appeared every few weeks; and especially Dr. Pantlin, the old favourite over the whole country side, who preached in the wood, or among the rocks on the moor, while the cobwebs thickened upon the church-door. Further than this, Polly gave no definite information. The people were in an uncertain temper, no doubt. Some of them believed something was going to happen. The thunder-storms had been so awful this summer,—that was one thing; and there were reports of great dangers to the Queen and the Church. Which Church?—Why, for that matter, there was talk about both: but the new people from abroad, the silk manufacturers, were afraid of the same thing happening again that had happened before,—that their relations would be murdered by the Romanists.

“Where?” the Earl inquired.

“Wherever they may be, my Lord. Some in Switzerland, where Sampson lived so long; and more in the Low Countries and in France; and some say here,—in London, and as far as Tutbury itself.”

“You do not believe that,” said the Earl, smiling. “You do not expect to have your throat cut by any Frenchman or Spaniard?”

How should she know what to expect? Polly asked. It was said that persons much wiser than herself were very uncertain. It was said that her Majesty herself had told her greatest lords that she was so surrounded by plots that she did not know which way to turn: and if the Queen felt so, with all her guards about her, poor people down in the country, who were ordered about, two or three different ways, about their religion, and always threatened by somebody, might well be troubled in mind, and somewhat out of temper. This seemed to the Earl very reasonable; and he said so, adding that all good subjects might comfort themselves, as the Queen certainly did, with the certainty that no foreigners would be allowed to do any harm to Queen or people. Englishmen of all religions, as well as of all ranks and fortunes, would join with one heart and one soul to beat off any invader who should attempt mischief here. With this piece of comfort, Polly was dismissed, to receive her orders from the tailor.

Steps must be taken to open the church, the Earl said. And there must be some further discouragement of strangers; too many of whom came, and held intercourse with the residents. “If you believe,” said the Earl, “that all those gentry that I see are here to fish and sport in the forest, you are more easy of belief than I am.”

“Nobody sees so much of them as the tailor,” the Countess said: “his affairs bring him into intercourse with the people every day of the week; and he is my chief authority.”

“And you think him thoroughly trustworthy,—sure to be right?”

“He certainly is. He knows this false woman within there in spite of her winning airs. He has said enough to me, many a time, to prove that she does not captivate quite everybody.”

“How happens it that he is still in her service? Women are sharp enough in discovering whether they are liked or despised by those about them.”

“He is sufficiently obsequious—”

“To her or to you, Bess? He deceives one or the other of you.”

“I will prove to you what his disposition is,” the Countess said. “He hears a great deal of news,—tailors are like barbers for that,—and one of his late anecdotes is this. He says the Duke of Norfolk was sent to London to dine with the Queen, at the time of our alarm. Yes,—everybody knows that; but see the spirit of what follows. Upon the Queen warning him, in a significant way, to lay his head on no unsafe pillow, he readily fell into discourse with her Majesty about the Queen of Scots, calling this fair lady here a murderess, and an adulteress, and a pretender. He said he had nothing to desire beyond what his Sovereign had enriched him with; and that he was more of a prince in his own bowling-alley at Norwich than her Grace of Scotland in her own kingdom. I doubted how this could be; but that is not the question.”

“Norfolk explained at the moment,” said the Earl, “that his revenues are larger than those of the kingdom of Scotland; and that his possessions were in his own hand, whereas those of the Queen’s kinswoman were almost as visionary in Scotland as in England.”

“Then the story is true?”

“It is; and it is known to many people.”

“But this man would not have repeated it to me, you see, unless he was awake to the arts of the woman he measures in mind as well as in outward proportions.”

The Earl was not so sure. His remark was:

“The man’s telling you the story proves, not his opinion of the woman, but his knowledge of yours. He may be honest, however: I do not say he is not. But I shall not converse needlessly with him.”

“And you will thereby lose many a useful hint,” the wife declared. “Women make the best gaolers, after all.”

That was a point which could not be settled at the moment. A more practical concern was one on which the Earl spoke with great decision. His guest must not be irritated and vexed by the presence of persons who were not agreeable to her. Sir Francis Knollys was gone: he should himself intrude as little as possible; and he could not see the necessity of any one but those invited by herself attending her in her walks and her retirement. The Countess shrugged her shoulders, declared she must keep the power of intrusion, as