"The wedding?" said Mace. "Speak out, Master Peasegood, I am ready to hear aught of thee."

"Yes, my child. He came in his big commanding way to say that he should require me to be ready at a certain time."

"Yes, and you--what did you say?"

"That I would sooner--"

"Speak! Pray tell me," cried Mace, passionately; "you torture me, you are so slow."

"I said an unkindly thing, my child," replied Master Peasegood, sadly.

"I said that I would rather read the burial service over thee than wed thee to such as he."

"Thank you, Master Peasegood!" she cried, eagerly. "And you will keep to that, for I cannot wed this man."

"My child," said the stout parson, "I promised friend Gil--for thy sake, not his--that I would be like a second father to thee, and I will; so come to me when thou art in trouble, and I will give thee counsel and aid."

"But I am in trouble, Master Peasegood, and want thy counsel and aid."

"Here they are then, little one," he said. "Go home and wait patiently.

It is not thy wedding-day yet. Who knows how this gay spark stands at court? At any hour he may be recalled, and all his matrimonial plans be knocked upon the head. Fair Mistress Anne would give her ears to wed with him: and if she has set her mind upon it, mark me, she will likely enough take steps to stay his wedding you. There is many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, child, and maybe this trouble of thine will settle itself without action on our part. It will be time to take stringent steps on the eve of the wedding if nothing happens before, and something may. At all events he shall not wed thee in Roehurst church while I am parson there. Hah! who may these be?"

There were steps at the door, and a sharp rapping, which the parson responded to himself, to find confronting him a stern, semi-military looking man in dark doublet, with two followers cut exactly upon his pattern.

"Master Joseph Peasegood, Clerk of Roehurst?" said the stern-looking man.

"Yes," said the parson; "I am that person, sir."

"Here is a paper of attachment for thy person, Master Peasegood. Thou wilt with me at once to London."

"I--go--to London--attachment--what for?"

"I cannot answer thy question, sir," was the reply. "I am only executioner of this warrant. I believe it is something to do with Popish practices. Come, sir, I have a carriage waiting. The roads are bad, and we want to be going."

"Popish practices! I, of all men in the world! But my people--who will take charge of them?"

"A reverend gentleman is on his way, sir," was the reply.

Master Peasegood read the document, bowed his head, and hastened his few preparations, standing at last finally with Mace's hand clasped in his.

"Tell Father Brisdone I commend thee to his charge, my child, and bid him from me take thee away from thy father's care sooner than let thee become the wife of this man. Tell him, too, that I am puzzled about this seizure of my person. I know not what it means, unless it be for consorting with him."

"I know, Master Peasegood," said Mace, pressing his great hand. "You have an enemy who has done this thing."

"Ay, child, and who may that be?"

"The man who asked a service of thee, which thou did'st refuse."

"Sir Mark? Yes, thou art right. Good-bye, my child, good-bye."

Mace's heart sank as she saw the stout figure of her old friend go towards where a great lumbering, open vehicle was standing, and as it disappeared she felt that she had one friend the less. It was, then, with a mute feeling of despair that she turned down the narrow, winding lane to meet a little further on three men, who, at a short distance, seemed to be the same she had so lately seen depart.

On a nearer approach, however, she found that it was their uniform, or livery, only that was the same.

They looked at her curiously as they passed, and then a shiver ran through her as the thought struck home,--what was their object there?

"Father Brisdone!" she ejaculated. "They have been after him."

A cold feeling of despair crept over her as she read in all this the power of the man who sought to make her his wife. He was evidently at work insidiously removing her friends, to replace them with people of his own, and more than ever she felt how helpless her position had become.

With her heart beating a slow, heavy, despairing throb, she passed on a rising piece of ground to gaze through the trees at a portion of the Pool which lay gleaming in the sunshine; when her brow contracted strangely, and her eyes half closed, as sinister thoughts, like those of some temptation, came upon her.

She was to be alone and friendless if Father Brisdone was taken away: her father had literally sold her to this man, and sooner than he should take her in his arms and call her wife she felt that she would seek for rest in the great Pool.

"Pst! pst!"

Mace turned sharply, and, gazing in the direction from which the sound had come, she saw high up amidst the bushes on the bank the rusty cassock of him who had so lately been in her thoughts.

"Dear father!" she cried. "You there?"

"Hist, child, hist! Don't look in my direction, but stoop, pick flowers, and talk to me as you bend down."

"Why are you there, father?" she said softly, as she obeyed his words.

"It is the old story, child. I am one of a proscribed set of men now, and I have had warning from Tom Croftly that there are those here who seek to make me a prisoner."

"Yes, father, I have seen them."

"Then I must take to hiding, child. When Gilbert Carr's ship returns he will give me safe passage to France. Till then I shall make my home in the iron-pits--the disused ones in the old beechwood."

"Where I'll bring thee food and covers, father," cried Mace, who found relief from her own troubles in helping others.

"Nay, child, thou wilt be watched by one at the Pool. Tom Croftly will bring me all I want, if thou givest it to him. He is trusty, and will bring any message or letter with faith and care. I shall be watching over thee still, though I am in the old hole of the rock. It is not the first time that I have had to hide for life and liberty. But hark here, my child, I have said come not. If matters occur that make it necessary for thee to flee thine home sooner than wed a man thou dost despise, come to me in the forest, and maybe together we may escape to where I can find thee a home with a holy sister, and rest and peace."

"Thanks, father, oh, thanks!" cried Mace. "But listen: Master Peasegood has been taken away."

"So soon? But I am not surprised. It is because he refused the same offer as I."

"Were you asked, father?"

"Nay, child, I was ordered; and that is the real reason why I am hunted down. Hist! steps! Go on."

Mace involuntarily walked on through the wood, bitterly lamenting that she should bring indirectly such misery upon those she esteemed, when a slight rustle in the bushes made her turn her head and utter a faint cry, as she was tightly clasped in Sir Mark Leslie's arms.

Volume 2, Chapter XVII.

HOW MACE MADE A PROMISE.

"I do not often exact my lover's fees," cried Sir Mark, kissing her passionately in spite of her struggles, while a feeling of horror half froze her, as she thought that this man must have heard the conversation with the father.