room, which opens into the bed-room of the priest, as I suppose he is. She could not tell me where to find the key of the room, and says it is always locked, but she once saw it open." They went to the room above. Partly on the bed, partly on the floor, lay the discarded livery of the Avenel footman, and the door, usually locked, between the two rooms, was wide open. In the inner room stood a chest-the lid thrown back, filled with suits of various kinds, the ready disguises of the Jesuit priest; and on one side of the room, stood a kind of Romish altar, with a crucifix of ebony and ivory upon it, and two tall wax candles. They had had scarcely time, however, to look about them, when a sound beneath led them both to the window. Mounted on one horse, and that the noble steed of Lucius, and the bridle of the other in his hand, Mr. Tobias was galloping off at full speed; he turned his head and looked towards the house with an insolent wave of his hand; then he struck his spurs into the flanks of the horse he rode, and laid the whip smartly upon the other, and disappeared. In the course of the next day, both the horses were found grazing quietly under the paling of Cleveland park by the shepherd of Sir Ralph.

We now return to Cleveland, only to mention what became of the pretended Mr. Moleville. Sir Ralph, being a magistrate, had the power to detain him, according to the Act then in force against the Jesuits-an Act which was partly repealed in the following year, when a swarm of the wily brotherhood was poured into England from the Continent and he did detain him, in order to summon a bench of magistrates, and to bring him before them on the following day. He was placed for the night in a comfortable room, which was thought the most secure in the mansion, every precaution being taken to prevent his escape. But

L

in the morning the room was found vacant: how his escape was effected was never clearly known; but the man who had been foremost in his offers to keep guard at the door, and who had been appointed to do so, was strongly suspected of having connived at his escape, and Sir Ralph dismissed him from his service.

Tobias, as it afterwards appeared, had galloped off to Avenel, as fast as the horse of Lucius could carry him, having turned the other horse loose, when about a mile from Fernley. He had been seen in close consultation with Father Foxe, and that night, though no one knew at what hour, they both departed from Avenel Court. A letter from the priest lay upon his table, addressed to Mr. Avenel, in which he told him that he had been suddenly called upon business of importance to London, and should probably return in the course of the week; but he did not make his appearance at Avenel again. The information which he had received from Tobias, had, probably, led him to conclude that his connexion with Mr. Moleville was discovered.

It was on the evening of their return to their own home, after remaining some days at Cleveland, that Mr. Avenel came up, as he had before been accustomed to do, to his wife's dressing-room. He found her, as her custom was at that hour, reading her Bible. "I have come," he said, " to resume the delightful practice, which made the time I spent with you in this closet, the most profitable portion of the day. I am come to search the Holy Scriptures with you; and I am also come to tell you, that my decision is made, on what now appears to me, the one point of unspeakable importance. I have left a church which adds to numberless unscriptural errors, that which I can only consider in the light of a heinous crime; namely, that it exerts its authority, and endeavours to extend its influence

by the agency of such instruments as the pretended Mr. Moleville, and a priest like Father Foxe. There can be no doubt, that both those men were accomplices in the same secret and iniquitous plot. It is not using too strong language, to say, of either of them, that they are the fruits of a system, which I now cannot but believe is founded on a lie; and as that book tells us: no lie is of the truth.""

CHAPTER IX.

PERSECUTIONS.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW's day arrived. It was a day of ill omen, as all Protestants know full well. On that day, in the year 1572, in France, thirty thousand Protestants, by the lowest computation, had been. butchered, in cold blood. On the Sunday previous to that day, 1662, in this country, two thousand of the most godly and conscientious ministers of the Church of England took their leave of two thousand congregations. Mr. Baxter, and a few of this number, had already preached their farewell sermons. But of all these men who were thus ejected from their livings, for not agreeing to give their unreserved assent and consent to the revised prayer-book, Burnet asserts, that even with those who conformed, not one in forty had read it. No care was taken to have it ready, till it was too late for many of them to see it, so that neither time nor opportunity was given them; for it was only published within a few days of the enforcement of the Act; and their decision was to be given on St. Bartholomew's day. Deprived of the income of the whole year, and without a home, they were turned

adrift-many of them in old age, and in broken health. Locke has truly said: "It was a day fatal to the Church of England." "A great number of the Nonconformists," says Baxter, "abhor the very name of parties, and love what is good in Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Independent; but reject somewhat as evil in them all. They can endure a liturgy, and like not the imposition of the Covenant, but cannot assent and consent to all things required in the Act." Of the Presbyterian Nonconformists, he says, and he was himself an Independent" they, with those above-mentioned, are the soberest, most judicious, unanimous, peaceable, faithful, able, constant ministers in this land, or that I have ever heard, or read of, in the Christian world; which I am able to say, I speak without respect of persons, in obedience to my conscience, upon my long experience." Mr. Clareton was one of those faithful, able, peaceable men. He remained, for some time after leaving the vicarage, the contented and peaceful inmate of Sergeant Brookes' farm-house : and it seemed, as the sergeant said, "as it was of old time, when the ark was left in the house of Obededom, and God blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that pertained unto him :" for he regarded his godly minister as a spiritual temple of the Lord, though but an earthen vessel. For many Sundays the church at Chasefield was shut up; but those who were fully alive to their loss in being deprived of the public services of their faithful minister, came in little parties to the old farm-house, and sat around him, as he expounded to them the word of truth. His successor came to the vicarage, a young, thoughtless, and inexperienced man, one of a noted family among the Cavaliers; a good-tempered, openhearted novice, and strong in the prejudices which usually belong to ignorant and inexperienced young men, and which were especially rife in those of his

party in politics. Though kind-hearted and liberal enough on most occasions, it might be truly said of him, that, both in his pulpit, and in his parish, he was apt to speak unadvisedly with his lips; and a few expressions of the kind, which he dropped from time to time, were treasured up in the memories of those who heard them; and were by some of the most injudicious, though not the most indignant of his hearers, reported even with exaggerations to Mr. Clareton. But he heard them without anger or bitterness, and his only answer was: "if these things are true, your duty is plain, to be more frequent and diligent in prayer for the young minister, who is placed by the Government of the country over you." It was a beautiful sight, indeed, to observe the effect of his sufferings on the temper and disposition of Mr. Clareton. It was now never seen that he gave way, even for an instant, to his former irritation of temper: the expression of a struggle within might be caught at times on his contracted brow, but it invariably died away, as the spirit within was enabled to overcome in that struggle; and some words of love and gentleness were sure to follow, when the struggle was over. He found an opportunity within a few months after the coming of his young successor, Mr. Lovelace, to the vicarage, to manifest his Christian spirit. The young vicar was seized with a malignant fever, and his first acquaintance was made with Mr. Clareton, when he received, time after time, a cup of medicine or cordial from the hand of one whom, in the delirium of the disease, he knew not, and heard the grave calm tones of the strange voice of one, who knelt beside his bed, and prayed as he had never heard any man pray till then. The first time that the young clergyman ever heard a clear and faithful exposition of the chief and saving doctrines of the Christian faith, was from the lips of the man in