Something in Clarke’s gentle steadfastness seemed loftier to Anthony Dalaber than what he had witnessed in Garret a few days back.  Yet he would have said that Garret would have flown in the face of danger without a fear, whilst Clarke would have hung back and sought to find a middle course.

“But if these meetings be perilous,” urged Arthur, “why will you not let them drop—­for the sake of others, if not your own?”

He looked calmly in the questioner’s eyes as he answered: 

“I invite no man to come to me to read or discourse.  If any so come, I warn them that there may be peril for them; and many I have thus sent away, for they have not desired to run into any peril.  Those who gather round me here are my children in the Lord.  I may not refuse to receive them.  But I will speak earnestly to them of the danger which menaces them and us; and if any be faint hearted, let them draw back.  I would not willingly bring or lead any into peril.  But I may not shut my door nor my heart against my children who come to me.  The chariots of God are thousands of angels.  They are round and about us, though we see them not.  Let us not fear in the hour of darkness and perplexity, but wait patiently on the Lord, and doubt not that in His time and in His way He will give us our heart’s desire.”

Clarke’s face was uplifted; in the gathering gloom they could scarcely see it, and yet to both it appeared at that moment as the face of an angel.

Chapter X:  A Startling Apparition

It was the following afternoon—­Saturday—­and Anthony Dalaber sat in his new quarters with an open book before him.  He was beginning to feel at home there, and to lay aside some of those pressing anxieties which had beset him ever since the flight of Master Garret upon Arthur Cole’s warning.

Notwithstanding even the grave talk which had taken place the day previously in the room of John Clarke, Dalaber did not find himself seriously uneasy at present.  He had been going to and fro in the town for the past two days, and no one had molested him, or had appeared to take any special note of him.  He had attended lecture that morning, and had walked through the streets afterwards in company with several other students of his own standing, and not a word had been breathed about any stir going on, or any alarm of heresy being raised by those in authority.  He began to think that Arthur Cole had taken somewhat too seriously some words he had heard on the subject from his relative the proctor.  Upon his own spirit a sense of calm was settling down.  He trusted and hoped that he was not in personal danger; but he also resolved that, should peril arise, he would meet it calmly and fearlessly, as Clarke was prepared to do should it touch him.