The two friends had crept behind a stone wall, built up in a hollow, by a stagnant pool, taking but little heed of the darkness and the storm, so intent were they upon the subject which engrossed their thoughts.

“I might flee, Ralph, but it would straightway be said, not that I had left my country and my kin alone, but rather that I had deserted the faith and doctrine I profess, after having unworthily ministered hereabout for a season, which might be an occasion of much scandal, a weakening of the faith of my poor flock, and a grievous discouragement to those that remain.”

“‘A living dog is better than a dead lion,’ says the wise man.  Besides, it is apresumingon His providence, when He opens away for our escape, and we, of our own wilfulness and folly, neglect the blessing.  ’Do thyself no harm.’  Provide for thine own life, and run not as the horse and mule, that have no understanding, into the very throat of thine enemies, and them that seek thine hurt.”

The first speaker was a man of plain but comely appearance, habited in a coarse doublet buckled about the waist with a leathern girdle.  A round woollen cap, from beneath which a few straight-combed locks hung about his face, gave a quaint and precise aspect to his figure.  His features, though slightly wrinkled, did not betoken either age or infirmity:  but his whole appearance indicated a robust and vigorous frame, capable both of exertion and endurance.  The other individual exhibited a more ungainly form and deportment.  He had not the same look of benevolence and good-will to man which irradiated the features of the first, of whom it might be truly said, that his inward affections did mould and constrain his outward image into their resemblance, so that meekness and benignity shone through his countenance from the ever-glowing spirit of love and Christian charity within.  There was a sharp and shrewd intelligence in the eye of the latter speaker which showed that some considerations of selfish and worldly wisdom might, by possibility, mingle with his unerring notions of duty.  Yet was he a man of great piety and worth, and well fitted as a counsellor in times of peril and distress.

“Ralph Bradshaw,” replied the other, “thou hast been my tried friend and my stay in this waste and howling wilderness, and I have found thy counsel hitherto wholesome and pleasant; but,” continued Marsh, with a heavy sigh, “I have not told thee how Sir Roger Barton’s servants have made diligent search for me in Bolton, and have given strict charge to my brother Robert that he should, by to-morrow at the latest, appear with me at Smethells, else shall he and my poor mother answer before him at their peril.  By God’s grace, I would not leave these weaklings of the flock to suffer for my sake.”

“Leave this matter until thou depart; I will devise some means for their relief.  I would not have thy life needlessly put in hazard, seeing how few men have been raised up like unto thyself, privileged as thou art to minister the bread of life to the hungry and famishing poor in this barren corner of God’s spiritual vineyard.”