“And I trow the mob would be upon us ere we had got him safe housed, and for aught we could do to stop it might tear him limb from limb in our very sight.”

“Ay, there is always some rumour afoot of a new Papist plot; and whether it be true or no, the people set on to harry the priests as dogs harry the hunted hare.  I know not what to do.  To land with him will do neither good to him nor to us.  A fine coil there would be at home if my father heard of me mixing myself up with Jesuit traitors; and Martin Holt would not be much better pleased neither.”

“Martin Holt is not my father,” answered Cuthbert, with a touch of haughtiness; “and let him say what he will, I must save this man’s life, even if it cost me mine own.  Thou knowest how he saved me that day in the dens of Whitefriars.  To leave him to the mercy of the howling mob would be an act of blackest treachery; it would disgrace my manhood for ever.”

“Tush, man, who asked that of thee?” answered Jacob, with something of a smile at the lad’s impetuosity.  “I love not a black cassock nor a tonsured head so passing well; but a man is a man, even though he be a priest, and I call shame upon those who would thus maltreat a brother man, and the more so when he is one who has visited the sick and tended the leper, and been the friend of those who have no friends in this great city.  I would no sooner than thou give him up to the will of the mob; but we must bethink ourselves where he may be in safety stowed, else the mob will have him whether we will or no.  All I was meaning by my words was that neither my home nor thine could be the place for him.”

“I ask thy pardon, good Jacob, for my heat,” answered Cuthbert humbly.  “I should have known better thy good heart than to have thought such a thing of thee.”

“Nay, nay; I am no hero.”

“Thou art a kindly hearted and an honest man, which I misdoubt me if all the world’s heroes are,” answered Cuthbert quickly.  “And now, Jacob, it behoves us to think.  Yes, I have it.  We must ask counsel of Master Anthony Cole.  He would be the one to hide Father Urban if it could be done.  Let me land nigh to the bridge, and go to them and tell them all; and do thou push out once more and anchor the craft beneath the pier on which their house rests.  Methinks when I have taken counsel with them I can make shift to slip down the wooden shaft of that pier, and so hold parley with thee.  Walter has done the like before now, and I am more agile in such feats than he; moreover, I can swim like a duck if I should chance to miss my hold, and so reach the water unawares.  That will be the best, for the boat may not linger at the wharf side.  We know not what news may be afoot in the city, nor that there may not be searchers bent on finding Father Urban, let him land where he may.”