On came the dreadful thing till it reached the King’s Visitor, bowing to him and bellowing like a bull, then very deliberately untied some strings and let its horrid garb fall off, revealing the person of Thomas Bolle!

“What means this mummery, knave?” gasped Dr. Legh.

“Mummery do you call it, sir?” answered Thomas with a grin.  “Well, if so, ’tis on the faith of such mummery that priests burn women in merry England.  Come, good people, come,” he roared in his great voice, “come, see Satan in the flesh.  Here are his horns,” and he held them up, “once they grew upon the head of Widow Johnson’s billy-goat.  Here’s his tail, many a fly has it flicked off the belly of an Abbey cow.  Here’s his ugly mug, begotten of parchment and the paint-box.  Here’s his dreadful fork that drives the damned to some hotter corner; it has been death to whole stones of eels down in the marsh-fleet yonder.  I have some hell-fire too among the bag of tricks; you’ll make the best of brimstone and a little oil dried out upon the hearth.  Come, see the devil all complete and naught to pay.”

Back trooped the crowd a little fearfully, taking the properties which he held, and handling them, till first one and then all of them began to laugh.

“Laugh not,” shouted Bolle.  “Is it a matter of laughter that noble ladies and others whose lives are as dear to some,” and he glanced at Emlyn, “should grill like herrings because a poor fool walks about clad in skins to keep out the cold and frighten villains?  Hark you, I played this trick.  I am Beelzebub, also the ghost of Sir John Foterell.  I entered the Priory chapel by a passage that I know, and saved yonder babe from murder and scared the murderess down to hell; yes, from the sham devil to the true.  Why did I do it?  Well, to protect the innocent and scourge the wicked in his pride.  But the wicked seized the innocent and the innocent said nothing, fearing lest I should suffer with them, and——­O God, you know the rest!

“It was a near thing, a very near thing, but I’m not the half-wit I’ve feigned to be for years.  Moreover, I had a good horse and a heavy axe, and there are still true hearts round Blossholme; the dead men that lie yonder show it.  Heaven has still its angels on the earth, though they wear strange shapes.  There stands one of them, and there another,” and he pointed first to the fat and pompous Visitor, and next to the dishevelled Prioress, adding:  “And now, Sir Commissioner, for all that I have done in the cause of justice I ask pardon of you who wear the King’s grace and majesty as I wore old Nick’s horns and hoofs, since otherwise the Abbot and his hired butchers, who hold themselves masters of King and people, will murder me for this as they have done by better men.  Therefore pardon, your Mightiness, pardon,” and he kneeled down before him.