Thus this letter, which he thought so safe, will save England to Edward and his race, you from many dangers, your betrothed from a marriage which she hates--that is, if you can get safe away with it from Dunwich." "Where to, Father ?" "To King Edward in London, with another that I will write for you ere the dawn." "But is it safe, Father, to trust so precious a thing to me, who have bitter enemies awaiting me, and may as like as not be crow's meat by to-morrow ?" Father Arnold looked at him with his soft and dreamy eyes, then said: "I think the crow's not hatched that will pick your bones, Hugh, though at the last there be crows, or worms, for all of us." "Why not, Father?
Doubtless, this morning young John of Clavering thought as much, and now he is in the stake-nets, or food for fishes." "Would you like to hear, Hugh, and will you keep it to yourself, even from Eve ?" "Ay, that I would and will." "He'll think me mad!" muttered the old priest to himself, then went on aloud as one who takes a sudden resolution.

"Well, I'll tell you, leaving you to make what you will of a story that till now has been heard by no living man." "Far in the East is the great country that we call Cathay, though in truth it has many other names, and I alone of all who breathe in England have visited that land." "How did you get there ?" asked Hugh, amazed, for though he knew dimly that Father Arnold had travelled much in his youth, he never dreamed that he had reached the mystic territories of Cathay, or indeed that such a place really was except in fable.
"It would take from now till morning to tell, son, nor even then would you understand the road.

It is enough to say that I went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where our blessed Saviour died.

That was the beginning.
Thence I travelled with Arabs to the Red Sea, where wild men made a slave of me, and we were blown across the Indian Ocean to a beauteous island named Ceylon, in which all the folk are black.
"From this place I escaped in a vessel called a junk, that brought me to the town of Singapore.

Thence at last, following my star, I came to Cathay after two years of journeyings.