His Majesty had not spoken of them, except to ask questions at the beginning; and this seemed as a bad omen to me.

Yet I had the King's word on it that they should not suffer; and, when I considered, there was no obligation or even any reason at all that he should talk out the matter with myself.

Yet, though I presently put this affair too from my mind, since I had no certain knowledge of what would happen, it came back to me again and again--that memory of Mr.Ireland and Mr.Grove in the lodgings in Drury Lane, so harmless and so merry, and again as I had seen them yesterday in the dock, with Mr.Pickering, so helpless and yet so courageous in face of the injustice that was being done on them.
The third thing that I had to think upon was Hare Street to which I was going as fast as I could, and of those who would greet me there, and most of all, I need not say, of my Cousin Dolly.

Her father had written to me two or three times during the four months that I had been away; and his last had been the letter of a very much frightened man, what with the news that had come to him of the proceedings in London and the feeling against the Catholics.

But I had written back to him that nothing was to be feared if he would but stay still and hold his tongue; and that I myself would be with him presently, I hoped, and would reassure him; for in spite of the hot feeling in London the country Catholics suffered from it little or not at all, so long as they minded their own business.