which our Holy Mother Church has undergone from these pestilent
heretics, who have thought to denude her of her beauty and her
glory, whilst striving to retain such things as jump with their
crabbed humours, and may be pared down to please their poisoned and
vicious minds. Ah! it makes the blood boil in the veins of the true
sons of the Church, as thou wilt find, my youthful friend, when
thou gettest amongst them. But it will not always last. The day of
reckoning will come--nay, is already coming when men shall find
that the Blessed and Holy Church may not be defiled and downtrodden
with impunity for ever. Ah yes! the day will come--it is even at
the door--when God shall arise and his enemies be scattered.
Scattered--scattered! verily that is the word. And the sons of the
true faith throughout the length and breadth of the land shall
arise and rejoice, and the heretics shall stand amazed and
confounded!"

As he spoke these words his figure seemed to expand, and he raised
his right hand to heaven with a peculiar gesture of mingled menace
and appeal. Cuthbert was silent and amazed. He did not understand
in the least the tenor of these wild words, but he was awed and
impressed, and felt at once that the strife and stress of the great
world into which he was faring was something very different from
anything he had conceived of before.

By this time the travellers had reached the dreary waste called by
the inhabitants Hammerton Heath. At some seasons of the year it was
golden with gorse or purple with ling, but in this drear winter
season it was bare and colourless, and utterly desolate. The
outline of dark forests could be seen all around on the horizon;
but the road led over the exposed ground, where not a tree broke