Parsons parted from him not without a rueful and affectionate word. “You are too easy-going by far,” he said to his friend and fellow-soldier, purposely giving its least heroic name to that intentionally prodigal zeal for souls. “I know you, Father Edmund; if they once get you there, you will never break away!” [Illustration: “We have not broken through here!” [P. 134] XI AT LYFORD GRANGE, AND AFTER: 1581 ON the morning of July 12, Father Edmund and Brother Ralph, faithful to agreement, were in their saddles again, leaving the pious household refreshed, but lamenting. Of the two priests who formed part of it, one, Fr. Collington, or Colleton, escorted them some distance on their way. Campion had already been waylaid, at an inn near Oxford, by many friendly tutors and undergraduates, when up galloped the other chaplain of Lyford, Fr. Forde. He was a Trinity College man, who had entered Douay just after Campion’s arrival there, and was to follow him closely to martyrdom. Forde brought news that a large party of Catholics had come over to Lyford to visit the nuns, and, distressed at missing Fr. Campion, were clamouring for his return. The Oxford group had been begging their old champion to preach to them, which he would not do in so public a place; they now added their entreaties to those of the deputy of the strangers, and offered to join these at Lyford. Surely, he who had given a whole day to a few godly nuns, who needed him but little, could not refuse a Saturday and Sunday to so many soiled souls of every stripe and colour, “thirsting for the waters of life”? The suit was insistent; Campion was inclined to give in, but referred his admirers to Brother Emerson, as his provisional Superior. He, in turn, was overborne. It seemed much safer, after all, for the precious Father to be among friends, while he, Ralph, went on alone to fetch the books from Mr. Richard Houghton’s in Lancashire. So back to Lyford Campion went, to the poor little lay brother’s everlasting regret.