"The 'prentice lads suspect we are Quakers, and Sim Tompkins has told his mother about it. What wilt thou do, my husband?" she asked. "Nay, what can we do but put our trust in the Lord?" "But thou wilt be careful, Gilbert, for the children's sake?" "Careful, dear heart? It is not to be feared that I shall publish abroad that I am a Quaker; but, as thou sayest, too many suspect it, I fear, and I have been pondering on a thought that came to me to-day when thinking of Westland and his wife. He will doubtless be sent out to the plantations of America by the next cargo of convicts, and when he can save money enough to pay for the passage of his wife, she will be allowed to join him in his exile. Now, our young champion, Sir William Penn, is rich, and moreover the government is deeply indebted to him for moneys lent by his father, and which he hath small hope of regaining, for the king is too extravagant ever to pay his debts. But if he hath little money to spare, he hath many waste lands out in the plantations of America, and he might be induced to sell some to our friend Penn in part payment of his debt. On this land some of us might go and settle, even as the Independents did in the reign of the first Charles, for America is wide and free, and there we might serve God even as the divine voice should guide and direct us, and none could make us afraid." "That were a blessing indeed," said Dame Drayton, but with a sigh, for the prospect of leaving her native land and her beloved London was a painful thought to her. "Oh that we could have this blessed freedom in England!" she said, clasping her hands, while the tears slowly filled her eyes. "Nay, nay, dame, thou hast naught to fret over, I trow," said her husband, in some surprise to see his wife in tears. "It was not of myself I was thinking, but of Annie Lowe, my sister. Audrey hath let me know—without herself understanding—that the way they thought would be soft to their feet hath been strewn with thorns; none the less sharp are they, I trow, because they have to be covered from the world." "Now thou art speaking in parables, Martha. I thought the vicar was well content to abide in the church that could nourish him." "It may afford nourishment for the body, but to sign the Act of Uniformity, whereby Parson Lowe and many another gave up the right to serve and worship God as the inner voice would fain lead them, could but be starvation for the soul. I felt sure it would come to this with Annie and her husband, and that she would one day wish she had been among those who were ejected for the truth's sake." "But—but I thought Annie sent to warn thee of the danger thou wert in through Sim chattering to his mother of what had been spoken here?"