“Edith,” said Master Field, proceeding with fixed composure, like one reading words which he had conned so often that he knew them at last ‘by heart,’ “they were near kinswomen, daughters of two brethren: yonder haughty lady was the heir; Edith had naught but the riches of her own noble heart. The proud cousin ruled with the strong hand of a tyrant; the gentle one was an orphan, alone in this chill earth: and in the house of her fathers Edith Dacre was a slave! “Ah! Edith, thou knowest grief--thou knowest not the hard sorrows of thy sweet mother’s youth! “And so she gave her gentle hand to me, and we were at peace and joyous for one blessed while. Thou wert born then, in our glad poverty, Edith: I dare not look back upon its wondrous sunshine--I dare not! “But it was an evil time! Yonder hapless king and the archbishop were failing in their unrighteous power; and suddenly, when we thought no evil, we were driven, by some of the king’s followers, from our quiet home--for the war was raging then. It was a bitter winter--stern and cold, like the power that persecuted us; and underneath a chill sky, Edith, they drove us forth homeless: thy mother with the faint rose only budding in her cheek, and thou new-born! “What could we do? I?--I would have toiled--I would have suffered; I would have taken upon me the uttermost yoke that mortal neck ever bore for ye both; but every door was closed upon us--no man dared shelter the forlorn Puritan; no kind heart offered refuge to the fainting fragile mother--the hunted Puritan’s wife. “So we went forth upon the bleak road, Edith, if, perchance, we could have reached the humble shelter of Ralph Dutton’s cottage; I knew we might be safe and secret there; but thy mother’s strength failed her, and in despair I sat me down at the gate of Thornleigh, while my Edith went to the door of her hard kinswoman, to crave a shelter for herself and thee. The lady then had a little one of her own--this good youth Philip--and I believed not but her heart would melt to the young mother and the child. “Edith, she came forth in her pride to the threshold, where stood my gentle one, and with the keen wind cutting over that blessed face, and the weariness of her way-faring bending her to the earth, the door of her fathers’ house was shut upon her! In the extremity of our distress, yonder evil woman had naught but reproach to say to her! her own kindred, her own blood--the young mother with the infant in her weary arms! “She came out to me again, Edith, I had waited to see that she was but safe, ere I went upon my lonely way, she came out to me with a smile upon her lip, such a smile! thou sawest never the like. ‘We will go on, Caleb,’ she said, ‘we will go on!’ that was all. Edith, I was nigh maddened! I saw the cold striking into her heart, I saw her totter as she laid her hand upon my arm, and I--I could do naught, my soul was mad within me: I could scarce speak comfort to her.