"Marry, an' I had my way, they should be well whipped all round, and packed off to Spain. Only the galley-slaves, poor lads!--they could not help themselves." "Here 's the leech come, Master," said Jennet, behind them. Sir Thomas hastened back into the house, and the two sisters followed more slowly. "Oh, behold Aunt Rachel!" said Blanche. "She will tell us somewhat." Now, only on the previous evening, Rachel had been asserting, in her strongest and sternest manner, that nothing,--no, nothing on earth!-- should ever make her harbour a Spaniard. They were one and all "evil companions;" they were wicked Papists; they were perturbators of the peace of our Sovereign Lady the Queen; hanging was a luxury beyond their deserts. It might therefore have been reasonably expected that Rachel, when called upon to serve one of these very obnoxious persons, would scornfully refuse assistance, and retire to her own chamber in the capacity of an outraged Briton. But Rachel, when she spoke in this way, spoke in the abstract, with a want of realisation. When the objectionable specimen of the obnoxious mass lifted a pair of suffering human eyes to her face, the ice thawed in a surprisingly sudden manner from the surface of her flinty heart, and the set lips relaxed into an astonishingly pitying expression. Blanche, outwardly decorous, but with her eyes full of mischief, walked up to Rachel, and desired to know how it fared with the Spanish gentleman. "Poor lad! he is in woeful case!" answered the representative of the enraged British Lion. "What with soul and body, he must have borne well-nigh the pangs of martyrdom this night. 'Tis enough to make one's heart bleed but to look on him. And to hear him moan to himself of his mother, poor heart! when he thinks him alone--at least thus I take his words: I would, rather than forty shillings, she were nigh to tend him." From which speech it will be seen that when Rachel did "turn coat," she turned it inside out entirely. "Good lack, Aunt Rachel! what is he but an evil companion?" demanded irreverent Blanche, with her usual want of respect for the opinions of her elders. "If he were the worsest companion on earth, child, yet the lad may lack his wounds dressed," said Rachel, indignantly. "And a Papist!" "So much the rather should we show him the betterness of our Protestant faith, by Christian-wise tending of him." "And an enemy!" pursued Blanche, proceeding with the list. "Hold thy peace, maid! Be we not bidden in God's Word to do good unto our enemies?" "And a perturbator of the Queen's peace, Aunt Rachel!" "This young lad hath not much perturbed the Queen's peace, I warrant," said Rachel, uneasily,--a dim apprehension of her niece's intentions crossing her mind at last. "Nay, but hanging is far too good for him!" argued Blanche, quoting the final item.