“He stood up and moved the Court that the Recorder should be fined £1,000, removed from the Recordership and thrown into the Fleet Prison till the fine was paid. And still worse was the fate of my father’s friend Gellibrand, Professor of Astronomy at Trinity College, Oxford, who, for encouraging the printing of an almanack in which the names of the martyrs from Foxe’s book were mentioned and the black letter saints omitted, was literally hounded to death by Dr. Laud. My father was present at the trial in the Court of High Commission, and the Professor was acquitted by Archbishop Abbott and the whole Court except Dr. Laud, who was full of wrath at the acquittal, and urged that the Queen desired him to prosecute the author and to suppress the book. Then when the Court still persisted in acquitting the accused, Dr. Laud turned upon him in fury, saying that he ought to be punished for making a faction in the Court, and vowing that he would sit in his skirts, for he heard that he kept conventicles at Gresham College after his lectures. Afterwards a second prosecution in the High Commission was ordered, and this so affected the Professor’s health and spirits that it brought a complaint on him, of which he afterwards died.” “Oh,” said Hilary, with a little impatient sigh, “let us have no more doleful tales; these things have nought to do with us. Let us enjoy this happy day while we can.” Gabriel’s whole face changed at her appeal. The indignation gave place to love and tenderness, and a mirthful look came into his eyes; when, as if in response to her words, they heard the voices of some little village children singing, “Then to the maypole let us away, For it is now a holiday.” The ardent, generous spirit which made him quick to resent any sort of cruelty or oppression also gave him the power to be such a lover as might well content the most exacting of maidens, and there were probably no happier people in England that day than these two lovers as they sat under the shadow of Bosbury Cross. Meanwhile in the tiled cottage to the east of the churchyard an old clergyman, in the last throes of a lingering and painful death, faintly gasped the words, “Lord, how long?” The physician sorrowfully watched the havoc wrought by man-inflicted ill, from time to time speaking a word or two of comfort and good cheer, or gently raising the dying man into an easier posture. And at the foot of the bed, his face buried in his hands, knelt Peter Waghorn, his frame shaken with sobs, his heart consumed with hatred of Dr. Laud, and in his mind the psalmist’s passionate cry, “Let there be none to extend mercy unto _him!_ . .. Because that he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.” A last faint gasping sigh made him raise his head. The physician was gently laying down the worn-out body and closing the sightless eyes.