"I have whiles seen a storm blow over and then come back!" said the old man, seriously. "Na, na, lassie. Dinna be too confident. What's fristed * is no forgotten." * Fristed is "covered up," or "skinned over." [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. THE LIGHTNING STRIKES AGAIN. THE old man was right. With the spring came rumors of renewed attacks upon the religious foundations all over the country. We heard before of the execution of the Bishop of Rochester, who laid down his gray head upon the block because he would not acknowledge the king to be pope—for that is what it amounted to. (Nothing can be more absurd than to call Henry the Eighth a Protestant.) Our own prioress might be said to have died in the same cause. Nobody had appeared to administer the oath to our present head, however, and we had begun to think that we were to be let alone. I do not believe that the reverend mother had any such hopes. Our foundation was a wealthy one, and our church was well-known to be unusually rich in gold and silver. There was abundance of shrines, reliquaries and boxes, as valuable for their splendid workmanship as for the precious metals of which they were made, and the jewels with which they were incrusted. Then there were missals set with precious stones, beautiful hangings and vestments, and vessels, and candlesticks, and the like. These articles were all displayed upon feast days, and when our great altar was lighted up at the festival of our Patroness, it was a spectacle almost too bright for mortal eyes. Such a prey was not likely very long to escape the teeth and claws of my Lord Cromwell, and his master. Bishop Gardiner himself was very forward in promoting the king's designs upon the religious houses (for as devout as he afterward professed himself). He was our visitor, as I have said, and when the very shepherd is in league with the wolves, the silly sheep have little chance of escape. It was on a beautiful morning in May that destruction overtook us. We had just come out of chapel for our recreation, when we heard a thundering knocking at the great gate, and the portress going to open it, found a couple of gentlemen, and our old friend, or enemy, the bishop's chaplain, with letters from my Lord Cromwell and Bishop Gardiner for the prioress and community. We were all in the garden, huddled together and watching afar off, when the mother assistant called us to come into the ante-room of the choir, where we were wont to put on the long mantles which we wore in church. We were bid to array ourselves as quickly as possible and get ourselves into the usual order of our procession. This being done, and preceded by the cross-bearers, as was the way in our grand processionals, the singers passed into the choir, singing as usual, I being at the organ, which I was accustomed to play for all church services. The youngest sisters came first and the prioress last.