[This cut follows an engraving in Bartlett’s _Pilgrim Fathers_, p. 40, representing the scene about thirty years ago. Raine, _Parish of Blyth_, p. 129, referring to the time of Edwin Sandys, raised to the archiepiscopal throne of York in 1576, says: “Under him a family of the name of Brewster occupied the manor-house, which had gradually and insensibly dwindled down from a large mansion to a moderately sized farmhouse;” and Raine gives for a frontispiece a view of the remaining fragment, which is copied by Dr. Dexter in _Sabbath at Home_, 1867, p. 135. Mr. Deane says of it, “It may have been originally connected with the manor-house, which has long since passed away.” (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._ xi. 404.) Dr. Dexter gives a plan of the neighborhood.—ED.]] [Illustration: SCROOBY AND AUSTERFIELD.] There were doubtless other neighborhoods where the Separatists maintained thriving congregations for a longer or shorter time after the King’s policy became known; but by far the most zealous company of which accounts remain was one formed by residents “of sundry towns and villages, some in Nottinghamshire, some of Lincolnshire, and some of Yorkshire, where they border nearest together.” In 1602, or thereabout, these people, from places at least eight or ten miles apart, gathered themselves into a church,—probably at Gainsborough, a market-town in Lincolnshire, on the Trent; at least we know that when the original congregation divided, in 1605 or 1606, into two,—perhaps for greater security, as well as for local convenience,—it was at Gainsborough that one branch remained, which soon chose John Smyth, a Cambridge graduate, who had been some time with them, to be its pastor, and that with him many of this portion of the parent stock migrated in 1606 to Amsterdam. The western division of the original company appears to have been formed into a distinct church in the summer of 1606, and, according to the testimony of Governor Bradford, in his notice of Elder Brewster, “they ordinarily met at his [Brewster’s] house on the Lord’s day (which was a manor [_i. e._ manor-house] of the Bishop’s), and with great love he entertained them when they came, making provision for them, to his great charge.” [Illustration: AUTOGRAPHS OF JOHN ROBINSON.