"Let us go away. I am shivering." Then as they turned from the desolate place, she said with an attempt at indifference, "When did you hear from Cymlin? And pray in what place must I remember him now?" "I know not particularly. Wherever the Captain-General is, there Cymlin Swaffham is like to be." "At Ely, they were talking of Cromwell as near to Edinburgh." "Then we shall hear tidings of him soon. He goes not anywhere for nothing." "Why do you not ask after Stephen’s fortune—good or bad?" "I did not at the moment think of Stephen. When Cromwell is in the mind ’tis impossible to find him fit company. It is he, and he only." "Yet if ever Stephen de Wick gets a glimpse of home, it is not home to him until he has been at Swaffham." Jane made no answer, and they walked silently to the door where Matilda’s carriage was waiting. Mrs. Swaffham joined them as Matilda was about to leave, and the girl said, "I had come near to forgetting something I wished to tell you. One of those men called Quakers was preaching his new religion at Squire Oliver Leder’s last night. There was much disputing about him to-day." "I wonder then," said Mrs. Swaffham, "that we were not asked. I have desired to hear some of these men. It is said they are mighty in the Scriptures, and that they preach peace, which—God knows—is the doctrine England now needs." "Many were there. I heard of the Flittons and Mossleys and the Traffords and others. But pray what is the good of preaching ’peace’ when Cromwell is going up and down the land with a drawn sword. It is true also that these Quakers themselves always bring quarreling and persecution with them." "That is not their fault," said Jane. "The preacher can only give the Word, and if people will quarrel about it and rend it to and fro, that is not the preacher’s fault. But, indeed, all testify that these people called Quakers quake at nothing, and are stiff and unbendable in their own way." "So are the Independents, and the Anabaptists, and the Presbyterians, and the Fifth Monarchy Men, and the Root and Branch Men, and——" "The Papists, and the Episcopalians," added Jane. "Faith! No one can deny it." "What said Lady Heneage of the preacher?" asked Mrs. Swaffham. "She thought he ought to be put in the stocks; and her sister Isabel said that he was a good man, and had the root of the matter in him. Madame Flitton was of the same opinion, though she did not feel at liberty to approve entirely. Others considered him full of temper and very forward, and the argument was hot, and quite Christian-like. I heard that he was to preach again at Deeping Den. Now I must make what haste I can; my father will be angry at my delay. Good-bye! faithful till we meet again." "She says ’faithful,’ yet knows not how to be faithful."