Presently, however, he turned his eyes upon Ruth. "Does not the book please you?" he asked, pointing to the volume before her. "I see," he went on, when she looked up, but made no answer, "that you have not turned the page since you opened it haphazard when I bid you be reading it half an hour ago. Or is it that the picture of the blessed martyrdom of Mistress Anne Askew so fascinates you?" "'Tis a fearful thing!" said Ruth, shuddering, as she looked, for the first time, if truth must be owned, at the pictured page. "Poor Mistress Askew! She must have been a right brave lady." "A bold Christian woman, rather," quickly corrected the maltster, "who counted her life for nought beside the truth." "Truth is indeed a pure noble thing to live for," acquiesced Ruth. "And to die for. Yes," said Rumbold; "that blessed work of Master Fox's is indeed a mighty treasure-house of the scores who have shed their blood for it." "Ay," sighed Ruth, "'tis indeed a book of death, and ghastliness, and--" [Sidenote: A batch of books.] "And wholesome teaching, and fitter far for thy recreation moments than all this farrago of chap-book trash I found you head over ears upon. Where did you get it?" "I bought it of the old packman who came to the gatehouse yesterday morning; and a fine collection there was in his wallet," continued Ruth, her eyes waxing bright. "He had come straight by way of Bow and Waltham, and on here across the Rye, from the 'Looking Glass,' the big chap-bookseller's shop that stands on London Bridge, father, dear, and he'd got _Reynard the Fox_, the sly wicked creature. Father, what an odious hypocrite he was--eh? And _Mother Bunch_, and _Jack and the Giants_-- "'Fe! Fi! Fo! Fum! I smell the blood of an English--_mun_! Let him be alive, or let him be dead, I'll grind his bones--'" "Tut! tut! tut!" frowned the maltster. [Sidenote: The maltster hates romance.]