"Philip," said he, "your dear sister is a very lioness for courage, though she is gentle also and loving. I have heard tell of wives that for fear of poverty for them whom they love, have tempted their husbands to compliance with base things. Verily your sister is not one of these. She would starve, yea and see her babe starve--which, I take it, would trouble her a hundredfold more--before she would let one false word pass her lips. And I do believe in my soul that if, which God forbid, I should yield to evil for her sake and the babe's (for I could not be so base as to yield to it for my own), she would leave me sooner than have a share in the unclean thing. And being so set in her mind, and resolved what she will do, she keeps such a cheerful mind as I cannot pretend to. And, indeed, to speak the whole truth, which I scarce like to do in her hearing, 'tis a dismal prospect. Hitherto, it is true, I have been marvellously protected. My good friend Sir Thomas Chesham, who is the principal man in this part, having both a freehold of his own and a very profitable lease from the College, has stood by me, so that while others have been dispossessed of their livings, both on my right hand and my left, I remain unharmed. 'Tis true there are murmurings against me; yea, and threats openly made. Once and again have my enemies come into the church, resolved, I doubt not, had they not been hindered, to drag me from my very pulpit. 'Twas the Sunday before Easter this very year that three troopers, with their swords by their side, came, having with them a preacher in a black gown, whom they would have put in my place. When I went up to the pulpit to preach, up starts one of the troopers, and would have left his place; but Sir Thomas rose from his seat and said, 'William Ball, and you, Hugh Peters, (for I know you both), you shall answer for this day's uproar. Master Blagrove is a good man, and has not been dispossessed by any sentence of law or commission. Till he be so, he, and he only, has a right where he is, and verily so long as I am master in this parish he shall keep it.'