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"I go there! . . . so, maybe I do. But why should you go there? You conform."

"Aye, I conform, not having a pocket for recusancy; but my heart's where it ever was."

"And how long is it since your feet went with your heart?"

"Not since Master Pecksall said Mass in Leasan Church I dunnamany years ago. I wouldn't go to Fuggesbroke . . . those Mission priests hold their lives cheaper than what I hold mine."

"Then why would you hear Mass at Fuggesbroke?"

"Because I'm growing old—sixty-nine at Christmas—and for these last months I've had a pain in my umbles that waxes with the moon. I'd fain hear Holy Mass again before I die, and go to heaven when I'm dead. I'm scared of dying in this new religion, for I'm persuaded there an't no heaven in it. Maybe when I was younger I grew careless, and so long as I went to church cared not much what was done there; but when you grow old, Mistress Catherine, the shadows fall and you begin to want to see beyond them."

Catherine nodded gravely.

"Aye, and before you grow old. Those shadows at whiles trouble me too, Master, and I would that we had more light. Even in the faith there's darkness, seeing that we get our religion scarce more than once a twelvemonth. 'Tis a full twelvemonth now since Mass was said at Fuggesbroke."