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There was a crash of falling crocks, and a platter rolled on the ground, as she stumbled to her knees. Gervase was horrified.

"What have I done? I've hurt thee, pigsnie. Why, I wouldn't have hurt thee for the world, child. I was but quoting Scripture and forgot myself."

He slipped his hands under her armpits and tried to raise her.

"Forgive me, bud. It was all a forgetting on my part. I knew not thou wast there behind me, creeping mouse . . ."

"Condemnation!"

A voice cried from below, and the girl started up at once. She was a small creature, less than five feet high, with a secret little face, which with its great black starting eyes gave her the look of some animal—no creeping mouse, but rather some coney or hare crouching before a spring for safety.

"Condemnation! What hast thou broken now?"

"She has broken naught. It's I who've broken your platter, smiting her as David smote the Amalekite who had slain the King. Had not this happened," he continued, turning to Exalted Harman, "I should have quoted further how David said unto him 'thy blood be upon thy head, for thy mouth hath testified against thee saying I have slain the Lord's anointed.' So if David could thus avenge Saul who had sought his blood for many years and whose place he himself was anointed to take, how much less dare I forswear myself against a King who has done me no harm but only a general injustice through being a Papist."