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"O God," he prayed—and he seldom prayed outside his public ministrations—"O God, surely it would be a little thing for thee to let me live again before I die."

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§ 1

June was nearly over when Gervase and his daughters removed to Conster Manor. They could have stayed till August, for the suspension of the non-swearing clergy did not take effect till the first of that month, nor would they be deprived of their livings till the February of next year. But his fundamental vanity had resented the notion of being kicked out, as he called it, and he had tendered his resignation in a letter of six closely-written pages, a copy of which he sent to his Bishop.

Bishop Lake of Chichester, himself a non-juror, knew Parson Alard well enough to feel relieved that he was not to have his company in the noble army of martyrs. For this long-winded resignation, with its appeals to law and Scripture and its crowding quotations from Boehme, Paracelsus, Cirvelius, Alanus and other strange philosophers, struck him as no more than the decoration of a natural desire for retirement and leisure. He failed to understand that the writer regarded himself as a martyr and was preparing for an earthly as well as a heavenly reward.