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Updated: June 6, 2025
Master Manners was as good a Catholic as Master Audrey himself; and the families met at mass perhaps as much as four or five times in the year, either at Padley, where Sir Thomas' chapel still had priests coming and going; sometimes at Dethick in the Babingtons' barn; sometimes as far north as Harewood. And now a man's trouble was come upon the boy. The cause of it was as follows.
But the boy heard not a word; for he found himself staring at the thin-faced young priest from whom he had received Holy Communion at Padley. It was but for an instant; for the man to whom the priest spoke answered in the same low voice, and the other pulled his cloak again round his mouth. Yet the look was enough. Half an hour later he stood by his father's bed, looking down on him without fear.
Padley had remained untouched; the men went about their farm business; the housekeeper peered from her windows, without a glimpse of armed men such as had terrified the household on Candlemas day. It was only last night, indeed, that the master had returned, in time to meet the two priests who had asked for shelter for a day or two.
There was first a number of Catholics, openly confessed or at least secretly Catholic, though these were not in full force since most were gone to Padley before dawn; and there was next a certain sentiment abroad, even amongst those who conformed, in favour of tradition.
So it was to this company that Robin came, walking up between the tables after he had washed his hands at the lavatory that stood by the screens. "You are late, lad," said his father. "I was over to Padley, sir.... Good-day, Anthony." Then silence fell again, for it was the custom in good houses to keep silence, or very nearly, at dinner and supper.
Even while he followed the sounds, he understood why my lord Shrewsbury had made this assault so suddenly, after months of peace.... He perceived the hand of Thomas FitzHerbert, too, in the precision with which the attack had been made, and the certain information he must have given that priests would be in Padley that morning.
They blessed themselves, all four of them, openly at the end, and went out at last to their horses. "Will you ride with us, sir?" asked Anthony; "we can go your way. Robin here has something to say to you." "I shall be happy if you will give me your company for a little. I must be at Padley before dark, if I can, and must visit a couple of houses on the way."
At Easter, he observed, he would take the bread and wine in Matstead Church, and Robin would take them too. The sun stood half-way towards his setting as Robin rode up from the valley, past Padley, over the steep ascent that led towards Booth's Edge. The boy was brighter a little as he came up; he had counted above eighty snipe within the last mile and a half, and he was coming near to Marjorie.
I have heard more of the fellow since he hath been in Derby than in all my life before; and, I tell you, he is for feathering his own nest if he can." He stopped. "Mistress, did you know that he had been out to Padley three or four times since he came to Derby?... Well, I tell you now that he has. Mr. John was away, praise God; but the fellow went all round the place and greatly admired it."
His lawyers were to rely exactly on the defence that had been spoken of just now; it was to be shown that the prisoner had harboured no priests; and the witnesses had already been spoken with men from Norbury and Padley, who would swear that to their certain knowledge no priest had been received by Mr. FitzHerbert at least during the previous year or eighteen months.
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