of what they had dared and done, how they looked, how they had stood the journey and the prison; and how they were soon to be sent down to the West Country, to be tried at those places where they had been seen in arms against the King.
"That is the worst of it!" cried the mother. "Had it been here in London town our friends and the influence of our party might have had weight. But over yonder—so far away! Ah, if I could but go there with them!"
"Mother, I will go!" said Hannah, speaking firmly and resolutely. "I have thought of it all the way home. I have plans of all sorts in my head. Grandfather will soon be here, and then he will tell you more, and we will talk it over together. But I must be there. I must go with them. I must—I must!"
"But, my child, my child, how can I spare thee? They say that the King is so incensed that even to show pity for the condemned—for the prisoners—is accounted as a crime. Suppose that hurt were to befall thee?"
"Mother," she answered gently, "God can protect me, and I think He will. But be that as it may, I cannot let my brothers go to what may be their death alone. I must be there to visit them in their prison, to lighten the rigours of captivity, to provide them with whatever may be permitted in the way
