When this was told to my father he fell into it readily enough, being
a young man of spirit and having a great desire to see the world,
otherwise, however, than through the gratings of a monastery window. So
the end of it was that he went to foreign parts in the care of a party
of Spanish monks, who had journeyed here to Norfolk on a pilgrimage to
the shrine of our Lady of Walsingham.
It is said that my grandfather wept when he parted with his son, feeling
that he should see him no more; yet so strong was his religion, or
rather his superstition, that he did not hesitate to send him away,
though for no reason save that he would mortify his own love and flesh,
offering his son for a sacrifice as Abraham would have offered Isaac.
But though my father appeared to consent to the sacrifice, as did Isaac,
yet his mind was not altogether set on altars and faggots; in short, as
he himself told me in after years, his plans were already laid.
Thus it chanced that when he had sailed from Yarmouth a year and six
months, there came a letter from the abbot of the monastery in Seville
to his brother, the prior of St. Mary's at Bungay, saying that my father
had fled from the monastery, leaving no trace of where he had gone. My
grandfather was grieved at this tidings, but said little about it.
Two more years passed away, and there came other news, namely, that my
father had been captured, that he had been handed over to the power
of the Holy Office, as the accursed Inquisition was then named, and
tortured to death at Seville.
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