"I know a Black Friar, Agnes," he said, speaking slowly, as if weighing each word, "who seeth no cause, neither in God's Word, neither in common reason, wherefore priests should not be wedded men, as thou wist that many, these ten years past, have been. But he is yet loth to break his mind unto the maid, seeing that many perils do now seem to lie in the way of wedded priests, and he cannot tell if it were well done or no, that he should speak unto her. If penalty fell on him, being thus wed, it should not leave her scatheless. Tell me, now, how thinkest thou?— should he do well to break his mind, or no? A maid may judge better than a man how a maid should take it."

"I would think, Father," answered the astonished Agnes, "that a maid which did truly love any man should not suffer uncertain sorrow to stand betwixt her and him."

"Yet how, if it were certain?"

"Nay, nor so neither."

"Go to! Put it this case were thine own. Shouldst thou be afeared to wed with a priest?"

Agnes did not quite like such a home question. Yet she replied calmly, without any idea of the other question which was coming.

"Methinks, no; not if I truly loved him."

"And couldst thou truly love—me, Agnes?"

For an instant Agnes gave no answer. She had as little expected to have that question asked her as she had expected to be created a duchess.

"Say sooth, if thou shouldst be feared," said John Laurence; and the faint suspicion of pain in his tone unloosed her lips at once.

Afraid! Afraid to leave all her dreary past behind her, and to begin a new life, with her cup of gladness full to the very brim? John Laurence was satisfied with his answer. But, for the first time, not one word of reading or comment reached Agnes's mind in an intelligible form.

"May be, my gracious Lady, your good Ladyship should like your palfrey called!" were the words that greeted Agnes when she made her reappearance in Mistress Winter's kitchen, having certainly been more forgetful than usual of the flight of time. "Or, may be, it might please your honourableness to turn your goodly eyes upon the clock, and behold whether it be meet time for a decent maid to come home of a feast-day even? By my troth, I would wager thou hadst been to Westminster and hadst danced a galliardo in the Queen's Grace's hall, did I not know that none with 's eyes in 's head should e'er so much as look on thee. Thou idle doltish gadabout! Dost think I keep thee in board and lodgment and raiment for to go a-gossiping with every idle companion thou mayest meet? Whither hast been, thou dawdlesome patch? Up to no good, I warrant thee!"

"I have been to Paul's, Mistress, an' it like you," was all that Agnes answered.

"Soothly, it liketh me well, sweeting! Alisting some fat pickpurse friar, with his oily words, belike?"

"I have been a-talking with a friend," said Agnes boldly.

"Marry come up! So my sweet young damosel hath made friends, quotha! Prithee, was it my Lady's Grace of Suffolk thou wentest forth to see, or my Lady of Norfolk, trow? Did she give thee a ride o' her velvet pillion, bestudded with gold?"

Agnes thought it would be best to get it over. The storm which must come might as well fall soon as late. She stood up, and looked the terrible Mistress Winter in the face.

"Please it you, Mistress Winter, I am handfast to wedlock; and he that shall be mine husband it is that I have talked withal this even."

And having so spoken, Agnes waited quietly for the tempest.



CHAPTER SIX.

THE SHADOW BEFORE.

"Oh for the faith to grasp Heaven's bright For Ever, Amid the shadows of earth's Little While!"

Jane Crewdson.

Sheer amazement kept Mistress Winter silent for one moment after Agnes had made her startling revelation. That her bondslave should have dared to dream of freedom was almost too preposterous for belief. And she was powerless to stop this most insubordinate proceeding; for, never anticipating such a calamity, and not fond of spending money, except on herself and her daughters, she had not, as she might have done, bound Agnes her apprentice. But after that minute of astonished silence, a thunderstorm such as even Agnes had never before experienced, burst upon her devoted head. If Mistress Winter might be believed, no such instance of rebellion, perversity, ingratitude, and all imaginable wickedness, had ever before occurred since Adam and Eve quitted Paradise. Agnes was asked to what she expected to come in this life, and where she expected to go after it. When Mistress Winter became weary of scolding, which was not soon, Joan took up the tale, and when she was tired Dorothy succeeded, and as all were gifted with considerable powers of speech, the ball was kept going until bedtime. Then Agnes was allowed to creep to her coarse rug and bundle of straw, feeling herself in peace at last.

Thenceforward there was not much peace left, at least in the day-time. Having been interrogated as to the name and calling of her suitor, Agnes was at once dubbed Madam Dominic, my Lady's Grace of Blackfriars, and various similar titles. Dorothy, clasping her hands in mock rapture, falsely averred that she had foreseen this delightful ending to the story, when she caught sight of Agnes and Friar Laurence talking at the Cross; and proceeded to give an ironical description of the Friar's personal charms, sufficiently spiced to be very amusing to her mother and sister, and just sufficiently seasoned with truth to be exceedingly galling to Agnes. Henceforth she took every opportunity to play ill-natured practical jokes on the latter. It was not likely that Agnes would particularly enjoy having shreds of dirty flannel and linen flung into her lap, with a tittering remark that they would enrich her trousseau; nor feeling, when she sat at needlework, a rotten egg gently broken over her head, with the bland intimation that it was to dress her hair for the wedding; nor the presentation, in solemn form, of torn and faded ribbons, accompanied by the information that they would become her sweetly on her bridal. Of all approach to wedding attire poor Agnes was devoid. She had but two gowns in the world—the washed-out linen bed-gown and stuff petticoat in which her work was generally done, and the well-patched serge which replaced it upon holy days. But Agnes bore all these outrages with a patience born of long practice, and nourished by glad hope. It was now May, and it had been agreed with John Laurence that the twenty-ninth of the following March was to set her free.

They would gladly have made arrangements for an earlier date, had it been possible. But John Laurence was not much richer than Agnes herself, and they had to wait till he thought that he could reasonably afford to marry. Beside this, it was a most perilous time for a priest to think of wedlock. Things might change. Hope told that "flattering tale" which she is so fond of recapitulating to young people—often most unjustifiably. Who could tell what might happen, if they waited?

Meanwhile, what was happening was not particularly cheering, at least to the apprehension of the Gospellers. Wyatt's insurrection had been put down, and its leader beheaded; and its fruitlessness was shown by the setting out of the Queen's envoys to escort Philip to England, while Wyatt yet lay in prison waiting for his trial. The Princess Elizabeth, sent to the Tower in March, on charge of complicity in Wyatt's evil deeds—who will ever know whether it was true?—had been released (at Philip's request, it was said) a few days before Corpus Christi. Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer lay imprisoned at Oxford, and under sentence of death. Nearly every day somebody was exhibited in the pillory—women as well as men—the most frequent charge being, as it appears in the diary of that comical speller, Mr Henry Machyn—"spekyng yll of good Qwen Mare." The difficulty which presents itself to the present generation is, how else her subjects could well speak of her proceedings. However, they could have held their peace. Probably the discreet portion of the community did so.

It may seem a little strange, on the surface, when one considers how it was that the reign of Mary was felt so galling, that the accession of Elizabeth was welcomed with such a fever of delight and triumph, such a sense of relief and freedom, as was undoubtedly the case—and yet that men bore the former and made no sign, waited for the latter with indescribable longing, but without any attempt to bring it about. Perhaps we must attribute this partly to that law-abiding instinct inherent in the ordinary Englishman: yet I think still more to the fact that as a rule, at all times, in all respects, the majority of the nation are indifferent. There were men who died at the stake in defence of the free Gospel. There were men who kindled those fires, and stamped out the truth, so far as in them lay. But these, even when put together, were still a minority. The majority were the watchers who stood round the stake, and who cared nothing for the cause on either side—who went to see a martyrdom as a Spaniard goes to see a bull-fight, with neither sympathy nor enmity towards the martyr. Of course, these would be, as to religious profession, what they found it to their own interest that they should be. The most popular and crowded of all the Seven Churches is the Church of Laodicea.

"Because thou art lukewarm... I will spue thee out of My mouth."

It was not without some difficulty that Agnes contrived to enjoy an occasional, and always short, interview with her betrothed. Such interviews were generally followed by forced audiences of Dorothy, who professed an entirely hypocritical interest in the progress of the love-match, and did her best to make Agnes recount what her lover had said to her. Agnes, however, was wise enough to keep out of the trap laid for her, and Dorothy took little by her motion.

Sometimes the lovers met for a few minutes before or after the reading in the Cathedral; sometimes there could be a few words as Agnes carried her pails to and from the Horsepool; once or twice, when Mistress Winter had barred the door on her for misdemeanour, they walked to some quiet nook in the fields near Clerkenwell, refreshing themselves with converse on the one grand subject nearest to both hearts—nearer even than each other. But the readings in the Cathedral were becoming much fewer than of old. It was a perilous thing to do now, and John Laurence was a marked man. Not that he feared danger: his motto was that of the old French knight—"Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra!" But his brother clergy were afraid lest it should be known that such compromising proceedings as regular Scripture lessons were permitted at Saint Paul's. Some from dislike of the Bible-reading, a few from honest kindly feeling towards the reader, managed to take care that the lectern was otherwise occupied, during the hour which alone John Laurence could usually spare from other duties.

At last King Philip landed in England, and his meeting and marriage with the Queen took place at Winchester. The City and suburbs blazed with bonfires, and rang with bells; the Te Deum was chanted in every church; the utmost delight had to be felt, or at any rate professed, by all who did not wish to be reported as disaffected persons. On the twelfth of August, the royal bride and bridegroom made their state entry into London. A heretic had been burnt at Uxbridge four days previous.

Every house in Cow Lane, imitating every other street in London, poured forth its members to see the procession. The good folks locked their doors, and left their houses to take care of themselves. Agnes, who liked a pretty sight as well as other people, had taken her stand with the crowd, and was looking out with interest as the first of the advancing horsemen who opened the procession became visible, when suddenly she felt a hand upon her own. She looked up into the welcome face of John Laurence.

"Art come to see the sight, John?" she asked with a smile.

"I am come to see two sights," said he, returning it,—but his smiles were always grave. "To wit, the King's and Queen's Graces of the one hand, and Agnes Stone of the other. Hast a mind for a walk toward the Clerks' Well, when all be gone by?"

"With a very good will," she answered.

But the pageant was coming past now, and they exchanged the use of their tongues for that of their eyes. It was entirely equestrian, and came over London Bridge, from Suffolk Place, where the King and Queen had passed the night. Our friends were not prepossessed by the royal bridegroom, whose low stature, want of beauty, and gloomy expression, struck them in the same light that they did most Englishmen, as denoting neither grace nor graciousness. Only two persons are recorded ever to have loved Philip—Queen Mary herself, and her successor, the fair and sagacious Elizabeth of France.

Just opposite the place where Agnes and the Friar stood was an allegorical group, of which one painted figure, supposed to be Henry the Eighth, was holding out to the Queen an open Bible, inscribed with the words Verbum Dei. But before night a warning had been conveyed to the authorities that the Queen was offended with this representation of her father, and the Bible was painted out so hastily that the hand of the figure was partly obliterated with it.

When the pageant had gone by, and the crowd had sufficiently dispersed, John Laurence and Agnes set out for their walk to Clerkenwell. They found a shady field, in a corner of which they sat down, and the Friar drew from his pocket a Latin Psalter,—the only form of the Bible with which it was then safe to be caught. From this he read to Agnes the hundred and seventh Psalm, translating it as he went on into the only tongue she knew.

"And He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to the City of Habitation."

He paused at that seventh verse, and half closing the book, sat looking thoughtfully into the blue heaven.

Very vaguely did Agnes enter into his deeper thoughts. Her ideas concerning public events, and possible future dangers, were of a very misty description. She kept silent a moment. Then, when he did not speak, she said—

"Well, John?"

"By the right way!" he said dreamily, rather as if speaking to himself than to her. "And He leads them, too, inportum voluntatis eorum—to the haven of their desire."

"That is, Heaven?" said Agnes questioningly. Her admiration for his knowledge and wisdom was high.

"That is Heaven," he replied in the same tone as before.

"John, what thinkest Heaven shall be like?"

"Like God!" said the Black Friar slowly. "Therefore, glorious— wonderful—perfect in every part—holy—satisfying."

"And right fair and beauteous, doubtless," she added, by way of completing the picture.

"That which is perfect must be fair," said John Laurence. "He saith to His Church, 'Thou art all fair, My love, and a stain is not in thee.' That is, to thee, and me, Agnes."

"To me?" she repeated, in an awe-struck voice. "Nay, how so, trow? I am all o'er a stain with my sins."

The answer was in inspired words. "'For perfect wert thou, in My beauty which I put upon thee, saith the Lord God.'"

Agnes sat still, trying to take in the idea.

"Hear yet again another His saying to the Church: 'Thou hast wounded Mine heart, My sister-spouse; thou hast wounded Mine heart in one of thine eyes, and in one chain of thy neck.' Now what is the eye?—is it not a member of the body? Doth not this learn us that every one of Christ's members hath his proper and peculiar love of Him, that cannot belong to any other? Yea, more; for the chain of the neck is not a member, but only the ornament of a member. Wherefore one grace—for the ornaments of the soul be his graces—one grace of one Christian soul is enough to delight Christ's heart."

Both were silent for a while, Agnes learning her new lesson.

"Mine heart!" said John Laurence suddenly, "the right way at times looks like the wrong."

"What meanest thou, John?" said Agnes, looking into his face, and startled by its expression of pain.

"Dear heart, we know not what lieth afore us. We be so blind, Agnes! But He knows. It is enough, if we are ready to follow Him. Canst thou dare follow, as well through the flood and the fire as through the flowery mead?"

"I cannot tell," she said tremulously. "I would try."

"There be two staves to lean on in our weariness," he said. "The one is for earth: 'Fear not, because I am with thee.' And the other is of Heaven, but gildeth earth with hope: 'Where I am, there shall My servant be.' There must be glory and sweetness, where is Jesus Christ."

Long years afterwards, Agnes recalled those words.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

SAD TIDINGS.

"But of all sad words by tongue or pen, The saddest are these—'It might have been!'"

Though the majority of the nation were comparatively indifferent to the religious changes that had been effected, there were certain political occurrences which they viewed with less equanimity. One of these was the vast number of Spaniards brought over by Philip. It was reckoned— doubtless with some exaggeration—that in September, 1554, three Spaniards might be seen in London to every Englishman. The rumour ran that five thousand more were on the way. The nation was both vexed and alarmed. Was England to be reduced, like the Netherlands, to the condition of a mere outlying province of Spain?

Before eight weeks had run out from the day of Philip's arrival in London, his hand upon the reins was plainly visible. He had been heard to say that if he believed a member of his own body to be tainted with heresy, he would amputate it immediately and without remorse. The Gospellers were not left quite ignorant of what they might reasonably expect.

It was on a quiet morning in October that Agnes was on her way to Horsepool, when she was overtaken by Cicely Marvell, carrying a yoke of water-pails like herself.

"Good morrow, Mistress Marvell!" said the former. "Dear heart! but you look something troubled belike. Is any sick with you?"

Cicely and Agnes were quite aware that their religious sentiments were alike. It is in the cloudy and dark day that those who fear the Lord speak often one to another.

"Heavy news, my maid!" said Cicely in a low voice, and shaking her head. "Yesternight sixty folk were arrest in London for reading of Lutheran books."

"Poor folk, trow?"

"All manner, as I do hear."

Neither high nor low, in those days, were safe, if suspicion of heresy were once roused against them. The higher class were the more likely to be detected; yet there was a little more hesitation in bringing them to the stake. But it was easy to see, then as now, that as a rule it was the poor of this world whom God had chosen to be rich in faith. For every rich man or titled lady who incurred bodily danger through faithfulness to the truth, there were at least fifty of those whom the world regards as "nobody."

There was a strange mixture of comedy and tragedy in the events of those days. The miracle-play alternated with the pillory, and the sight-seers went from the burning of a heretic in the morning to see the new athletic games, introduced by the Spaniards, in the afternoon in Palace Yard. A grand tournament at Court preceded, and a bear-baiting followed, the humiliating spectacle of the Parliament of England kneeling at the feet of Cardinal Pole, and abjectly craving absolution from Rome. One man—Sir Ralph Bagenall—stood out, and stood up, when all his co-senators were thus prostrate in the dust. He was religiously a Gallio, not a Gospeller; but he was politically a sturdy Englishman, and no coward. Strange to say, no harm came to him. Nay, is it strange, when we read, "Them that honour Me, I will honour," and "Whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel's, the same shall save it?"

There were no longer any sermons preached at the Cross that a Gospeller cared to hear. One was forthcoming regularly every Sunday; but the preachers were Pendleton the renegade, Feckenham the suave, or Gardiner the man of blood. The uneasy feeling of a section at least of the populace was shown by frays at Charing Cross, incipient insurrections in Suffolk, assaults on priests at the altar, and unaccountable iconoclasms. The image of Becket was twice found broken by mysterious means; and a cat, tonsured, and arrayed in miniature vestments, was discovered hanging on the gallows in Cheapside, while the offer of a large reward failed to reveal the offender.

During this time, Mistress Winter's piety had been blooming in a wonderful manner. She kept Saint Thomas of Canterbury on a small table, with a lamp burning before it, and every morning diligently courtesied to this stock and stone. When her hands were not otherwise busied, a rosary was pretty sure to be found in them, on which she recounted Paters and Aves with amazing celerity. The bitterness of her tongue kept pace with her show of religiousness. Ugly adjectives, and uglier substantives, were flung at Agnes all the day long, and whether she deserved reproof or not appeared to make no difference. But though words and even blows were not spared, Mistress Winter went no further. Agnes was much too useful to be denounced as a heretic, at least so long as she remained at her post in Cow Lane. She did all the unpleasant work in the house, besides filling the convenient offices of a vent for Joan's temper, and a butt for Dorothy's ridicule. But though getting rid of her was not to be thought of, words were cheap, however peppery, and a box on the ear was a great relief to the feelings of the giver— those of the recipient not being taken into account. So Agnes got plenty of both.

"Sweet-heart, how earnest by yonder black eye?" anxiously demanded John Laurence, on the last Sunday afternoon in January, when Agnes and he were coming back from their favourite stroll towards Clerkenwell.

"'Tis nought new, belike," said she with a smile.

"Please God," returned he, "it shall be ancient matter and by-gone, very soon."

He stood still a moment, looking over the crowded chimneys of the City, just beyond the green field through which they were walking.

"Doth the thought e'er come to thy mind, Agnes," asked he, "how soon all things shall be bygones? At the most afore many years,—yea, afore many days, it may be,—thou and I shall be away hence from this world. And even this great city, that doth look thus firm and substantial, ere long shall not be left thereof one trace. Yea, heaven and earth shall pass away: but Christ's words shall not pass away."

Agnes listened with interest, but gave no answer beyond a gesture of assent.

"I have fallen to think much of late," said the Black Friar, "of one word of His,—assuredly not to pass away, nor be forgotten—'Whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in Heaven.' Verily, it were awful matter, to draw down on a man's head this public denying of Jesu Christ."

"Dear heart!" said Agnes, at once sympathetically and deprecatingly.

"Ah!" he replied, with a sigh of self-distrust: "hope is one matter, and belief another."

"Dost fear some ill work, trow?" she asked doubtfully.

John Laurence did not answer at once. He spoke after a minute, dreamily, as if to himself; a habit to which Agnes was now quite accustomed.

"'Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after that He hath killed hath power to cast into Hell.'"

The Friar walked on for a few seconds with his usual rapidity, and then suddenly stopped again.

"Men think lightly of these things, dear heart," said he. "Most men have a far greater care lest they break a limb, or lose an handful of gold, than lest they be cast into Hell. Yet see thou how Christ took the same. And He knew,—as we cannot know,—what is Hell."

"The good Lord keep us!" ejaculated Agnes fervently.

"Amen!" responded the Black Friar. "'He shall keep the feet of His saints.' It is not we that keep ourselves. 'Tis not we that hold Him, no more than the babe holdeth himself in his mother's arms. And the mother were more like to leave the babe fall into the fire or the water, than He to loose hold upon His trustful child."

He was trying to prepare her for what might come. But she was not prepared.

Cold though it was, they had a pleasant walk that afternoon. The time of release was drawing so near, that Agnes felt almost as bright and glad as if it were already come. At Cow Cross, her betrothed bade her farewell, saying with his grave smile that he would not come further, lest it should cost her an extra taunt from Mistress Dorothy.

Agnes was quite satisfied to be saved the small torment in question. She did not realise how soon the time might come when it would seem to her a lighter thing to endure Dorothy's ridicule for a calendar year, than to miss one glimpse of that face.

We recognise such facts as these—when they come.

The next day passed over uneventfully. The Tuesday morning rose, bright, clear, and frosty. Agnes was in spirits perfectly marvellous, considering what she had to endure. She was making melody in her heart as she carried her pails to the pump, thinking gladly how short her time of trial was growing, and how bright her future would be. It mattered nothing to her that she would have to work as hard as ever; nothing, that she must live in a single room of a crowded street in the heart of the City; nothing, that John Laurence was a worn, gaunt man of more than twice her years, and utterly unattractive in the eyes of the world; nothing, that the day was bitterly cold, and her thin bed-gown a very insufficient protection. Everything was rose-colour to her. Had she not Christ in Heaven, and one honest heart that loved her upon earth?

When Agnes came in sight of the pump, she perceived a little child sitting crouched upon the step of the trough, and evidently crying. Her heart was not hard to touch, and setting down her pails she laid her hand on the boy's shoulder. He had been too much absorbed in his grief to notice her approach, but when she spoke he looked up, showing the now tear-stained face of little Will Flint.

"Why, Will, my little lad!—what matter now?"

Will burst into a fresh paroxysm without answering.

"Metrusteth thou hast not been an ill lad?"

Will shook his curly head.

"Nay, what then? Is Mother sick?"

Another shake.

"Come, tell me what it is. Mayhap we shall find some remedy."

"O Mistress Agnes!" came with a multitude of sobs.

"Nay, then, tell me now!" pleaded Agnes.

"O Mistress Agnes, they have ta'en him!"

"Ta'en whom, my lad? Sure, thy little brother Dickon is not stole away?"

"No!" sobbed Will. "But, O Mistress!—they've ta'en him to yon ugly prison, afore those wicked folk, and they call him an here—heretic, and they say he'll ne'er come out again—nay, never!"

This was manifestly something serious.

"But ta'en whom, Will, dear?—not thy father?"

"Oh nay, nay!—the Black Friar."

"What Black Friar, Will?" Agnes hardly knew her own voice.

"Why, our Black Friar—Father Laurence. There was only one."

For a minute there was dead silence in reply—a minute, during which the rose-colour died out of sky and earth, and the glad music was changed to funeral bells. Then Agnes rose from her stooping position.

"There was only one!" she repeated, with a far-away look in her eyes, which were fixed on the tower of the Cathedral, but saw nothing.

"He was so good to me and Dickon!" sobbed Will.

"Child, wilt do thy best to find out whither they have ta'en him, and when he is to be had afore the Bishops, and then come and tell me?"

Will, occupied in rubbing his eyes with his small sleeve, nodded assent. Agnes filled her pails mechanically, and carried them home. The world must go on, if the sun would never rise any more for her.

Early the next morning Will brought her news that the six prisoners, of whom John Laurence was one, had been taken to the Counter, and that on the eighth of February they were to appear before Bishop Gardiner at Winchester Palace, Southwark. Knowing that Mistress Winter would soon hear of the arrest, if she had not already done so, Agnes made no attempt to conceal the news. She told it herself, and requested permission to go and hear the examination.

"What, on a brewing-day!" cried Mistress Winter. "Good sooth, nay! They be right sure to be put by to another day. If that be not brewing, nor baking, nor cleaning, nor washing-day, may be thou canst be let go for an half-hour then."

"Prithee, Mistress Sacramentary, don thy velvet gown!" spitefully added Dorothy.

The hall of the Bishop's Palace was crowded that morning. The six prisoners were led out in order, according to their social rank:—first, William Hunter, the apprentice-boy of Brentford, only sixteen years of age; then Thomas Tomkins, the weaver; Stephen Knight, the barber of Maldon; William Pygot, the butcher of Braintree; John Laurence, the Black Friar; lastly, Thomas Hawkes, the only one in the group who wrote himself "gentleman." They were such common, contemptible people, that Gardiner thought them beneath his august notice, and scornfully referred them to Bonner's jurisdiction. They were marched at once to the Consistory sitting in Saint Paul's Chapter-House, whither the crowd followed.

The Consistory demanded of the accused persons—

"Do ye believe that the body of Christ is in the Sacrament, without any substance of bread and wine remaining?"

The prisoners replied that this doctrine was not agreeable to Scripture.

"Do ye believe that your parents, your sponsors, the King, Queen, nobility, clergy, and laity of the realm, believing this doctrine, were true and faithful Christians, or no?"

"If they so believed," was the answer, "they were therein deceived."

"Did ye, yourselves, in time past, truly believe the same, or no?"

They said, "Ay, heretofore; but not now."

"Do ye believe that the Spirit of Christ has been, is, and will be, with the Church, not suffering her to be deceived?"

"We do so believe," replied the prisoners.

"Have you," pursued Bonner, "being infamed to me as heretics, not been a good space in my house, and been there fed, and instructed by those desirous of your soul's welfare—and yet you refuse this belief?"

The accused admitted all this.

"Will ye now conform?"

"In no whit, until it be proved by Holy Scripture," came the decisive answer.

"If not," demanded the Bishop, "what grounds have you to maintain your opinion? Who is of the same opinion? What conference have ye had therein with any? What comfort and relief had you from any, and their names and dwelling-places?" [Note 1.]

This was a deliberate request that they would accuse their friends and teachers. But the prisoners did not respond.

"We have no ground but the truth," they said, "which we were taught by Doctor Taylor, of Hadleigh, and such other."

Since Taylor of Hadleigh was already burnt to ashes, this admission could do him no harm.

The accused persons were then remanded until nine o'clock the next morning, and advised in the meantime to "bethink them what they would do."

It was Cicely Marvell who told all this in a low voice to Agnes Stone, as they stood together under a tree in the meadow behind Cow Lane.

"Keep a good heart, dear maid!" said Cicely encouragingly. "May be it shall be better than we might fear. 'The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.'"

But Agnes shook her head. To such a trial she at least anticipated no other end than death. Too well she knew that, like the Master whose servant John Laurence was, "for envy they had delivered him."

Perhaps, too, her spirituality was of a higher type than that of Cicely. She recognised that the Lord's tender mercy lies not in sparing pain to His chosen, but in being with them when they pass through the purifying waters, and bearing them in His arms through the fire which is to consume their earthliness, but not themselves. His is a love which will inflict the pain that is to purify, and tenderly comfort the sufferer as he passes through it.

Agnes hardly knew how she passed that Friday evening. Her usual duties were all done; but she went through them with eyes that saw not, with deafened ears on which Mistress Winter's abuse fell pointless, for which Dorothy's sarcasms had no meaning. God was in Heaven, and John Laurence and his persecutors were on earth: beyond this there was to her nobody and nothing. The vexations for which she used to care were such mere insignificant pin-pricks that it was impossible even to notice them now.

So the Friday evening, and the sleepless night, wore away: and the Saturday morning broke.

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. These questions, in point of wording, are very much condensed.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE CROWN OF LIFE.

"Welcome scaffold for precious Christ."

Reverend James Renwick.

It so happened that the 9th of February, to which the prisoners had been remanded, was not a day devoted to baking, brewing, cleaning, or washing, in the household of Mistress Winter; who, not in complimentary language, gave Agnes her permission to spend half-an-hour in the Chapter-house.

Already, before the sitting of the Consistory, Bishop Bonner had sent, first for Pygot and Knight, and afterwards for Tomkins and Hunter, into his "great chamber," and asked them if they were willing to recant. They all refused, "not being persuaded in their consciences" that the doctrines propounded to them were true. These four were then brought into the Consistory, and a paper was offered them to sign, containing a synopsis of their belief. The statement appears to have been a fair and true definition of their creed, for all four attached their names to it without hesitation.

It was just at this time that Agnes entered the Chapter-house, as these prisoners were being removed, and John Laurence was brought forward.

"Pray you, come hither to me," said Bonner, with a show of friendliness, due to his prisoner's priesthood.

Calmly enough, to outward show, Agnes looked on his face as he came up to the Bishop,—that face so plain and uncomely to other eyes, so dear and beautiful to hers. There would be time enough for weeping hereafter, in that dreary future, of which the vista seemed to stretch before her in illimitable desert: but now she could afford to lose no tone of that yoke, no moment of the time permitted for gazing on that face. She might never see him again until they should stand together before the throne of God.

John Laurence answered every question asked of him calmly and firmly. He admitted that he was a priest, eighteen years in orders, and sometime a Black Friar professed. But Bonner's spies had told him more than this; and it was not his wont to omit the wringing of a heretic's heart.

"Art thou not ensured unto a maid in way of marriage?"

"I am so, my Lord," said John Laurence.

"Didst thou truly propose to wed with her?"

"By God's leave, I did."

And Agnes Stone, standing in the crowd, heard herself thus confessed before God and man—a confession which, she full well knew, stamped him who made it, in the eyes of these his judges, with indelible disgrace.

"And what is thine opinion on the Sacrament?" inquired Bonner in a confidential manner.

"It is a remembrance of Christ's body."

"Then what sayest thou of them which believe, as we do, that it is Christ's body?"

"I say that they are deceived."

"Thinkest thou that all do err which believe not as thou dost?" said Bonner with his usual bluster.

"I do say so, my Lord," was the determined answer.

Once more the prisoners were remanded, but only until afternoon. Agnes did not dare to stay. She had ascertained from Cicely Marvell, whom she saw in the crowd, that prisoners' friends were often permitted a farewell interview between sentence and execution; and if she meant to apply for that, she must not risk Mistress Winter's anger by remaining now. Cicely promised to bring her news of the sentence.

"Lo' you now! here cometh my fair Lady Dominica!" was Dorothy's salutation, as Agnes re-entered the kitchen. "What news, sweet Mistress Blackfriars? Is thy goodly sweet-heart consecrate Lord Bishop of Duneery, or shall he but be Master Doctor Dean of Foolscap?"

Agnes vouchsafed no answer.

"Woe betide us! here is Madam Gospeller hath lost her tongue!" cried Dorothy. "Do but give me to wit, prithee, sweetest Sacramentary! So dear love I all Black Friars, I may never sleep till I know."

"They be yet again remanded," replied Agnes dreamily.

Though she felt sure what the end would be, it was impossible to realise it. Surely all that was passing must be some dreadful dream, from which she would presently awake, perhaps in the little bed which used to be hers in her aunt's pretty cottage, and find that all the past, for eight years, had been a groundless vision.

Yet Dorothy's torturing pin-pricks were real enough. All day long she persisted in worrying Agnes by pretended sympathy—so patently pretended that it was excessively annoying. The towel was snatched from her as she was washing her hands, with an entreaty that Dorothy might take that trouble for her; the mop was hidden where she could not find it, with an assurance that it would but increase the bitterness of her sorrow to discover it; invisible strings were stretched across the kitchen where she was sure to fall over them,—in order, as Dorothy tenderly intimated, to turn her thoughts from the painful anxiety which she must be enduring. It seemed to Agnes as if night and certainty would never come. Yet how could she wish it, when she felt so sure what the awful certainty would be? The hours wore on; the dark came at last; and when the night had fairly set in, Cicely Marvell's soft tap was heard on Mistress Winter's door. Agnes opened it herself. Dorothy had indeed rushed to do it, but fortunately Agnes contrived to reach it before her. It was evident that Cicely was loth to tell her terrible news, though Dorothy begged her, over Agnes' shoulder, to relieve her heartrending suspense. Was it from one faint throb of womanly feeling in her usually hard heart, that Mistress Winter, in sharp tones, summoned Dorothy within, and left Agnes to hear the news alone?

"Speak, Mistress Marvell," said Agnes, in that preternaturally calm manner which she had worn from the first. "It is death."

"Ay, poor Agnes! It is death by fire."

"And in the meantime?—"

"They lie in Newgate. He shall be taken to Colchester to suffer, being he was there born, the 28th of this March."

"Then he dieth on the 29th?"

"E'en so."

He was to die on the very day they had fixed for their marriage. To what had Agnes been looking forward so joyfully during those past weary months?

When the prisoners had reappeared before Bonner in the afternoon, they were asked, for the last time, if they would recant their heresy.

"We are not heretics," they replied; "the contrary is heresy."

Then, on these six contumacious men, was passed in due form the sentence of death.

Each was to suffer at the place of his birth: Thomas Tomkins in Smithfield, on the 16th of March; William Hunter, the poor apprentice-boy, at Brentford, on the twenty-sixth; William Pygot at Braintree, and Stephen Knight at Maldon, on the twenty-eighth.

It was only one interview with the prisoner for which Agnes dared to hope, and she waited for it until the day before he was to be degraded from his priestly office. Mistress Winter's momentary sympathy, if it had existed, was over, and she grumbled a good deal when Agnes preferred her request for a few hours' leave of absence. But she granted the boon at last.

"It will be the last time," said Agnes quietly.

No more meetings at Paul's Cross,—no more summer walks to Clerkenwell,—no more readings from the Cathedral lectern! Instead of that, for him the chariot of fire, and then the King's welcome home, the white robe, and the palm of victory, and the crown of life. And for her,—ah! what? It might be a forty years' wandering in the Wilderness of Sinai, with the River of Jordan at its close, ere she could come to the shore of the Promised Land. Yet the Promised Land was sure, as was the Promiser.

A strange specimen of human nature was Alexander, the keeper of Newgate prison: a man who could request Bishop Bonner to burn some more heretics because the cells were inconveniently crowded, and then, after a good supper, sit down and play the fiddle. He was extremely fond of music, though it scarcely exercised a soothing influence in his exceedingly savage breast.

Happily for Agnes, this gentleman happened to be in a good temper when she presented herself at his gates. He admitted her into the great hall, and after a short delay took her down to the low damp cell where condemned prisoners were confined. There she found John Laurence.

They were both very calm,—these two, to each of whom in that hour's last meeting the bitterness of death was passing. Each tried to be brave for the other's sake; each strengthened the other's hand in God.

"This is scarce what we looked for, sweet-heart," said the Black Friar. "We had gathered a fair dish of honey, but our good Master saw it should harm us, and appointed us in the stead thereof a dish of wormwood. Neither is all the honey gone from us, for it is sweet to suffer for His sake."

"I am glad thou hast stood firm," said Agnes quietly.

"Thou shalt have the bitterer portion, my poor heart! Yet it is for no long season. We must meet soon, in our Father's House."

"Truly. And the time may be very short," she answered.

"And canst thou give me up, mine Agnes, for Christ's sake? For mark thou, that which is wrenched away is not given."

She looked up with fixed, tearless eyes.

"Ay, John. I can give thee up for Christ's sake. But I could not for any other."

So they parted—for the last time. For when they should meet again in the Father's House, they would part no more for ever.

"Not for any other!" Is there no special tenderness in the heart of the loving Saviour, for those who have given up that one thing which would not, could not, be resigned for any sake but His?

The next day there was the bitter mockery of degradation. Every vestment of the priesthood was put upon the martyr; one by one they were torn from him with curses. The crown of his head, where the tonsure had been cut, was defaced; the anointed head and hands were roughly scraped, to deprive them of the sacred unction. But the unction from the Holy One was beyond their reach.

Then came the journey to Colchester, and, lastly, the auto da fe. "Not able to go, his legs sore worn with heavy irons, as also his body weakened by evil keeping," John Laurence was borne in a chair to his chariot of fire. We are told that at this martyrdom there were seen little children running round the stake, crying, "Lord, strengthen Thy servant, and keep Thy promise!" God did keep His promise, and strengthened His servant.

It was soon over; and they had no more that they could do.

There were martyr-crowns for such men as John Laurence. But were there none for women such as Agnes Stone, whose martyrdom lasted, not an hour, but a lifetime,—who laid on the Lord's altar, not their lives, but all that made life precious?

We are not told what became of her. Nor does it much matter. Rather than sketch a fancy future for such a life as hers, let us remember the true end, when that life was over. For three hundred years, more or less, these two, who gave each other up for Christ, have been given back by Christ to each other: together they have followed the Lamb whithersoever He goeth; the Lord has been their everlasting light, and the days of their mourning have been ended.

THE END