Above four months passed on, and no change came to the prisoners, but there had not been any fresh arrests. The other Gospellers began to breathe more freely, and to hope that the worst had come already. Mrs Wade was left at liberty; Mr Ewring had not been taken; surely all would go well now!

How often we think the worst must be over, just a minute before it comes upon us!

A little rap on Margaret Thurston's door brought her to open it.

"Why, Rose! I'm fain to see thee, maid. Come in."

"My mother bade me tell you, Margaret," said Rose, when the door was shut, "that there shall be a Scripture reading in our house this even. Will you come?"

"That will we, right gladly, dear heart. At what hour?"

"Midnight. We dare not afore."

"We'll be there. How fares thy mother to-day?"

"Why, not over well. She seems but ill at ease. Her hands burn, and she is ever athirst. 'Tis an ill rheum, methinks."

"Ay, she has caught a bad cold," said Margaret. "Rose, I'll tell you what—we'll come a bit afore midnight, and see if we cannot help you. My master knows a deal touching herbs; he's well-nigh as good as any apothecary, though I say it, and he'll compound an herb drink that shall do her good, with God's blessing, while I help you in the house. What say you? Have I well said?"

"Indeed, Margaret, and I'd be right thankful if you would, for it'll be hard on Father if he's neither Mother nor me to do for him—she, sick abed, and me waiting on her."

"Be sure it will! But I hope it'll not be so bad as that. Well, then, look you, we'll shut up the hut and come after you. You haste on to her, and when I've got things a bit tidy, and my master's come from work—he looked to be overtime to-night—we'll run over to Bentley, and do what we can."

Rose thanked her again, and went on with increased speed. She found her mother no better, and urged her to go to bed, telling her that Margaret was close at hand. It was now about five in the afternoon.

Alice agreed to this, for she felt almost too poorly to sit up. She went to bed, and Rose flew about the kitchen, getting all finished that she could before Margaret should arrive.

It was Saturday night, and the earliest hours of the Sabbath were to be ushered in by the "reading." Only a few neighbours were asked, for it was necessary now to be very careful. Half-a-dozen might be invited, as if to supper; but the times when a hundred or more had assembled to hear the Word of God were gone by. Would they ever come again? They dared not begin to read until all prying eyes and ears were likely to be closed in sleep; and the reader's voice was low, that nobody might be roused next door. Few people could read then, especially among the labouring class, so that, except on these occasions, the poorer Gospellers had no hope of hearing the words of the Lord.

The reading was over, and one after another of the guests stole silently out into the night—black, noiseless shadows, going up the lane into the village, or down it on the way to Thorpe. At length the last was gone except the Thurstons, who offered to stay for the night. John Thurston lay down in the kitchen, and Margaret, finding Alice Mount apparently better, said she would share Rose's bed.

Alice Mount's malady was what we call a bad feverish cold, and generally we do not expect it to do anything more than make the patient very uncomfortable for a week. But in Queen Mary's days they knew very much less about colds than we do, and they were much more afraid of them. It was only six years since the last attack of the terrible sweating sickness—the last ever to be, but they did not know that—and people were always frightened of anything like a cold turning to that dreadful epidemic wherein, as King Edward the Sixth writes in his diary, "if one took cold he died within three hours, and if he escaped, it held him but nine hours, or ten at the most." It was, therefore, a relief to hear Alice say that she felt better, and urge Rose to go to bed.

"Well, it scarce seems worth while going to bed," said Margaret. "What time is it? Can you see the church clock, Rose?"

"We can when it's light," said Rose; "but I think you'll not see it now."

Margaret drew back the little curtain, but all was dark, and she let it drop again.

"It'll be past one, I reckon," said she.

"Oh, ay; a good way on toward two," was Rose's answer.

"Rose, have you heard aught of Bessy Foulkes of late?"

"Nought. I've tried to see her, but they keep hot so close at Master Ashby's there's no getting to her."

"And those poor little children of Johnson's. They're yet in prison, trow?"

"Oh, ay. I wish they'd have let us have the baby Jane Hiltoft has it. She'll care it well enough for the body: but for the soul—"

"Oh, when Johnson's burned—as he will be, I reckon—the children 'll be bred up in convents, be sure," was Margaret's answer.

"Nay! I'll be sure of nought so bad as that, as long as God's in heaven."

"There's no miracles now o' days, Rose."

"There's God's care, just as much as in Elijah's days. And, Margaret, they've burned little children afore now."

"Eh, don't, Rose! you give me the cold chills!"

"What's that?" Rose was listening intently.

"What's what?" said Margaret, who had heard nothing.

"That! Don't you hear the far-off tramp of men?"

They looked at each other fearfully. Margaret knew well enough of what Rose thought—the Bailiff and his searching party. They stopped their undressing. Nearer and nearer came that measured tread of a body of men. It paused, went on, came close under the window, and paused again. Then a thundering rattle came at the door.

"Open, in the Queen's name!"

Then they knew it had come—not the worst, but that which led to it—the beginning of the end.

Rose quietly, but quickly, put her gown on again. Before she was ready, she heard her step-father's heavy tread as he went down the stairs; heard him draw the bolt, and say, as he opened the door, in calm tones—

"Good-morrow, Master Bailiff. Pray you enter with all honour, an' you come in the Queen's name."

Just then the church clock struck two. Two o'clock on the Sabbath morning!



CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

ROSE'S FIERY ORDEAL.

"Art thou come, dear heart?" said Alice Mount, as her daughter ran hurriedly into her bedchamber. "That is well. Rose, the Master is come, and calleth for us, and He must find us ready."

There was no time to say more, for steps were ascending the stairs, and in another minute Master Simnel entered—the Bailiff of Colchester Hundred, whose office it was to arrest criminals within his boundaries. He was a rough, rude sort of man, from whom women were wont to shrink.

"Come, mistress, turn out!" said he. "We'll find you other lodgings for a bit."

"Master, I will do mine utmost," said Alice Mount, lifting her aching head from the pillow; "but I am now ill at ease, and I pray you, give leave for my daughter to fetch me drink ere I go hence, or I fear I may scarce walk."

We must remember that they had then no tea, coffee, or cocoa; and they had a funny idea that cold water was excessively unwholesome. The rich drank wine, and the poor thin, weak ale, most of which they brewed themselves from simple malt and hops—not at all like the strong, intoxicating stuff which people drink in public-houses now.

Mr Simnel rather growlingly assented to the request. Rose ran down, making her way to the dresser through the rough men of whom the kitchen was full, to get a jug and a candlestick. As she came out of the kitchen, with the jug in her right hand and the candle in her left, she met a man—I believe he called himself a gentleman—named Edmund Tyrrel, a relation of that Tyrrel who had been one of the murderers of poor Edward the Fifth and his brother. Rose dropped a courtesy, as she had been taught to do to her betters in social position.

Mr Tyrrel stopped her. "Look thou, maid! wilt thou advise thy father and mother to be good Catholic people?"

Catholic means general; and for any one Church to call itself the Catholic Church, is as much as to say that it is the only Christian Church, and that other people who do not belong to it are not Christians. It is, therefore, not only untrue, but most insulting to all the Christians who belong to other Churches. Saint Paul particularly warned the Church of Rome not to think herself better than other Churches, as you will see in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, verses 17 to 22. But she took no heed, and keeps calling herself the Catholic Church, as if nobody could be a Christian who did not belong to her. No Protestant Church has ever committed this sin, though some few persons in several denominations may have done so.

However, Rose was accustomed to the word, and she knew what Mr Tyrrel meant. So she answered, gently—

"Master, they have a better instructor than I, for the Holy Ghost doth teach them, I hope, which I trust shall not suffer them to err." [See Note 1.]

Mr Tyrrel grew very angry. He remembered that Rose had been before the magistrates before on account of Protestant opinions, "Why art thou still in that mind, thou naughty hussy?" cried he. "Marry, it is time to look upon such heretics indeed."

Naughty was a much stronger word then than it is now. It meant, utterly worthless and most wicked.

Brave Rose Allen! she lifted her eyes to the face of her insulter, and replied,—"Sir, with that which you call heresy, do I worship my Lord God, I tell you truth."

"Then I perceive you will burn, gossip, with the rest for company's sake," said Mr Tyrrel, making a horrible joke.

"No, sir, not for company's sake," said Rose, "but for my Christ's sake, if so be I be compelled; and I hope in His mercies, if He call me to it, He will enable me to bear it."

Never did apostle or martyr answer better, nor bear himself more bravely, than this girl! Mr Tyrrel was in the habit of looking with the greatest reverence on certain other young girls, whom he called Saint Agnes, Saint Margaret, and Saint Katherine—girls who had made such answers to Pagan persecutors, twelve hundred years or so before that time: but he could not see that the same scene was being enacted again, and that he was persecuting the Lord Jesus in the person of young Rose Allen. He took the candle from her hand, and she did not resist him. The next minute he was holding her firmly by the wrist, with her hand in the burning flame, watching her face to see what she would do.

She did nothing. Not a scream, not a word, not even a moan, came from the lips of Rose Allen. All that could be seen was that the empty jug which she held in the other hand trembled a little as she stood there.

"Wilt thou not cry?" sneered Tyrrel as he held her,—and he called her some ugly names which I shall not write.

The answer was as calm as it could be. "I have no cause, thank God," said Rose tranquilly; "but rather to rejoice. You have more cause to weep than I, if you consider the matter well."

When people set to work to vex you, nothing makes them more angry than to take it quietly, and show no vexation. That is, if they are people with mean minds. If there be any generosity in them, then it is the way to make them see that they are wrong. There was no generosity, nor love of justice, in Edmund Tyrrel. When Rose Allen stood so calmly before him, with her hand on fire, he was neither softened nor ashamed. He burned her till "the sinews began to crack," and then he let go her hand and pushed her roughly away, calling her all the bad names he could think of while he did so.

"Sir," was the meek and Christlike response, "have you done what you will do?"

Surely few, even among martyrs, have behaved with more exquisite gentleness than this! The maiden's hand was cruelly burnt, and her tormentor was adding insult to injury by heaping false and abominable names upon her: and the worst thing she had to say to him was simply to ask whether he wished to torture her any more!

"Yes," sneered Tyrrel. "And if thou think it not well, then mend it!"

"'Mend it'!" repeated Rose. "Nay! the Lord mend you, and give you repentance, if it be His will. And now, if you think it good, begin at the feet, and burn to the head also. For he that set you a-work shall pay you your wages one day, I warrant you."

And with this touch of sarcasm—only just enough to show how well she could have handled that weapon if she had chosen to fight with it—Rose calmly went her way, wetted a rag, and bound up her injured hand, and then drew the ale and carried it to her mother.

"How long hast thou been, child!" said her mother, who of course had no notion what had been going on downstairs.

"Ay, Mother; I am sorry for it," was the quiet reply. "Master Tyrrel stayed me in talk for divers minutes."

"What said he to thee?" anxiously demanded Alice.

"He asked me if I did mean to entreat you and my father to be good Catholics; and when I denied the same, gave me some ill words."

Rose said nothing about the burning, and as she dexterously kept her injured hand out of her mother's sight, all that Alice realised was that the girl was a trifle less quick and handy than usual.

"She's a good, quick maid in the main," said she to herself: "I'll not fault her if she's upset a bit."

While Rose was helping her mother to dress, the Bailiff was questioning her step-father whether any one else was in the house.

"I'm here," said John Thurston, rising from the pallet-bed where he lay in a corner of the little scullery. "You'd best take me, if you want me."

"Take them all!" cried Tyrrel. "They be all in one tale, be sure."

"Were you at mass this last Sunday?" said the Bailiff to Thurston. He was not quite so bad as Tyrrel.

"No, that was I not," answered Thurston firmly.

"Wherefore?"

"Because I will not worship any save God Almighty."

"Why, who else would we have you to worship?"

"Nay, it's not who else, it's what else. You would have me to worship stocks and stones, that cannot hear nor see; and cakes of bread that the baker made overnight in his oven. I've as big a throat as other men, yet can I not swallow so great a notion as that the baker made Him that made the baker."

"Of a truth, thou art a naughty heretic!" said the Bailiff; "and I must needs carry thee hence with the rest. But where is thy wife?"

Ay, where was Margaret? Nobody had seen her since the Bailiff knocked at the door. He ordered his men to search for her; but she had hidden herself so well that some time passed before she could be found. At length, with much laughter, one of the Bailiff's men dragged her out of a wall-closet, where she crouched hidden behind an old box. Then the Bailiff shouted for Alice Mount and Rose to be brought down, and proceeded to tie his prisoners together, two and two,—Rose contriving to slip back, so that she should be marched behind her parents.

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. This part of the story is all quite true, and I am not putting into Rose's lips, in her conversation with Mr Tyrrel, one word which she did not really utter.



CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

IN COLCHESTER CASTLE.

The whole population of Much Bentley seemed to have turned out to witness the arrest at the Blue Bell. Some were kindly and sympathising, some bitter and full of taunts; but the greater number were simply inquisitive, neither friendly nor hostile, but gossipping. It was now four o'clock, a time at which half the people were up in the village, and many a woman rose an hour earlier than her wont, in order to see the strange sight. There were the carpenters with baskets of tools slung over their shoulders; the gardeners with rake or hoe; the labourers with their spades; the fishermen with their nets.

The Colne oyster-fishery is the oldest of all known fisheries in England, and its fame had reached imperial Rome itself, nearly two thousand years ago, when the Emperor Caligula came over to England partly for the purpose of tasting the Colchester oyster. The oysters are taken in the Colne and placed in pits, where they are fattened till they reach the size of a silver oyster preserved among the town treasures. In April or May, when the baby oyster first appears in the river, it looks like a drop from a tallow candle; but in twenty-four hours the shell begins to form. The value of the oyster spawn (as the baby oysters are called) in the river, is reckoned at twenty thousand pounds; and from five to ten thousand pounds' worth of oysters is sold every year.

"Well, Master Mount, how like you your new pair o' bracelets?" said one of the fishermen, as William Mount was led out, and his hands tied with a rough cord.

"Friend, I count it honour to bear for my Lord that which He first bare for me," was the meek answer.

"Father Tye 'll never preach a better word than that," said a voice in the crowd.

Mr Simnel looked up as if to see who spoke.

"Go on with thy work, old cage-maker!" cried another voice. "We'll not find thee more gaol-birds to-day than what thou hast."

"You'd best hold your saucy tongues," said the nettled Bailiff.

"Nay, be not so tetchy, Master Simnel!" said another. The same person never seemed to speak twice; a wise precaution, since the speaker was less likely to be arrested if he did not repeat the offence. "Five slices of meat be enough for one man's supper."

This allusion to the number of the prisoners, and the rapacity of the Bailiff, was received with laughter by the crowd. The Bailiff's temper, never of the best, was quite beyond control by this time. He relieved it by giving Mount a heavy blow, as he pushed him into line after tying his wife to him.

"Hit him back, Father Mount!" cried one of the voices. William Mount shook his head with a smile.

"I'll hit some of you—see if I don't!" responded the incensed Bailiff, who well knew his own unpopularity.

"Hush, fellows!" said an authoritative voice. "Will ye resist the Queen's servants?"

John Thurston and his wife were next tied together, and placed behind the Mounts, the crowd remaining quiet while this was being done. Then they brought Rose Allen, and fastened her, by a cord round her wrists, to the same rope.

"Eh, Lord have mercy on the young maid!" said a woman's voice in a compassionate tone.

"Young witch, rather!" responded a man, roughly.

"Hold thy graceless tongue, Jack Milman!" replied a woman's shrill tones. "Didn't Rose Allen make broth for thee when we were both sick, and go out of a cold winter night a-gathering herbs to ease thy pain? Be shamed to thee, if thou knows what shame is, casting ill words at her in her trouble!"

Just as the prisoners were marched off, another voice hitherto silent seemed to come from the very midst of the crowd. It said,—

"Be ye faithful unto death, and Christ shall give you a crown of life."

"Take that man!" said the Bailiff, stopping.

But the man was not to be found. Nobody knew—at least nobody would own—who had uttered those fearless words.

So the prisoners were marched away on the road to Colchester. They went in at Bothal's Gate, up Bothal Street, and past the Black Friars' monastery to the Castle.

Colchester Castle is one of the oldest castles in England, for it was built by King Edward the Elder, the son of Alfred the Great. It is a low square mass, with the largest Norman keep, or centre tower, in the country. The walls are twelve feet thick, and the whole ground floor, and two of the four towers, are built up perfectly solid from the bottom, that it might be made as strong as possible. It was built with Roman bricks, and the Roman mortar still sticks to some of them. Builders always know Roman mortar, for it is so much harder than any mortar people know how to make now—quite as hard as stone itself. The chimneys run up through the walls.

The prisoners were marched up to the great entrance gate, on the south side of the Castle. The Bailiff blew his horn, and the porter opened a little wicket and looked out.

"Give you good-morrow, Master Bailiff. Another batch, I reckon?"

"Ay, another batch, belike. You'll have your dungeons full ere long."

"Oh, we've room enough and to spare!" said the porter with a grin. "None so many, yet. Two men fetched in yestereven for breaking folks' heads in a drunken brawl; and two or three debtors; and a lad for thieving, and such; then Master Maynard brought an handful in this morrow—Moot Hall was getting too full, he said."

"Ay so? who brought he?"

"Oh, Alegar o' Thorpe, and them bits o' children o' his, that should be learning their hornbooks i' school sooner than be here, trow."

"You'd best teach 'em, Tom," suggested Mr Simnel with a grim smile. "Now then, in with you!"

And the prisoners were marched into the Castle dungeon.

In the corner of the dungeon sat John Johnson, his Bible on his knee, and beside him, snuggled close to him, Cissy. Little Will was seated on the floor at his father's feet, playing with some bits of wood. Johnson looked up as his friends entered.

"Why, good friends! Shall I say I am glad or sorry to behold you here?"

"Glad," answered William Mount, firmly, "if so we may glorify God."

"I'm glad, I know," said Cissy, jumping from the term, and giving a warm hug to Rose. "I thought God would send somebody. You see, Father was down a bit when we came here this morning, and left everybody behind us; but you've come now, and he'll be ever so pleased. It isn't bad, you know—not bad at all—and then there's Father. But, Rose, what have you done to your hand? It's tied up."

"Hush, dear! Only hurt it a bit, Cissy. Don't speak of it," said Rose in an undertone; "I don't want mother to see it, or she'll trouble about it, maybe. It doesn't hurt much now."

Cissy nodded, with a face which said that she thoroughly entered into Rose's wish for silence.

"Eh dear, dear! that we should have lived to see this day!" cried Margaret Thurston, melting into tears as she sat down in the corner.

"Rose!" said her father suddenly, "thy left hand is bound up. Hast hurt it, maid?"

Rose's eyes, behind her mother's back, said, "Please don't ask me anything about it!" But Alice turned round to look, and she had to own the truth.

"Why, maid! That must have been by the closet where I was hid, and I never heard thee scream," said Margaret.

"Nay, Meg, I screamed not."

"Lack-a-day! how could'st help the same?"

"Didn't it hurt sore, Rose?" asked John Thurston.

"Not nigh so much as you might think," answered Rose, brightly. "At the first it caused me some grief; but truly, the more it burned the less it hurt, till at last it was scarce any hurt at all."

"But thou had'st the pot in thine other hand, maid; wherefore not have hit him a good swing therewith?"

"Truly, Meg, I thank God that He held mine hand from any such deed. 'The servant of the Lord must not strive.' I should thus have dishonoured my Master."

"Marry, but that may be well enough for angels and such like. We dwell in this nether world."

"Rose hath the right," said William Mount. "We may render unto no man railing for railing. 'If we suffer as Christians, happy are we; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon us.' Let us not suffer as malefactors."

"You say well, neighbour," added John Thurston. "We be called to the defence of God's truth, but in no wise to defend ourselves."

"Nay, the Lord is the avenger of all that have none other," said Alice. "But let me see thine hand, child, maybe I can do thee some ease."

"Under your good leave, Mother, I would rather not unlap it," replied Rose. "Truly, it scarce doth me any hurt now; and I bound it well with a wet rag, that I trow it were better to let it be. It shall do well enough, I cast no doubt."

She did not want her mother to see how terribly it was burned. And in her heart was a further thought which she would not put into words—If they shortly burn my whole body, what need is there to trouble about this little hurt to my hand?



CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

SHUTTING THE DOOR.

Once more the days wore on, and no fresh arrests were made; but no help came to the prisoners in the Castle and the Moot Hall, nor to Elizabeth Foulkes in the keeping of Mr Ashby. Two priests had talked to Elizabeth, and the authorities were beginning to change their opinion about her. They had fancied from her quiet, meek appearance, that she would be easily prevailed upon to say what they wanted. Now they found that under that external softness there was a will of iron, and a power of endurance beyond anything they had imagined.

The day of examination for all the prisoners—the last day, when they would be sentenced or acquitted—was appointed to be the 23rd of June. On the previous day the Commissioners called Elizabeth Foulkes before them. She came, accompanied by Mr Ashby and her uncle; and they asked her only one question.

"Dost thou believe in a Catholic Church of Christ, or no?"

Of course Elizabeth replied "Yes," for the Bible has plenty to say of the Church of Christ, though it never identifies it with the Church of Rome. They asked her no more, for Boswell, the scribe, interposed, and begged that she might be consigned to the keeping of her uncle. The Commissioners assented, and Holt took her away. It looks very much as if Boswell had wanted her to escape. She was much more carelessly guarded in her uncle's house than in Mr Ashby's, and could have got away easily enough if she had chosen. She was more than once sent to open the front door, whence she might have slipped out after dark with almost a certainty of escape. It was quite dark when she answered the last rap.

"Pray you," asked an old man's voice, "is here a certain young maid, by name Elizabeth Foulkes?"

"I am she, master. What would you with me?"

"A word apart," he answered in a whisper. "Be any ears about that should not be?"

Elizabeth glanced back into the kitchen where her aunt was sewing, and her two cousins gauffering the large ruffs which both men and women then wore.

"None that can harm. Say on, my master."

"Bessy, dost know my voice?"

"I do somewhat, yet I can scarce put a name thereto."

"I am Walter Purcas, of Booking."

"Robin's father! Ay, I know you well now, and I cry you mercy that I did no sooner."

"Come away with me, Bessy!" he said, in a loud whisper. "I have walked all the way from Booking to see if I might save thee, for Robin's sake, for he loves thee as he loveth nought else save me. Mistress Wade shall lend me an horse, and we can be safe ere night be o'er, in the house of a good man that I know in a place unsuspect. O Bessy, my dear lass, save thyself and come with me!"

"Save thyself!" The words had been addressed once before, fifteen hundred years back, to One who did not save Himself, because He came to save the world. Before the eyes of Elizabeth rose two visions—one fair and sweet enough, a vision of safety and comfort, of life and happiness, which might be yet in state for her. But it was blotted out by the other—a vision of three crosses reared on a bare rock, when the One who hung in the midst could have saved Himself at the cost of the glory of the Father and the everlasting bliss of His Church. And from that cross a voice seemed to whisper to her—"If any man serve Me, let him follow Me."

"Verily, I am loth you should have your pain for nought," said she, "but indeed I cannot come with you, though I do thank you with all my heart. I am set here in ward of mine uncle, and for me to 'scape away would cause penalty to fall on him. I cannot save myself at his cost. And should not the Papists take it to mean that I had not the courage to stand to that which they demanded of me? Nay, Father Purcas, this will I not do, for so should I lose my crown, and dim the glory of my Christ."

"Bessy!" cried her aunt from the kitchen, "do come within and shut the door, maid! Here's the wind a-blowing in till I'm nigh feared o' losing my ears, and all the lace like to go up the chimney, while thou tarriest chatting yonder. What gossip hast thou there? Canst thou not bring her in?"

"Bessy, come!" whispered Purcas earnestly.

But Elizabeth shook her head. "The Lord bless you! I dare not." And she shut the door, knowing that by so doing, she virtually shut it upon life and happiness—that is, happiness in this life. Elizabeth went quietly back to the kitchen, and took up an iron. She scarcely knew what she was ironing, nor how she answered her cousin Dorothy's rather sarcastic observations upon the interesting conversation which she seemed to have had. A few minutes later her eldest cousin, a married woman, who lived in a neighbouring street, lifted the latch and came in.

"Good even, Mother!" said she. "Well, Doll, and Jenny! So thou gave in at last, Bess? I'm fain for thee. It's no good fighting against a stone wall."

"What dost thou mean, Chrissy?"

"What mean I? Why, didn't thou give in? Lots o' folks is saying so. Set thy name, they say, to a paper that thou'd yield to the Pope, and be obedient in all things. I hope it were true."

"True! that I yielded to the Pope, and promised to obey him!" cried Elizabeth in fiery indignation. "It's not true, Christian Meynell! Tell every soul so that asks thee! I'll die before I do it. Where be the Commissioners?"

"Thank the saints, they've done their sitting," said Mrs Meynell, laughing: "or I do believe this foolish maid should run right into the lion's den. Mother, lock her up to-morrow, won't you, without she's summoned?"

"Where are they?" peremptorily demanded Elizabeth.

"Sitting down to their supper at Mistress Cosin's," was the laughing answer. "Don't thou spoil it by rushing in all of a—"

"I shall go to them this minute," said Elizabeth tying on her hood, which she had taken down from its nail. "No man nor woman shall say such words of me. Good-night, Aunt; I thank you for all your goodness, and may the good Lord bless you and yours for ever Farewell!" And amid a shower of exclamations and entreaties from her startled relatives, who never expected conduct approaching to this, Elizabeth left the house.

She had not far to go on that last walk in this world. The White Hart, where the Commissioners were staying, was full of light and animation that night when she stepped into it from the dark street, and asked leave to speak a few words to the Queen's Commissioners.

"What would you with them?" asked a red-cheeked maid who came to her.

"That shall they know speedily," was the answer.

The Commissioners were rather amused to be told that a girl wanted to see them: but when they heard who it was, they looked at each other with raised eyebrows, and ordered her to be called in. They had finished supper, and were sitting over their wine, as gentlemen were then wont to do rather longer than was good for them.

Elizabeth came forward to the table and confronted them. The Commissioners themselves were two in number, Sir John Kingston and Dr Chedsey; but the scribe, sheriff, and bailiffs were also present.

"Worshipful Sirs," she said in a clear voice, "I have been told it is reported in this town that I have made this day by you submission and obedience to the Pope. And since this is not true, nor by God's grace shall never be, I call on you to do your duty, and commit me to the Queen's Highness' prison, that I may yet again bear my testimony for my Lord Christ."

There was dead silence for a moment. Dr Chedsey looked at the girl with admiration which seemed almost reverence. Sir John Kingston knit his brows, and appeared inclined to examine her there and then. Boswell half rose as if he would once more have pleaded with or for her. But Maynard, the Sheriff, whom nothing touched, and who was scarcely sober, sprang to his feet and dashed his hand upon the table, with a cry that "the jibbing jade should repent kicking over the traces this time!" He seized Elizabeth, marched her to the Moot Hall, and thrust her into the dungeon: and with a bass clang as if it had been the very gate of doom, the great door closed behind her.



CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

AT THE BAR.

The great hall of the Moot Hall in Colchester was filling rapidly. Every townsman, and every townswoman, wanted to hear the examination, and to know the fate of the prisoners—of whom there were so many that not many houses were left in Colchester where the owners had not some family connection or friend among them. Into the hall, robed in judicial ermine, filed the Royal Commissioners, Sir John Kingston, and Dr Chedsey, followed by Boswell, the scribe, Robert Maynard and Robert Brown the Sheriffs, several priests, and many magistrates and gentlemen of the surrounding country. Having opened the Court, they first summoned before them William Bongeor, the glazier, of Saint Michael's parish, aged sixty, then Thomas Benold, the tallow-chandler, and thirdly, Robert Purcas. They asked Purcas "what he had to say touching the Sacrament."

"When we receive the Sacrament," he answered, "we receive bread in an holy use, that preacheth remembrance that Christ died for us."

The three men were condemned to death: and then Agnes Silverside was brought to the bar. She was some time under examination, for she answered all the questions asked her so wisely and so firmly, that the Commissioners themselves were disconcerted. They took refuge, as such men usually did, in abuse, calling her ugly names, and asking "if she wished to burn her rotten old bones?"

Helen Ewring, the miller's wife, followed: and both were condemned.

Then the last of the Moot Hall prisoners, Elizabeth Foulkes, was placed at the bar.

"Dost thou believe," inquired Dr Chedsey, "that in the most holy Sacrament of the altar, the body and blood of Christ is really and substantially present?"

Elizabeth's reply, in her quiet, clear voice, was audible in every part of the hall.

"I believe it to be a substantial lie, and a real lie."

"Shame! shame!" cried one of the priests on the bench.

"Horrible blasphemy!" cried another.

"What is it, then, that there is before consecration?" asked Dr Chedsey.

"Bread."

"Well said. And what is there after consecration?"

"Bread, still."

"Nothing more?"

"Nothing more," said Elizabeth firmly. "The receiving of Christ lies not in the bread, but is heavenly and spiritual only."

"What say you to confession?"

"I will use none, seeing no priest hath power to remit sin."

"Will you go to mass?"

"I will not, for it is idolatry."

"Will you submit to the authority of the Pope?"

Elizabeth's answer was even stronger than before.

"I do utterly detest all such trumpery from the bottom of my heart!"

They asked her no more. Dr Chedsey, for the sixth and last time, assumed the black cap, and read the sentence of death.

"Thou shalt be taken from here to the place whence thou earnest, and thence to the place of execution, there to be burned in the fire till thou art dead."

Never before had Chedsey's voice been known to falter in pronouncing that sentence. He had spoken it to white-haired men, and delicate women, ay, even to little children; but this once, every spectator looked up in amazement at his tone, and saw the judge in tears. And then, turning to the prisoner, they saw her face "as it were the face of an angel."

Before any one could recover from the sudden hush of awe which had fallen upon the Court, Elizabeth Foulkes knelt down, and carried her appeal from that unjust sentence to the higher bar of God Almighty.

"O Lord our Father!" she said, "I thank and praise and glorify Thee that I was ever born to see this day—this most blessed and happy day, when Thou hast accounted me worthy to suffer for the testimony of Christ. And, Lord, if it be Thy will, forgive them that thus have done against me, for they know not what they do."

How many of us would be likely to thank God for allowing us to be martyrs? These were true martyrs who did so, men and women so full of the Holy Ghost that they counted not their lives dear unto them,—so upheld by God's power that the shrinking of the flesh from that dreadful pain and horror was almost forgotten. We must always remember that it was not by their own strength, or their own goodness, but by the blood of the Lamb, that Christ's martyrs have triumphed over Death and Satan.

Then Elizabeth rose from her knees, and turned towards the Bench. Like an inspired prophetess she spoke—this poor, simple, humble servant-girl of twenty years—astonishing all who heard her.

"Repent, all ye that sit there!" she cried earnestly, "and especially ye that brought me to this prison: above all thou, Robert Maynard, that art so careless of human life that thou wilt oft sit sleeping on the bench when a man is tried for his life. Repent, O ye halting Gospellers! and beware of blood-guiltiness, for that shall call for vengeance. Yea, if ye will not herein repent your wicked doings,"—and as Elizabeth spoke, she laid her hand upon the bar—"this very bar shall be witness against you in the Day of Judgment, that ye have this day shed innocent blood!"

Oh, how England needs such a prophetess now! and above all, those "halting Gospellers," the men who talk sweetly about charity and toleration, and sit still, and will not come to the help of the Lord against the mighty! They sorely want reminding that Christ has said, "He that is not with us is against us." It is a very poor excuse to say, "Oh, I am not doing any harm." Are you doing any good? That is the question. If not, a wooden post is as good as you are. And are you satisfied to be no better than a wooden post?

What grand opportunities there are before boys and girls on the threshold of life! What are you going to do with your life? Remember, you have only one. And there are only two things you can do with it. You must give it to somebody—and it must be either God or Satan. All the lives that are not given to God fall into the hands of Satan. There are very few people who say to themselves deliberately, Now, I will not give my life to God. They only say, Oh, there's plenty of time; I won't do it just now; I want to enjoy myself. They don't know that there is no happiness on earth like that of deciding for God. And so they go on day after day, not deciding either way, but just frittering their lives away bit by bit, until the last day comes, and the last bit of life, and then it is too late to decide. Would you like such a poor, mean, valueless thing as this to be the one life which is all you have? Would you not rather have a bright, rich, full life, with God Himself for your best friend on earth, and then a triumphal entry into the Golden City, and the singer's harp, and the victor's palm, and the prince's crown, and the King's "Well done, good and faithful servant?"

Do you say, Yes. I would choose that, but I do not know how? Well, then, tell the Lord that. Say to Him, "Lord, I want to be Thy friend and servant, and I do not know how." Keep on saying it till He shows you how. He is sure to do it, for He cares about it much more than you do. Never fancy for one minute that God does not want you to go to Heaven, and that it will be hard work to persuade Him to let you in. He wants you to come more than you want it. He gave His own Son that you might come. "Greater love hath no man than this."

Now, will you not come to Him—will you not say to Him, "Lord, here am I; take me"? Are you going to let the Lord Jesus feel that all the cruel suffering which He bore for you was in vain? He is ready to save you, if you will let Him; but He will not do it against your will. How shall it be?



CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

THE SONG OF TRIUMPH.

Elizabeth Foulkes was the last prisoner tried in the Moot Hall. The Commissioners then adjourned to the Castle. Here there were six prisoners, as before. The first arraigned was William Mount. He was asked, as they all were—it was the great test question for the Marian martyrs—what he had to say of the Sacrament of the altar, which was another name for the mass.

"I say that it is an abominable idol," was his answer.

"Wherefore comest thou not to confession?"

"Sirs, I dare not take part in any Popish doings, for fear of God's vengeance," said the brave old man.

Brave! ay, for the penalty was death. But what are they, of whom there are so many, whose actions if not words say that they dare not refuse to take part in Popish doings, for fear of man's scorn and ridicule? Poor, mean cowards!

It was not worth while to go further. William Mount was sentenced to death, and John Johnson was brought to the bar. Neither were they long with him, for he had nothing to say but what he had said before. He too was sentenced to die.

Then Alice Mount was brought up. She replied to their questions exactly as her husband had done. She was satisfied with his answers: they should be hers. Once more the sentence was read, and she was led away.

Then Rose Allen was placed at the bar. So little had the past daunted her, that she did more than defy the Commissioners: she made fun of them. Standing there with her burnt hand still in its wrappings, she positively laughed Satan and all his servants to scorn.

They asked her what she had to say touching the mass.

"I say that it stinketh in the face of God! [see Note 1] and I dare not have to do therewith for my life."

"Are you not a member of the Catholic Church?"

"I am no member of yours, for ye be members of Antichrist, and shall have the reward of Antichrist."

"What say you of the see of the Bishop of Rome?"

"I am none of his. As for his see, it is for crows, kites, owls, and ravens to swim in, such as you be; for by the grace of God I will not swim in that sea while I live, neither will I have any thing to do therewith."

Nothing could overcome the playful wit of this indomitable girl. She punned on their words, she laughed at their threats, she held them up to ridicule. This must be ended.

For the fourth time Dr Chedsey assumed the black cap. Rose kept silence while she was condemned to death. But no sooner had his voice ceased than, to the amazement of all who heard her, she broke forth into song. It was verily:

"The shout of them that triumph, The song of them that feast."

She was led out of the court and down the dungeon steps, singing, till her voice filled the whole court.

"Yea, though I walk through death's dark vale, Yet will I fear none ill; Thy rod, Thy staff doth comfort me, And Thou art with me still."

Which was the happier, do you think, that night? Dr Chedsey, who had read the sentence of death upon ten martyrs? or young Rose Allen, who was to be burned to death in five weeks?

When Rose's triumphant voice had died away, the gaoler was hastily bidden to bring the other two prisoners. The Commissioners were very much annoyed. It was a bad thing for the people who stood by, they thought, when martyrs insisted on singing in response to a sentence of execution. They wanted to make the spectators forget such scenes.

"Well, where be the prisoners?" said Sir John Kingston.

"Please, your Worships, they be at the bar!" answered the gaolor, with a grin.

"At the bar, man? But I see nought. Be they dwarfs?"

"Something like," said the gaoler.

He dragged up a form to the bar, and lifted on it, first, Will Johnson, and then Cissy.

"Good lack! such babes as these!" said Sir John, in great perplexity.

He felt it really very provoking. Here was a girl of twenty who had made fun of him in the most merciless manner, and had the audacity to sing when condemned to die, thus setting a shocking example, and awakening the sympathy of the public: and here, to make matters worse, were two little children brought up as heretics! This would never do. It was the more awkward from his point of view, that Cissy was so small that he took her to be much younger than she was.

"I cannot examine these babes!" said he to Chedsey.

Dr Chedsey, in answer, took the examination on himself.

"How old art thou, my lad?" said he to Will.

Will made no answer, and his sister spoke up for him.

"Please, sir, he's six."

"And what dost thou believe?" asked the Commissioner, half scornfully, half amused.

"Please, we believe what Father told us."

"Who is their father?" was asked of the gaoler.

"Johnson, worshipful Sirs: Alegar, of Thorpe, that you have sentenced this morrow."

"Gramercy!" said Sir John. "Take them down, Wastborowe,—take them down, and carry them away. Have them up another day. Such babes!"

Cissy heard him, and felt insulted, as a young woman of her age naturally would.

"Please, Sir, I'm not a baby! Baby's a baby, but Will's six, and I'm going in ten. And we are going to be as good as we can, and mind all Father said to us."

"Take them away—take them away!" cried Sir John.

Wastborowe lifted Will down.

"But please—" said Cissy piteously—"isn't nothing to be done to us? Mayn't we go 'long of Father?"

"Ay, for the present," answered Wastborowe, as he took a hand of each to lead them back.

"But isn't Father to be burned?"

"Come along! I can't stay," said the gaoler hastily. Even his hard heart shrank from answering yes to that little pleading face.

"But please, oh please, they mustn't burn Father and not us! We must go with Father."

"Wastborowe!" Sir John's voice called back.

"Take 'em down, Tom," said Wastborowe to his man,—not at all sorry to go away from Cissy. He ran back to court.

"We are of opinion, Wastborowe," said Dr Chedsey rather pompously, "that these children are too young and ignorant to be put to the bar. We make order, therefore, that they be discharged, and set in care of some good Catholic woman, if any be among their kindred; and if not, let them be committed to the care of some such not akin to them."

"Please, your Worships, I know nought of their kindred," said the gaoler scratching his head. "Jane Hiltoft hath the babe at this present."

"What, is there a lesser babe yet?" asked Dr Chedsey, laughing.

"Ay, there is so: a babe in arms."

"Worshipful Sirs, might it please you to hear a poor woman?"

"Speak on, good wife."

"Sirs," said the woman who had spoken, coming forward out of the crowd, "my name is Ursula Felstede, and I dwell at Thorpe, the next door to Johnson. The babes know me, and have been in my charge aforetime. May I pray your good Worships to set them in my care? I have none of mine own, and would bring them up to mine utmost as good subjects and honest folks."

"Ay so? and how about good Catholics?"

"Sirs, Father Tye will tell you I go to mass and confession both."

"So she doth," said the priest: "but I misdoubt somewhat if she be not of the 'halting Gospellers' whereof we heard this morrow in the Moot Hall."

"Better put them in charge of the Black Sisters of Hedingham," suggested Dr Chedsey. "Come you this even, good woman, to the White Hart, and you shall then hear our pleasure. Father Tye, I pray you come with us to supper."

Dr Chedsey had quite recovered from his emotions of the morning.

"Meanwhile," said Sir John, rising, "let the morrow of Lammas be appointed for the execution of those sentenced." [See note 2.]

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. Rose's words are given as she spoke them: but it must be remembered that they would not sound nearly so strong to those who heard them as they do to us.

Note 2. Lammas is the second of August.



CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

MAN PROPOSES.

Mrs Cosin, the landlady of the White Hart, prepared a very good supper for the Commissioners. These gentlemen did not fare badly. First, they had a dish of the oysters for which the town was famous, then some roast beef and a big venison pasty, then some boiled pigeons, then two or three puddings, a raspberry pie, curds and whey, cheese, with a good deal of Malmsey wine and old sack, finishing up with cherries and sweet biscuits.

They had reached the cherry stage before they began to talk beyond mere passing remarks. Then the priest said:—

"I am somewhat feared, Master Commissioners, you shall reckon Colchester an infected place, seeing there be here so many touched with the poison of heresy."

"It all comes of self-conceit," said Sir John.

"Nay," answered Dr Chedsey. "Self-conceit is scarce wont to bring a man to the stake. It were more like to save him from it."

"Well, but why can't they let things alone?" inquired Sir John, helping himself to a biscuit. "They know well enough what they shall come to if they meddle with matters of religion. Why don't they leave the priest to think for them?"

Dr Chedsey was silent: not because he did not know the answer. The time was when he, too, had been one of those now despised and condemned Gospellers. In Edward the Sixth's day, he had preached the full, rich Gospel of the grace of God: and now he was a deserter to the enemy. Some of such men—perhaps most—grew very hard and stony, and seemed to take positive pleasure in persecuting those who were more faithful than themselves: but there were a few with whom the Spirit of God continued to strive, who now and then remembered from whence they had fallen, and to whom that remembrance brought poignant anguish when it came upon them. Dr Chedsey appears to have been one of this type. Let us hope that these wandering sheep came home at last in the arms of the Good Shepherd who sought them with such preserving tenderness. But the sad truth is that we scarcely know with certainty of one who did so. On the accession of Elizabeth, when we might have expected them to come forward and declare their repentance if it were sincere, they did no such thing: they simply dropped into oblivion, and we lose them there.

It is a hard and bitter thing to depart from God: how hard, and how bitter, only those know in this world who try to turn round and come back. It will be known fully in that other world whence there is no coming back.

Dr Chedsey, then, was silent: not because he did not understand the matter, but because he knew it too well. Sir John had said the Protestants "knew what they would come to": that was the stake and the fire. But those who persecuted Christ in the person of His elect—what were they going to come to? It was not pleasant to think about that. Dr Chedsey was very glad that it was just then announced that a woman begged leave to speak with their Worships.

"It shall be yon woman that would fain take the children, I cast no doubt," said Sir John: "and we have had no talk thereupon. Shall she have them or no?"

"What say you, Father Tye?"

"Truly, that I have not over much trust in Felstede's wife. She was wont of old time to have Bible-readings and prayer-meetings at her house; and though she feigneth now to be reconciled and Catholic, yet I doubt her repentance is but skin deep. The children were better a deal with the Black Nuns. Yet—there may be some time ere we can despatch them thither, and if you thought good, Felstede's wife might have them till then."

"Good!" said Sir John. "Call the woman in."

Ursula Felstede was called in, and stood courtesying at the door. Sir John put on his stern and pompous manner in speaking to her.

"It seemeth best to the Queen's Grace's Commission," said he, "that these children were sent in the keeping of the Sisters of Hedingham: yet as time may elapse ere the Prioress cometh to town, we leave them in thy charge until she send for them. Thou shalt keep them well, learn them to be good Catholics, and deliver them to the Black Nuns when they demand it."

Ursula courtesied again, and "hoped she should do her duty."

"So do I hope," said the priest. "But I give thee warning, Ursula Felstede, that thy duty hath not been over well done ere this: and 'tis high time thou shouldst amend if thou desire not to be brought to book."

Ursula dropped half-a-dozen courtesies in a flurried way.

"Please it, your Reverence, I am a right true Catholic, and shall learn the children so to be."

"Mind thou dost!" said Sir John.

Dr Chedsey meanwhile had occupied himself in writing out an order for the children to be delivered to Ursula, to which he affixed the seal of the Commission. Armed with this paper, and having taken leave of the Commissioners, with many protests that she would "do her duty," Ursula made her way to the Castle gate.

"Who walks so late?" asked the porter, looking out of his little wicket to see who it was.

"Good den, Master Style. I am James Felstede's wife of Thorpe, and I come with an order from their Worships the Commissioners to take Johnson's children to me; they be to dwell in my charge till the Black Sisters shall send for them."

"Want 'em to-night?" asked the porter rather gruffly.

"Well, what say you?—are they abed? I'm but a poor woman, and cannot afford another walk from Thorpe. I'd best take 'em with me now."

"You're never going back to Thorpe to-night?"

"Well, nay. I'm going to tarry the night at my brother's outside East Gate."

"Bless the woman! then call for the children in the morning, and harry not honest folk out o' their lives at bed-time."

And Style dashed the wicket to.

"Now, then, Kate! be those loaves ready? The rogues shall be clamouring for their suppers," cried he to his wife.

Katherine Style, who baked the prison bread, brought out in answer a large tray, on which three loaves of bread were cut in thick slices, with a piece of cheese and a bunch of radishes laid on each. These were for the supper of the prisoners. Style shouted for the gaoler, and he came up and carried the tray into the dungeon, followed by the porter, who was in rather a funny mood, and—as I am sorry to say is often the case—was not, in his fun, careful of other people's feelings.

"Now, Johnson, hast thou done with those children?" said he. "Thou'd best make thy last dying speech and confession to 'em, for they're going away to-morrow morning."

Johnson looked up with a grave, white face. Little Cissy, who was sitting by Rose Allen, at once ran to her father, and twined her arm in his, with an uneasy idea of being parted from him, though she did not clearly understand what was to happen.

"Where?" was all Johnson seemed able to say.

"Black Nuns of Hedingham," said the porter. He did not say anything about the temporary sojourn with Ursula Felstede.

Johnson groaned and drew Cissy closer to him.

"Don't be feared, Father," said Cissy bravely, though her lips quivered till she could hardly speak. "Don't be feared: we'll never do anything you've told us not."

"God bless thee, my darling, and God help thee!" said the poor father. "Little Cissy, He must be thy Father now." And looking upwards, he said, "Lord, take the charge that I give into Thine hands this night! Be Thou the Father to these fatherless little ones, and lead them forth by a smooth way or a rough, so it be the right way, whereby they shall come to Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacle. Keep them as the apple of Thine eye; hide them under the covert of Thy wings! I am no more in the world; but these are in the world: keep them through Thy Name. Give them back safe to my Helen and to me in the land that is very far-off, whereinto there shall enter nothing that defileth. Lord, I trust them to no man, but only unto Thee! Here me, O Lord my God, for I rest on Thee. Let no man prevail against Thee. I have no might against this company that cometh against me, neither know I what to do; but mine eyes are upon Thee."



CHAPTER THIRTY.

"THEY WON'T MAKE ME!"

"What! Agnes Bongeor taken to the Moot Hall? Humph! they'll be a-coming for me next. I must get on with my work. Let's do as much as we can for the Lord, ere we're called to suffer for Him. Thou tookest my message to Master Commissary, Doll?"

Dorothy Denny murmured something which did not reach the ear of Mrs Wade.

"Speak up, woman! I say, thou tookest my message?"

"Well, Mistress, I thought—"

"A fig for thy thought! Didst give my message touching Johnson's children?"

"N-o, Mistress, I,—"

"Beshrew thee for an unfaithful messenger. Dost know what the wise King saith thereof? He says it is like a foot out of joint. Hadst ever thy foot out o' joint? I have, and I tell thee, if thou hadst the one foot out of joint, thou wouldst not want t'other. I knew well thou wert an ass, but I did not think thee unfaithful. Why didst not give my message?"

There were tears in Dorothy's eyes.

"Mistress," said she, "forgive me, but I will not help you to run into trouble, though you're sore set to do it. It shall serve no good purpose to keep your name for ever before the eyes of Master Commissary and his fellows. Do, pray, let them forget you. You'll ne'er be safe, an' you thrust yourself forward thus."

"Safe! Bless the woman! I leave the Lord to see to my safety. I've no care but to get His work done."

"Well, then He's the more like to have a care of you; but, Mistress, won't you let Dorothy Denny try to see to you a bit too?"

"Thou'rt a good maid, Doll, though I'm a bit sharp on thee at times; and thou knows thou art mortal slow. Howbeit, tell me, what is come of those children? If they be in good hands, I need not trouble."

"Ursula Felstede has them, Mistress, till the Black Nuns of Hedingham shall fetch them away."

"Ursula Felstede! 'Unstable as water.' That for Ursula Felstede. Black Nuns shall not have 'em while Philippa Wade's above ground. I tell thee, Dorothy, wherever those little ones go, the Lord's blessing 'll go with them. Dost mind what David saith? 'I have been young, and now am old; and yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.' And I want them, maid,—part because I feel for the little ones, and part because I want the blessing. Why, that poor little Cicely 'll be crying her bits of eyes out to part with 'Father.' Doll, I'll go down this even, if I may find leisure, to Ursula Felstede, and see if I cannot win her to give me the children. I shall tell her my mind first, as like as not: and much good may it do her! But I'll have a try for 'em—I will."

"Folks saith, Mistress, the prisoners be in as good case as may be: always reading and strengthening one another, and praising God."

"I'm fain to hear it, Dorothy. Ah, they be not the worst off in this town. If the Lord were to come to judge the earth this even, I'd a deal liefer be one of them in the Moot Hall than be of them that have them in charge. I marvel He comes not. If he had been a man and not God, He'd have been down many a time afore now."

About six o'clock on a hot July evening, Ursula Felstede heard a tap at her door.

"Come in! O Mistress Wade, how do you do? Will you sit? I'm sure you're very welcome," said Ursula, in some confusion.

"I'm not quite so sure of it, Ursula Felstede: but let be. You've Johnson's children here, haven't you?"

"Ay, I have so: and I tell you that Will's a handful! Seems to me he's worser to rule than he used. He's getting bigger, trow."

"And Cicely?"

"Oh, she's quiet enough, only a bit obstinate. Won't always do as she's told. I have to look after her sharp, or she'd be off, I do believe."

"I'd like to see her, an't please you."

"Well, to be sure! I sent 'em out to play them a bit. I don't just know where they are."

"Call that looking sharp after 'em?"

Ursula laughed a little uneasily.

"Well, one can't be just a slave to a pack of children, can one? I'll look out and see if they are in sight."

"Thank you, I'll do that, without troubling you. Now, Ursula Felstede, I've one thing to say to you, so I'll say it and get it over. Those children of Johnson's have the Lord's wings over them: they'll be taken care of, be sure: but if you treat them ill, or if you meddle with what their father learned them, you'll have to reckon with Him instead of the Queen's Commissioners. And I'd a deal sooner have the Commissioners against me than have the Lord. Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do but fear Him which after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell. Yea, I say unto thee, Fear Him!"

And Mrs Wade walked out of the door without saying another word. She was going to look for the children. The baby she had already seen asleep on Ursula's bed. Little Will she found in the midst of a group of boys down by the brook, one of whom, a lad twice his size, was just about to fight him when Mrs Wade came up.

"Now, Jack Tyler, if thou dost not want to be carried to thy father by the scuff of thy neck, like a cat, and well thrashed to end with, let that lad alone.—Will, where's thy sister?"

Little Will, who looked rather sheepish, said,—

"Over there."

"Where's there?"

"On the stile. She's always there when we're out, except she's looking after me."

"Thou lackest looking after."

"Philip Tye said he'd see to me: and then he went off with Jem Morris, bird-nesting."

"Cruel lads! well, you're a proper lot! It'd do you good, and me too, to give you a caning all round. I shall have to let be to-night, for I want to find Cicely."

"Well, you'll see her o' top o' the stile."

Little Will turned back to his absorbing amusement of bulrush-plaiting, and Mrs Wade went up to the stile which led to the way over the fields towards Colchester. As she came near, sheltered by the hedge, she heard a little voice.

"Yea, though I walk in vale of death, Yet will I fear no ill: Thy rod, Thy staff, doth comfort me, And Thou art with me still."

Mrs Wade crept softly along till she could see through the hedge. The stile was a stone one, with steps on each side, such as may still be seen in the north of England: and on the top step sat Cissy, resting her head upon her hand, and looking earnestly in the direction of Colchester.

"What dost there, my dear heart?" Mrs Wade asked gently.

"I'm looking at Father," said Cissy, rather languidly. She spoke as if she were not well, and could not care much about anything.

"'Looking at Father'! What dost thou mean, my child?"

"Well, you see that belt of trees over yonder? When the sun shines, I can see All Hallows' tower stand up against it. You can't see it to-day: it does not shine; but it's there for all that. And Father's just behind in the Castle: so I haven't any better way to look at him. Only God looks at him, you know; they can't bar Him out. So I come here, and look as far as I can, and talk to God about Father. I can't see Father, but he's there: and I can't see God, but He's there too: and He's got to see to Father now I can't."

The desolate tone of utter loneliness in the little voice touched Mrs Wade to the core of her great warm heart.

"My poor little Cicely!" she said. "Doth Ursula use thee well?"

"Yes, I suppose so," said Cissy, in a quiet matter-of-fact way; "only when I won't pray to her big image, she slaps me. But she can't make me do it. Father said not. It would never do for God to see us doing things Father forbade us, because he's shut up and can't come to us. I'm not going to pray to that ugly thing: never! And if it was pretty, it wouldn't make any difference, when Father said not."

"No, dear heart, that were idolatry," said Mrs Wade.

"Yes, I know," replied Cissy: "Father said so. But Ursula says the Black Sisters will make me, or they'll put me in the well. I do hope God will keep away the Black Sisters. I ask Him every day, when I've done talking about Father. I shouldn't like them to put me in the well!" and she shuddered. Evidently Ursula had frightened her very much with some story about this. "But God would be there, in the well, wouldn't He? They won't make me do it when Father said not!"



CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

SUMPTUOUS APARTMENTS.

"Well, be sure! who ever saw such a lad? Sent out to play at four o' the clock, and all o'er mud at five! Where hast thou been, Will? Speak the truth, now!"

"Been down by the brook rush-plaiting," said little Will, looking as if his mind were not quite made up whether to cry or to be sulky.

"The mischievousness of lads! Didn't I tell thee to mind and keep thy clothes clean?"

"You're always after clothes! How could I plait rushes and keep 'em clean?"

"And who told you to plait rushes, Master Impudence? Take that." That was a sound box on the ear which Ursula delivered by way of illustration to her remarks. "What's become o' Phil Tye? I thought he was going to look after thee."

"Well, he did, a bit: then he and Jem Morris went off bird-nesting."

"I'll give it him when I see him! Where's Cicely?"

"She's somewhere," said Will, looking round the cottage, as if he expected to see her in some corner.

"I reckon I could have told thee so much. Did Mistress Wade find you?"

"She was down at the brook: but she went after Cis."

"Well, thou'lt have to go to bed first thing, for them clothes must be washed."

Will broke into a howl. "It isn't bed-time nor it isn't washing-day!"

"It's bed-time when thou'rt bidden to go. As to washing-day, it's always washing-day where thou art. Never was such a boy, I do believe, for getting into the mud. Thou'rt worser ten times o'er than thou wert. I do wish lads 'd stop babes till they're men, that one could tuck 'em in the cradle and leave 'em! There's never a bit of peace! I would the Black Ladies 'd come for you. I shall be mighty thankful when they do, be sure."

"Mistress Wade 'll have us," suggested Master William, briskly, looking up at Ursula.

"Hold that pert tongue o' thine! Mistress Wade's not like to have you. You're in my care, and I've no leave to deliver you to any save the Black Ladies."

"Well! I wouldn't mind camping out a bit, if you're so set to be rid of us," said Will, reflectively. "There's a blanket you've got rolled up in the loft, that 'd make a tent, and we could cut down poles, if you'll lend us an axe; and—"

"You cut down poles! Marry come up! You're not about to have any of my blankets, nor my axes neither."

"It wouldn't be so bad," Will went on, still in a meditative key, "only for dinner. I don't see where we should get that."

"I see that you're off to bed this minute, and don't go maundering about tents and axes. You cut down poles! you'd cut your fingers off, more like. Now then, be off to the loft! Not another word! March!"

Just as Ursula was sweeping Will upstairs before her, a rap came on the door.

"There! didn't I say a body never had a bit of peace?—Go on, Will, and get to bed; and mind thou leaves them dirty clothes on the floor by theirselves: don't go to dirt everything in the room with 'em.—Walk in, Mistress Wade! So you found Cis?"

"Ay, I found her," said the landlady, as she and Cissy came in together.

"Cis, do thou go up, maid, and see to Will a bit. He's come in all o'er mud and mire, and I sent him up to bed, but there's no trusting him to go. See he does, prithee, and cast his clothes into the tub yonder, there's a good maid."

Cissy knew very well that Ursula spoke so amiably because Mrs Wade was there to hear her. She went up to look after her little brother, and the landlady turned to Ursula.

"Now, Ursula Felstede, I want these children."

"Then you must ask leave from the Queen's Commissioners, Mistress Wade. Eh, I couldn't give 'em up if it were ever so! I daren't, for the life o' me!"

Mrs Wade begged, coaxed, lectured, and almost threatened her, but for once Ursula was firm. She dared not give up the children, and she was quite honest in saying so. Mrs Wade had to go home without them.

As she came up, very weary and unusually dispirited, to the archway of the King's Head, she heard voices from within.

"I tell you she's not!" said Dorothy Denny's voice in a rather frightened tone; "she went forth nigh four hours agone, and whither I know not."

"That's an inquiry for me," said Mrs Wade to herself, as she sprang down from her old black mare, and gave her a pat before dismissing her to the care of the ostler, who ran up to take her. "Good Jenny! good old lass!—Is there any company, Giles?" she asked of the ostler.

"Mistress, 'tis Master Maynard the Sheriff and he's making inquiration for you. I would you could ha' kept away a bit longer!"

"Dost thou so, good Giles? Well, I would as God would. The Sheriff had best have somebody else to deal with him than Doll and Bab." And she went forward into the kitchen.

Barbara, her younger servant, who was only a girl, stood leaning against a dresser, looking very white and frightened, with the rolling-pin in her hand; she had evidently been stopped in the middle of making a pie. Dorothy stood on the hearth, fronting the terrible Sheriff, who was armed with a writ, and evidently did not mean to leave before he had seen the mistress.

"I am here, Mr Maynard, if you want me," said Mrs Wade, quite calmly.

"Well said," answered the Sheriff, turning to her. "I have here a writ for your arrest, my mistress, and conveyance to the Bishop's Court at London, there to answer for your ill deeds."

"I am ready to answer for all my deeds, good and ill, to any that have a right to question me. I will go with you.—Bab, go and tell Giles to leave the saddle on Jenny.—Doll, here be my keys; take them, and do the best thou canst. I believe thee honest and well-meaning, but I'm feared the house shall ne'er keep up its credit. Howbeit, that cannot be helped. Do thy best, and the Lord be with you! As to directions, I were best to leave none; maybe they should but hamper thee, and set thee in perplexity. Keep matters clean, and pay as thou goest—thou wist where to find the till; and fear God—that's all I need say. And if it come in thy way to do a kind deed for any, and in especial those poor little children that thou wist of, do it, as I would were I here: ay, and let Cissy know when all's o'er with her father. And pray for me, and I'll do as much for thee—that we may do our duty and please God, and for bodily safety let it be according to His will.—Now, Master Maynard, I am ready."

Four days later, several strokes were rang on the great bell of the Bishop's Palace at Fulham. The gaoler came to his gate when summoned by the porter.

"Here's a prisoner up from Colchester—Philippa Wade, hostess of the King's Head there. Have you room?"

"Room and to spare. Heresy, I reckon?"

"Ay, heresy,—the old tale. There must be a nest of it yonder down in Essex."

"There's nought else all o'er the country, methinks," said the gaoler with a laugh. "Come in, Mistress; I'll show you your lodging. His Lordship hath an apartment in especial, furnished of polished black oak, that he keepeth for such as you. Pray you follow me."

Mrs Wade followed the jocose gaoler along a small paved passage between two walls, and through a low door, which the gaoler barred behind her, himself outside, and then opened a little wicket through which to speak.

"Pray you, sit down, my mistress, on whichsoever of the chairs you count desirable. The furniture is all of one sort, fair and goodly; far-fetched and dear-bought, which is good for gentlewomen, and liketh them: fast colours the broidery, I do ensure you."

Mrs Wade looked round, so far as she could see by the little wicket, everything was black—even the floor, which was covered with black shining lumps of all shapes and sizes. She touched one of the lumps. There, could be no doubt of its nature. The "polished black oak" furniture was cobs of coal, and the sumptuous apartment wherein she was to—lodged was Bishop Bonner's coal-cellar.



CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

"READY! AY, READY!"

It was the evening of the first of August. The prisoners in the Castle, now reduced to four—the Mounts, Rose, and Johnson—had held their Bible-reading and their little evening prayer-meeting, and sat waiting for supper. John and Margaret Thurston, who had been with them until that day, were taken away in the morning to undergo examination, and had not returned. The prisoners had not yet heard when they were to die. They only knew that it would be soon, and might be any day. Yet we are told they remained in their dungeons "with much joy and great comfort, in continual reading and invocating the name of God, ever looking and expecting the happy day of their dissolution."

We should probably feel more inclined to call it a horrible day. But they called it a happy day. They expected to change their prison for a palace, and their prison bonds for golden harps, and the prison fare for the fruit or the Tree of Life, and the company of scoffers and tormentors for that of Seraphim and Cherubim, and the blessed dead: and above all, to see His Face who had laid down His life for them.

Supper was late that evening. They could hear voices outside, with occasional exclamations of surprise, and now and then a peal of laughter. At length the door was unlocked, and the gaoler's man came in with four trenchers, piled on each other, on each of which was laid a slice of rye-bread and a piece of cheese. He served out one to each prisoner.

"Want your appetites sharpened?" said he with a sarcastic laugh. "Because, if you do, there's news for you."

"Prithee let us hear it, Bartle," answered Mount, quietly.

"Well, first, writs is come down. Moot Hall prisoners suffer at six to-morrow, on the waste by Lexden Road, and you'll get your deserving i' th' afternoon, in the Castle yard."

"God be praised!" solemnly responded William Mount, and the others added an Amen.

"Well, you're a queer set!" said Bartle, looking at them. "I shouldn't want to thank nobody for it, if so be I was going to be hanged: and that's easier of the two."

"We are only going Home," answered William Mount. "The climb may be steep, but there is rest and ease at the end thereof."

"Well, you seem mighty sure on't. I know nought. Priests say you'll find yourselves in a worser place nor you think."

"Nay! God is faithful," said Johnson.

"Have it your own way. I wish you might, for you seem to me a deal tidier folks than most that come our way. Howbeit, my news isn't all told. Alegar, your brats be gone to Hedingham."

"God go with them!" replied Johnson; but he seemed much sadder to hear this than he had done for his own doom.

"And Margaret Thurston's recanted. She's reconciled and had to better lodging."

It was evident, though to Bartle's astonishment, that the prisoners considered this the worst news of all.

"And John Thurston?"

"Ah, they aren't so sure of him. They think he'll bear a faggot, but it's not certain yet."

"God help and strengthen him!"

"And Mistress Wade, of the King's Head, is had up to London to the Bishop."

"God grant her His grace!"

"I've told you all now. Good-night."

The greeting was returned, and Bartle went out. He was commissioned to carry the writ down to the Moot Hall.

Not many minutes later, Wastborowe entered the dungeon with the writ in his hand. The prisoners were conversing over their supper, but the sight of that document brought silence without any need to call for it.

"Hearken!" said Wastborowe. "At six o'clock in the morning, on the waste piece by Lexden Road, shall suffer the penalty of the law these men and women underwritten:—William Bongeor, Thomas Benold, Robert alias William Purcas, Agnes Silverside alias Downes alias Smith alias May, Helen Ewring, Elizabeth Foulkes, Agnes Bowyer."

With one accord, led by Mr Benold, the condemned prisoners stood up and thanked God.

"'Agnes Bowyer'," repeated Wastborowe in some perplexity. "Your name's not Bowyer; it's Bongeor."

"Bongeor," said its bearer. "Is my name wrong set down? Pray you, Mr Wastborowe, have it put right without delay, that I be not left out."

"I should think you'd be uncommon glad if you were!" said he.

"Nay, but in very deed it should grieve me right sore," she replied earnestly. "Let there not be no mistake, I do entreat you."

"I'll see to it," said Wastborowe, as he left the prison.

The prisoners had few preparations to make. Each had a garment ready—a long robe of white linen, falling straight from the neck to the ankles, with sleeves which buttoned at the wrist. There were many such robes made during the reign of Mary—types of those fairer white robes which would be "given to every one of them," when they should have crossed the dark valley, and come out into the light of the glory of God. Only Agnes Bongeor and Helen Ewring had something else to part with. With Agnes in her prison was a little baby only a few weeks old, and she must bid it good-bye, and commit it to the care of some friend. Helen Ewring had to say farewell to her husband, who came to see her about four in the morning; and to the surprise of Elizabeth Foulkes, she found herself summoned also to an interview with her widowed mother and her uncle Holt.

"Why, Mother!" exclaimed Elizabeth in astonishment, "I never knew you were any where nigh."

"Didst thou think, my lass, that aught 'd keep thy mother away from thee when she knew? I've been here these six weeks, a-waiting to hear. Eh, my pretty mawther, [see note 1] but to see this day! I've looked for thee to be some good man's wife, and a happy woman,—such a good maid as thou always wast!—and now! Well, well! the will of the Lord be done!"

"A happy woman, Mother!" said Elizabeth with her brightest smile. "In all my life I never was so happy as this day! This is my wedding day— nay, this is my crowning day! For ere the sun be high this day, I shall have seen the Face of Christ, and have been by Him presented faultless before the light of the glory of God. Mother, rejoice with me, and rejoice for me, for I can do nothing save rejoice. Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good-will towards men!"

There was glory to God, but little good-will towards men, when the six prisoners were marched out into High Street, on their way to martyrdom. Yet only one sorrowful heart was in the dungeon of the Moot Hall, and that was Agnes Bongeor's, who lamented bitterly that owing to the mis-spelling of her name in the writ, she was not allowed to make the seventh. She actually put on her robe of martyrdom, in the hope that she might be reckoned among the sufferers. Now, when she learned that she was not to be burned that day, her distress was poignant.

"Let me go with them!" she cried. "Let me go and give my life for Christ! Alack the day! The Lord counts me not worthy."

The other six prisoners were led, tied together, two and two, through High Street and up to the Head Gate. First came William Bongeor and Thomas Benold; then Mrs Silverside and Mrs Ewring; last, Robert Purcas and Elizabeth Foulkes. They were led out of the Head Gate, to "a plot of ground hard by the town wall, on the outward side," beside the Lexden Road. There stood three great wooden stakes, with a chain affixed to each. The clock of Saint Mary-at-Walls struck six as they reached the spot.

Around the stakes a multitude were gathered to see the sight. Mr Ewring, with set face, trying to force a smile for his wife's encouragement; Mrs Foulkes, gazing with clasped hands and tearful eyes on her daughter; Thomas Holt and all his family; Mr Ashby and all his; Ursula Felstede, looking very unhappy; Dorothy Denny, looking very sad; old Walter Purcas, leaning on his staff, from time to time shaking his white head as if in bitter lamentation; a little behind the others, Mrs Clere and Amy; and in front, busiest of the busy, Sir Thomas Tye and Nicholas Clere. There they all were, ready and waiting, to see the Moot Hall prisoners die.

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. Girl. This is a Suffolk provincialism.



CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

HOW THEY WENT HOME.

Arrived at the spot where they were to suffer, the prisoners knelt down to pray: "but not in such sort as they would, for the cruel tyrants would not suffer them." Foremost of their tormentors at this last moment was Nicholas Clere, who showed an especial spite towards Elizabeth Foulkes, and interrupted her dying prayers to the utmost of his power. When Elizabeth rose from her knees and took off her outer garments—underneath which she wore the prepared robe—she asked the Bailiff's leave to give her petticoat to her mother; it was all the legacy in her power to leave. Even this poor little comfort was denied her. The clothes of the sufferers were the perquisite of the Sheriffs' men, and they would not give them up. Elizabeth smiled—she did nothing but smile that morning—and cast the petticoat on the ground.

"Farewell, all the world!" she said. "Farewell, Faith! farewell, Hope!" Then she took the stake in her arms and kissed it. "Welcome, Love!"

Ay, faith and hope were done with now. A few moments, and faith would be lost in sight; hope would be lost in joy; but love would abide for ever and ever.

Her mother came up and kissed her.

"My blessed dear," she said, "be strong in the Lord!"

They chained the two elder men at one stake; the two women at another: Elizabeth and Robert together at the last. The Sheriff's men put the chain round them both, and hammered the other end fast, so that they should not attempt to escape.

Escape! none of them dreamed of such a thing. They cared neither for pain nor shame. To their eyes Heaven itself was open, and the Lord Christ, on the right hand of the Father, would rise to receive His servants. Nor did they say much to each other. There would be time for that when all was over! Were they not going the journey together? would they not dwell in happy company, through the long years of eternity? The man who was nailing the chain close to where Elizabeth stood accidentally let his hammer slip. He had not intended to hurt her; but the hammer came down heavily upon her shoulder and made a severe wound. She turned her head to him and smiled on him. Then she lifted up her eyes to heaven and prayed. Her last few moments were spent in alternate prayer and exhortation of the crowd.

The torch was applied to the firewood and tar-barrels heaped around them. As the flame sprang up, the six martyrs clapped their hands: and from the bystanders a great cry rose to heaven,—

"The Lord strengthen them! the Lord comfort them! the Lord pour His mercies upon them!"

Ah, it was not England, but Rome, who burned those Marian martyrs! The heart of England was sound and true; she was a victim, not a persecutor.

Just as the flame reached its fiercest heat, there was a slight cry in the crowd, which parted hither and thither as a girl was borne out of it insensible. She had fainted after uttering that cry. It was no wonder, said those who stood near: the combined heat of the August sun and the fire was scarcely bearable. She would come round shortly if she were taken into the shade to recover.

Half-an-hour afterwards nothing could be seen beside the Lexden Road but the heated and twisted chains, with fragments of charred wood and of grey ashes. The crowd had gone home.

And the martyrs had gone home too. No more should the sun light upon them, nor any heat. The Lamb in the midst of the Throne had led them to living fountains of water, and they were comforted for evermore.

"Who was that young woman that swooned and had to be borne away?" asked a woman in the crowd of another, as they made their way back into the town.

The woman appealed to was Audrey Wastborowe.

"Oh, it was Amy Clere of the Magpie," said she. "The heat was too much for her, I reckon."

"Ay, it was downright hot," said the neighbour.

Something beside the heat had been too much for Amy Clere. The familiar face of Elizabeth Foulkes, with that unearthly smile upon it, had gone right to the girl's heart. For Amy had a heart, though it had been overlaid by a good deal of rubbish.

The crowd did not disperse far. They were gathered again in the afternoon in the Castle yard, when the Mounts and Johnson and Rose Allen were brought out to die. They came as joyfully as their friends had done, "calling upon the name of God, and exhorting the people earnestly to flee from idolatry." Once more the cry rose up from the whole crowd,—

"Lord, strengthen them, and comfort them, and pour Thy mercy upon them!"

And the Lord heard and answered. Joyfully, joyfully they went home and the happy company who had stood true, and had been faithful unto death, were all gathered together for ever in the starry halls above.

To two other places the cry penetrated: to Agnes Bongeor weeping in the Moot Hall because she was shut out from that blessed company; and to Margaret Thurston in her "better lodging" in the Castle, who had shut herself out, and had bought life by the denial of her Lord.

The time is not far-off when we too shall be asked to choose between these two alternatives. Not, perhaps, between earthly life and death (though it may come to that): but between faith and unfaithfulness, between Christ and idols, between the love that will give up all and the self-love that will endure nothing. Which shall it be with you? Will you add your voice to the side which tamely yields the priceless treasures purchased for us by these noble men and women at this awful cost? or will you meet the Romanising enemy with a firm front, and a shout of "No fellowship with idols!—no surrender of the liberty which our fathers bought with their heart's blood!" God grant you grace to choose the last!

When Mrs Clere reached the Magpie, she went up to Amy's room, and found her lying on the bed with her face turned to the wall.

"Amy! what ailed thee, my maid?—art better now?"

"Mother, we're all wrong!"

"Dear heart, what does the child mean?" inquired the puzzled mother. "Has the sun turned thy wits out o' door?"

"The sun did nought to me, mother. It was Bessie's face that I could not bear. Bessie's face, that I knew so well—the face that had lain beside me on this pillow over and over again—and that smile upon her lips, as if she were half in Heaven already—Mother it was dreadful! I felt as if the last day were come, and the angels were shutting me out."

"Hush thee, child, hush thee! 'Tis not safe to speak such things. Heretics go to the ill place, as thou very well wist."

"Names don't matter, do they, Mother? It is truth that signifies. Whatever names they please to call Bessie Foulkes, she had Heaven and not Hell in her face. That smile of hers never came from Satan. I know what his smiles are like: I've seen them on other faces afore now. He never had nought to do with her."

"Amy, if thy father hears thee say such words as those, he'll be proper angry, be sure!"

Amy sat up on the bed.

"Mother, you know that Bessie Foulkes loved God, and feared Him, and cared to please Him, as you and I never did in all our lives. Do folks that love God go to Satan? Does He punish people because they want to please Him? I know little enough about it, alack-the-day! but if an angel came from Heaven to tell me Bessie wasn't there this minute, I could not believe him."

"Well, well! think what you will, child, only don't say it! I've nothing against Bess being in Heaven, not I! I hope she may be, poor lass. But thou knowest thy father's right set against it all, and the priests too; and, Amy, I don't want to see thee on the waste by Lexden Road. Just hold thy tongue, wilt thou? or thou'lt find thyself in the wrong box afore long."

"Mother, I don't think Bessie Foulkes is sorry for what happened this morning."

"Maybe not, but do hold thy peace!"

"I can hold my peace if you bid me, Mother. I've not been a good girl, but I mean to try and be better. I don't feel as if I should ever care again for the gewgaws and the merrymakings that I used to think all the world of. It's like as if I'd had a glimpse into Heaven as she went in, and the world had lost its savour. But don't be feared, Mother; I'll not vex you, nor Father neither, if you don't wish me to talk. Only— nobody 'll keep me from trying to go after Bessie!"



CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

DOROTHY TAKES A MESSAGE.

"Now then, attend, can't you? How much sugar?"

"Please, Sister Mary, my head does ache so!"

"No excuses, Cicely! Answer at once."

A long sobbing sigh preceded the words—"Half a pound."

"Now get to your sewing. Cicely, I must be obeyed; and you are a right perverse child as one might look for with the training you have had. Let me hear no more about headache: it's nothing but nonsense."

"But my head does ache dreadfully, Sister."

"Well, it is your own fault, if it do. Two mortal hours were you crying last night,—the stars know what for!"

"It was because I didn't hear nothing about Father," said poor Cissy sorrowfully. "Mistress Wade promised she—"

"Mistress Wade—who is that?"

"Please, she's the hostess of the King's Head: and she said she would let me know when—"

"When what?"

"When Father couldn't have any pain ever any more."

"Do you mean that you wish to hear your Father is dead, you wicked child?"

Cissy looked up wearily into the nun's face. "He's in pain now," she said; "for he is waiting, and knows he will have more. But when it has come, he will have no more, never, but will live with God and be happy for ever and ever. I want to know that Father's happy."

"How can these wicked heretics fall into such delusions?" said Sister Mary, looking across the room at Sister Joan, who shook her head in a way which seemed to say that there was no setting any bounds to the delusions of heretics. "Foolish child, thy father is a bad man, and bad men do not go to Heaven."

"Father's not a bad man," said Cissy, not angrily, but in a tone of calm persuasion that nothing would shake. "I cry you mercy, Sister Mary, but you don't know him, and somebody has told you wrong. Father's good, and loves God; and people are not bad when they love God and do what He says to them. You're mistaken, please, Sister."

"But thy father does not obey God, child, because he does not obey the Church."

"Please, I don't know anything about the Church. Father obeys the Bible, and that is God's own Word which He spoke Himself. The Church can't be any better than that."

"The Church, for thee, is the priest, who will tell thee how to please God and the Holy Mother, if thou wilt hearken."

"But the priest's a man, Sister: and God's Book is a great deal better than that."

"The priest is in God's stead, and conveys His commands."

"But I've got the commands, Sister Mary, in the Book; and God hasn't written a new one, has He?"

"Silly child! the Church is above any Book."

"Oh no, it can't be, Sister, please. What Father bade me do his own self must be better than what other people bid me; and so what God says in His own Book must be better than what other people say, and the Church is only people."

"Cicely, be silent! Thou art a very silly, perverse child."

"I dare say I am, Sister, but I am sure that's true."

Sister Joan was on the point of bidding Cissy hold her tongue in a still more authoritative manner, when one of the lay Sisters entered the room, to say that a woman asked permission to speak with one of the teaching Sisters.

"What is her name?"

"She says her name is Denny."

"Denny! I know nobody of that name."

"Oh, please, is her name Dorothy?" asked Cissy, eagerly. "If it's Dorothy Denny, Mrs Wade has sent her—she's Mrs Wade's servant. Oh, do let me—"

"Silence!" said Sister Mary. "I will go and speak with the woman."

She found in the guest-chamber a woman of about thirty, who stood dropping courtesies as if she were very uncomfortable.

Very uncomfortable Dorothy Denny was. She did not know what "nervous" meant, but she was exceedingly nervous for all that. In the first place, she felt extremely doubtful whether if she trusted herself inside a convent, she would ever have a chance of getting out again; and in the second she was deeply concerned about several things, of which one was Cissy.

"What do you want, good woman?"

"Please you, Madam, I cry you mercy for troubling of you, but if I might speak a word with the dear child—"

"What dear child?" asked the nun placidly.

Dorothy's fright grew. Were they going to deny Cissy to her, or even to say that she was not there?

"Please you, good Sister, I mean little Cis—Cicely Johnson, an' it like you, that I was sent to with a message from my mistress, the hostess of the King's Head in Colchester."

"Cicely Johnson is not now at liberty. You can give the message to me."

"May I wait till I can see her?"

Plainly, Dorothy was no unfaithful messenger when her own comfort only was to be sacrificed. Sister Mary considered a moment; and then said she would see if Cicely could be allowed to have an interview with her visitor. Bidding Dorothy sit down, she left the room.

For quite an hour Dorothy sat waiting, until she began to think the nuns must have forgotten her existence, and to look about for some means of reminding them of it. There were no bells in sitting-rooms at that time, except in the form of a little hand-bell on a table, and for this last Dorothy searched in vain. Then she tried to go out into the passage, in the hope of seeing somebody; but she was terrified to find herself locked in. She did not know what to do. The window was barred with an iron grating; there was no escape that way. Poor Dorothy began to wonder whether, if she found herself a prisoner, she could contrive to climb the chimney, and what would become of her after doing so, when she heard at last the welcome sound of approaching steps, and the key was turned in the lock. The next minute Cissy was in Dorothy's arms.

"O Dorothy! dear Dorothy! tell me quick—Father—" Cissy could get no further.

"He is at rest, my dear heart, and shall die no more."

Cissy was not able to answer for the sobs that choked her voice, and Dorothy smoothed her hair and petted her.

"Nay, grieve not thus, sweet heart," she said.

"Oh no, it is so wicked of me!" sobbed poor Cissy. "I thought I should have been so glad for Father: and I can only think of me and the children. We've got no father now!"

"Nay, my dear heart, thou hast as much as ever thou hadst. He is only gone upstairs and left you down. He isn't dead, little Cissy: he's alive in a way he never was before, and he shall live for ever and ever."

Neither Dorothy nor Cissy had noticed that a nun had entered with her, and they were rather startled to hear a voice out of the dark corner by the door.

"Take heed, good woman, how thou learn the child such errors. That is only true of great saints; and the man of whom you speak was a wicked heretic."

"I know not what sort of folks your saints are," said Dorothy bravely: "but my saints are folks that love God and desire to please Him, and that John Johnson was, if ever a man were in this evil world. An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit."

The nun crossed herself, but she did not answer.

"It would be as well if folks would be content to set the bad folks in prison, and let the good ones be," said Dorothy. "Cissy, our mistress is up to London to the Bishop."

"Will they do somewhat to her?"

"God knoweth!" said Dorothy, shaking her head sorrowfully. "I shall be fain if I may see her back; oh, I shall!"

"Oh, I hope they won't!" said Cissy, her eyes filling again with tears. "I love Mistress Wade."



CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

NOBODY LEFT FOR CISSY.

"Please, Dorothy, what's become of Rose Allen? and Bessy Foulkes? and Mistress Mount, and all of them?"

"All gone, my dear heart—all with thy father."

"Are they all gone?" said Cissy with another sob, "Isn't there one left?"

"Not one of them."

"Then if we came out, we shouldn't find nobody?"

"Prithee reckon not, Cicely," said the nun, "that thou art likely to come out. There is no such likelihood at all whilst our good Queen reigneth; and if it please God, she shall have a son after her that shall be true to the Catholic faith, as she is, and not suffer evil courses and naughty heretics to be any more in the realm. Ye will abide here till it be plainly seen whether God shall grant to thee and thy sister the grace of a vocation; and if not, it shall be well seen to that ye be in care of good Catholic folk, that shall look to it ye go in the right way. So prithee, suffer not thy fancy to deceive thee with any thought of going forth of this house of religion. When matters be somewhat better established, and the lands whereof the Church hath been robbed are given back to her, and all the religious put back in their houses, or new ones built, then will England be an Isle of Saints as in olden time, and men may rejoice thereat."

Cissy listened to this long speech, which she only understood in part, but she gathered that the nuns meant to keep her a prisoner as long as they could.

"But Sister Joan," said she, "you don't know, do you, what God is going to do? Perhaps he will give us another good king or queen, like King Edward. I ask Him to do, every day. But, please, what is a vocation?"

"Thou dost, thou wicked maid? I never heard thee."

"But I don't ask you, Sister Joan. I ask God. And I think He'll do it, too. What is a vocation, please?"

"What I'm afeared thou wilt never have, thou sinful heretic child—the call to become a holy Sister."

"Who is to call me? I am a sister now; I'm Will's and Baby's sister. Nobody can't call me to be a sister to nobody else," said Cissy, getting very negative in her earnestness.

Sister Joan rose from her seat. "The time is up," said she. "Say farewell to thy friend."

"Farewell, Dorothy dear," said Cissy, clinging to the one person she knew, who seemed to belong to her past, as she never would have thought of doing to Dorothy Denny in bygone days. "Please give Mistress Wade my duty, when she comes home, and say I'm trying to do as Father bade me, and I'll never, never believe nothing he told me not. You see they couldn't do nothing to me save burn me, as they did Father, and then I should go to Father, and all would be right directly. It's much better for them all that they are safe there, and I'll try to be glad—thought here's nobody left for me. Father'll have company: I must try and think of that. I thought he'd find nobody he knew but Mother, but if they've all gone too, there'll be plenty. And I suppose there'll be some holy angels to look after us, because God isn't gone away, you see: He's there and here too. He'll help me still to look after Will and Baby, now I haven't"—a sob interrupted the words—"haven't got Father. Good-bye, Dolly! Kiss me, please. Nobody never kisses me now."