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

Will burst into a fresh paroxysm without answering.

"Metrusteth thou hast not been an ill lad?"

Will shook his curly head.

"Nay, what then? Is Mother sick?"

Another shake.

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

"O Mistress Agnes!" came with a mult.i.tude of sobs.

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

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

"Ta'en whom, my lad? Sure, thy little brother d.i.c.kon is not stole away?"

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

This was manifestly something serious.

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

"Oh nay, nay!--the Black Friar."

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

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

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

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

"He was so good to me and d.i.c.kon!" sobbed Will.

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

Will, occupied in rubbing his eyes with his small sleeve, nodded a.s.sent.

Agnes filled her pails mechanically, and carried them home. The world must go on, if the sun would never rise any more for her.

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

"What, on a brewing-day!" cried Mistress Winter. "Good sooth, nay!

They be right sure to be put by to another day. If that be not brewing, nor baking, nor cleaning, nor washing-day, may be thou canst be let go for an half-hour then."

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

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

The Consistory demanded of the accused persons--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"We do so believe," replied the prisoners.

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

The accused admitted all this.

"Will ye now conform?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps, too, her spirituality was of a higher type than that of Cicely.

She recognised that the Lord's tender mercy lies not in sparing pain to His chosen, but in being with them when they pa.s.s through the purifying waters, and bearing them in His arms through the fire which is to consume their earthliness, but not themselves. His is a love which will inflict the pain that is to purify, and tenderly comfort the sufferer as he pa.s.ses through it.