The King's Daughters

by Emily Sarah Holt

  CHAPTER TWENTY.

  LED TO THE SLAUGHTER.

  The long hours of that day wore on, and nobody came again to Elizabethin the porch-chamber. The dusk fell, and she heard the sounds oflocking up the house and going to bed, and began to understand thatneither supper nor bed awaited her that night. Elizabeth quietlycleared a space on the floor in the moonlight, heaping boxes and basketson one another, till she had room to lie down, and then, after kneelingto pray, she slept more peacefully than Queen Mary did in her Palace.She was awoke suddenly at last. It was broad daylight, and somebody wasrapping at the street door.

  "Amy!" she heard Mistress Clere call from her bedchamber, "look out andsee who is there."

  Amy slept at the front of the house, in the room next to theporch-chamber. Elizabeth rose to her feet, giving her garments a shakedown as the only form of dressing just then in her power, and looked outof the window.

  The moment she did so she knew that one of the supreme moments of herlife had come. Before the door stood Mr Maynard, the Bailiff ofColchester--the man who had marched off the twenty-three prisoners toLondon in the previous August. Everybody who knew him knew that he wasa "stout Papist," to whom it was dear delight to bring a Protestant topunishment. Elizabeth did not doubt for an instant that she was the onechosen for his next victim.

  Just as Amy Clere put her head out of the window. Mr Maynard, who didnot reckon patience among his chief virtues, and who was tired ofwaiting, signed to one of his men to give another sharp rap, accompaniedby a shout of--"Open, in the Queen's name!"

  "Saints, love us and help us!" ejaculated Amy, taking her head in again."Mother, it's the Queen's men!"

  "Go down and open to 'em," was Mrs Clere's next order.

  "Eh, I durstn't if it was ever so!" screamed Amy in reply. "May Iunlock the door and send Bessy?"

  "Thee do as thou art bid!" came in the gruff tones of her father.

  "Come, I'll go with thee," said her mother. "Tell Master Bailiff we'reat hand, or they'll mayhap break the door in."

  A third violent rap enforced Mrs Clere's command.

  "Have a bit of patience, Master Bailiff!" cried Amy from her window."We're a-coming as quick as may be. Let a body get some clothes on,do!"

  Somebody under the window was heard to laugh.

  Then Mrs Clere went downstairs, her heavy tread followed by the lightrun of her daughter's steps; and then Elizabeth heard the bolts drawnback, and the Bailiff and his men march into the kitchen of the Magpie.

  "Good-morrow, Mistress Clere. I am verily sorry to come to the house ofa good Catholic on so ill an errand. But I am in search of a maid ofyours, by name Elizabeth Foulkes, whose name hath been presented a aforethe Queen's Grace's Commission for heresy. Is this the maid?"

  Mr Maynard, as he spoke, laid his hand not very gently on Amy'sshoulder.

  "Eh, bless me, no!" cried Amy, in terror. "I'm as good a Catholic asyou or any. I'll say aught you want me, and I don't care what it is--that the moon's made o' green cheese, if you will, and I'd a shive lastnight for supper. Don't take _me_, for mercy's sake!"

  "I'm not like," said Mr Maynard, laughing, and giving Amy a rough paton the back. "You aren't the sort I want."

  "You're after Bess Foulkes, aren't you?" said Mrs Clere. "Amy, there'sthe key. Go fetch her down. I locked her up, you see, that she shouldbe safe when wanted, I'm a true woman to Queen and Church, I am, MasterBailiff. You'll find no heresy here, outside yon jade of a Bessy."

  Mrs Clere knew well that suspicion had attached to her husband's namein time past, which made her more desirous to free herself from allcomplicity with what the authorities were pleased to call heresy.

  Amy ran upstairs and unlocked the door of the porch-chamber.

  "Bessy, the Bailiff's come for thee!"

  A faint flush rose to Elizabeth's face as she stood up.

  "Now do be discreet, Bessy, and say as he says. Bless you, it's onlywords! I told him I'd say the moon was made o' green cheese if hewanted. Why shouldn't you?"

  "Mistress Amy, it would be dishonour to my Lord, and I am ready foranything but that."

  "Good lack! couldst not do a bit o' penance at after? Bess, it's thylife that's in danger. Do be wise in time, lass."

  "It is only this life," said Elizabeth quietly, "and `he that saveth hislife shall lose it.' They that be faithful to the end shall have thecrown of life.--Master Bailiff, I am ready."

  The Bailiff looked up at the fair, tall, queenly maiden who stood beforehim.

  "I trust thou art ready to submit to the Church," he said. "It weresore pity thou shouldst lose life and all things."

  "Nay, I desire to win them," answered Elizabeth. "I am right ready tosubmit to all which it were good for me to submit to."

  "Come, well said!" replied the Bailiff; and he tied the cord round herhands, and led her away to the Moot Hall.

  Just stop and think a moment, what it would be to be led in this waythrough the streets of a town where nearly everybody knew you, as if youhad been a thief or a murderer!--led by a cord like an animal about tobe sold--nay, as our Master, Christ, was led, like a sheep to theslaughter! Fancy what it would be, to a girl who had always beenrespectable and well-behaved to be used in this way: to hear the rough,coarse jokes of the bystanders and of the men who were leading her, andnot to have one friend with her--not one living creature that cared whatbecame of her, except that Lord who had once died for her, and for whomshe was now, for aught she knew, upon her way to die! And even He_seemed_ as if He did not care. Men did these things, and He keptsilence. Don't you think it was hard to bear?

  When Elizabeth reached the Moot Hall and was taken to the prison, for aninstant she felt as if she had reached home and friends. MrsSilverside bade her welcome with a kindly smile, and Robert Purcas cameup and kissed her--people kissed each other then instead of shakinghands as we do now,--and Elizabeth felt their sympathy a true comfort.But she was calm under her suffering until she caught sight of Cissy.Then an exclamation of pain broke from her.

  "O Cissy, Cissy; I am so sorry for thee!"

  "O Bessy, but I'm so glad! Don't say you're sorry."

  "Why, Cissy, how canst thou be glad? Dost know what it all signifieth?"

  "I know they've taken Father, and I'm sorry enough for that; but thenFather always said they would some day. But don't you see why I'm glad?They've got me too. I was always proper 'feared they'd take Father andleave me all alone with the children; and he'd have missed us dreadful!Now, you see, I can tend on him, and do everything for him; and that'swhy I'm glad. If it had to be, you know."

  Elizabeth looked up at Cissy's father, and he said in a husky voice,--

  "`Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.'"