The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 Part 19

I saw now her wise and kind care of me, in that she had not put me into the danger she was in herself. It seemed too that she must escape, seeing that there was none to give witness against her.

And then the truth came out, that the villain himself, tempted by the offer of the King to pardon those rebels that should betray their entertainers, had gone of his own accord and bought his safety at the cost of her life that had sheltered and fed him.

When the time came that he must give his evidence, the villain stepped forward with a swaggering impudence that ill-concealed his secret shame, and swore not only that Elizabeth Gaunt had given him shelter, but moreover that she had done it knowing who he was and where he came from.

And so she was condemned to death, and, in the strange cruelty of the law, because she was a woman and adjudged guilty of treason, she must be burnt alive.

She had no great friends to help her, no money with which to bribe the wicked court; yet I could not believe that a King who called himself a Christian--though of that cruel religion that has since hunted so many thousands of the best men out of France, or tortured them in their homes there--could abide to let a woman die, only because she had been merciful to a man that was his enemy. I went about like one distracted, seeking help where there was no help, and it was only when I went to the gaol and saw Elizabeth herself--which I was permitted to do for a farewell--that I found any comfort.

"We must all die one day," she said, "and why not now, in a good cause?"

"Is it a good cause," I cried, "to die for one that is a coward, a villain, a traitor?"

"Nay," she answered, "you mistake. I die for the cause of charity. I die to fulfil my Master's command of kindness and mercy."

"But the man was unworthy," I repeated.

"What of that? The love is worthy that would have helped him; the charity is worthy that would have served him. Gladly do I die for having lived in love and charity. They are the courts of G.o.d's holy house. They are filled full of peace and joy. In their peace and joy may I abide until G.o.d receives me, unworthy, into His inner temple."

"But the horror of the death! Oh, how can you bear it?"

"G.o.d will show me how when the time comes," she said, with the simplicity of a perfect faith.

[Sidenote: Death by Fire]

And of a truth He did show her; for they that stood by her at the last testified how her high courage did not fail; no, nor her joy either; for she laid the straw about her cheerfully for her burning, and thanked G.o.d that she was permitted to die in this cruel manner for a religion that was all love.

I could not endure to watch that which she could suffer joyfully, but at first I remained in the outskirts of the crowd. When I pressed forward after and saw her bound there--she that had sat at meals with me and lain in my bed at night--and that they were about to put a torch to the f.a.ggots and kindle them, I fell back in a swoon. Some that were merciful pulled me out of the throng, and cast water upon me; and William Penn the Quaker, that stood by (whom I knew by sight--and a strange show this was that he had come with the rest to look upon), spoke to me kindly, and bid me away to my home, seeing that I had no courage for such dreadful sights.

So I hurried away, ashamed of my own cowardice, and weeping sorely, leaving behind me the tumult of the crowd, and smelling in the air the smoke of the kindled f.a.ggots. I put my fingers in my ears and ran back to the empty house: there to fall on my knees, to pray to G.o.d for mercy for myself, and to cry aloud against the cruelty of men.

Then there happened a thing which I remember even now with shame.

The man who had betrayed my mistress came disguised (for he was now at liberty to fly from the anger of the populace and the horror of his friends) and he begged me to go with him and to share his fortunes, telling me that he feared solitude above everything, and crying to me to help him against his own dreadful thoughts.

I answered him with horror and indignation; but he said I should rather pity him, seeing that many another man would have acted so in his place; and others might have been in his place easily enough.

"For," said he, "your friend Windham was among those that came to take service under the Duke and had to be sent away because there were no more arms. He was sorely disappointed that he could not join us."

"Then," said I suddenly, "this was doubtless the reason why he fled the country--lest any should inform against him."

"That is so," he answered; "and a narrow escape he has had; for if he had fought as he desired he might well have been in my place this day."

"In Elizabeth Gaunt's rather!" I answered. "He would himself have died at the stake before he could have been brought to betray the woman that had helped him."

"You had a poorer opinion of him a short while ago."

"I knew not the world. I knew not men. I knew not _you_. Go! Go! Take away your miserable life--for which two good and useful lives have been given--and make what you can of it. I would--coward as I am--go back to my mistress and die with her rather than have any share in it!"

He tarried no more, and I was left alone. Not a creature came near me.

It may be that my neighbours had seen him enter, and thought of me with horror as a condoner of his crime; it may be that they were afraid to meddle with a house that had fallen into so terrible a trouble; or that the frightful hurricane that burst forth and raged that day (as if to show that G.o.d's anger was aroused and His justice, though delayed, not forgotten) kept them trembling in their houses.

[Sidenote: A Knocking at Nightfall]

What would have befallen me if I had been left long alone in that great and evil city I know not, for I had no wits left to make any plans for myself. At nightfall, however, there came once more a knocking, and when I opened the door my father stood on the threshold. There seemed no strangeness in his presence, and I fell into his arms weeping, so that he, seeing how grievous had been my punishment, forbore to make any reproach.

The next day began our journey home, and I have never since returned to London; but when I got back to the place I had so foolishly left I found it sadder than before. Many friends were gone away or dead. Some honest lads, with whom I had jested at fair-times, hung withering on the ghastly gallows by the wayside; others lay in unknown graves; others languished in gaol or on board s.h.i.+p. My father's own brother, though his life was spared, had been sent away to the plantations to be sold, and to work as a slave.

It was some time before Tom Windham--that had, at considerable risk to himself, sent my father to fetch me--ventured to settle again in his old place; and for a long time after that he was shy of addressing me.

But I was changed now as much as he was. I had seen what the world was, and knew the value of an honest love in it. So that, in the end, we came to an understanding, and have been married these many years.

[Sidenote: What is girl life like in newer Canada--in lands to which so many of our brothers are going just now? This article--written in the Far North-West--supplies the answer.]

Girl Life in Canada

BY

JANEY CANUCK

If you leave out France, Canada is as large as all Europe; which means that the girls of our Dominion live under climatic, domestic, and social conditions that are many and varied. It is of the girls in the newer provinces I shall write--those provinces known as "North-West Canada"--who reside in the country adjacent to some town or village.

It is true that many girls who come here with their fathers and mothers often live a long distance from a town or even a railroad.

Where I live at Edmonton, the capital of the Province of Alberta, almost every day in the late winter we see girls starting off to the Peach River district, which lies to the north several hundred miles from a railroad.

[Sidenote: A Travelling House]

How do they travel? You could never guess, so I may as well tell you.

They travel in a house--a one-roomed house. It is built on a sled and furnished with a stove, a table that folds against the wall, a cupboard for food and dishes, nails for clothing, and a box for toilet accessories. Every available inch is stored with supplies, so that every one must perforce sleep on the floor. This family bed is, however, by no means uncomfortable, for the "soft side of the board" is piled high with fur rugs and four-point blankets. (Yes, if you remind me I'll tell you by and by what a "four-point" blanket is.)

The entrance to the house is from the back, and the window is in front, through a slide in which the lines extend to the heads of the horses or the awkward, stumbling oxen.

You must not despise the oxen, or say, "A pretty, team for a Canadian girl!" for, indeed, they are most reliable animals, and not nearly so delicate as horses, nor so hard to feed--and they never, never run away.

Besides--and here's the rub--you can always eat the oxen should you ever want to, and popular prejudice does not run in favour of horseflesh.

Oh, yes! I said I would tell you about "four-point" blankets. They are the blankets that have been manufactured for nearly three hundred years by "the Honourable Company of Gentlemen Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay," known for the sake of conciseness as the "H.B.

Company." These blankets are claimed to be the best in the world, and weigh from eight to ten pounds. The Indians, traders, trappers, boatmen, and pioneers in the North use no others. They are called "four-point"

because of four black stripes at one corner. There are lighter blankets of three and a half points, which points are indicated in the same way.

By these marks an Indian knows exactly what value he is getting in exchange for his precious peltry.

After travelling for three or four weeks in this gipsy fas.h.i.+on, mayhap getting a peep at a moose, a wolf, or even a bear (to say nothing of such inconsequential fry as ermine, mink, beaver, and otter), the family arrive at their holding of 160 acres.

It does not look very pleasant, this holding. The snow is just melting, and the landscape is dreary enough on every side, for as yet Spring has not even suggested that green is the colour you may expect to see in Nature's fas.h.i.+on-plate. Not she!