The King's Daughters Part 18

The Bailiff stepped across the court, and rapped at the gaoler's door.

He was desired by a rather shrill voice to come in. He just opened the door about an inch, and spoke through it.

"Audrey, do you know aught of one Elizabeth Foulkes?"

"Liz'beth What-did-you-say?" inquired Mrs Wastborowe, hastily drying her arms on her ap.r.o.n, and coming forward.

"Elizabeth Foulkes," repeated the Bailiff.

"What, yon la.s.s o' Clere's the clothier? Oh, ay, you'll find her in Balcon Lane, at the Magpie. A tall, well-favoured young maid she is-- might be a princess, to look at her. What's she been doing, now?"

"Heresy," said the Bailiff, shortly.

"Heresy! dear, dear, to think of it! Well, now, who could have thought it? But Master Clere's a bit unsteady in that way, his self, ain't he?"

"Oh nay, he's reconciled."

"Oh!" The tone was significant.

"Why, was you wanting yon maid o' Mistress Clere's?" said the porter's wife. "You'll have her safe enough, for I met Amy Clere this even, and she said her mother was downright vexed with their Bess, and had turned the key on her. I did not know it was her you meant. I've never heard her called nought but Bess, you see."

"Then that's all well," said Maynard. "I'll tarry for her till the morrow, for I'm well wearied to-night."

CHAPTER TWENTY.

LED TO THE SLAUGHTER.

The long hours of that day wore on, and n.o.body came again to Elizabeth in the porch-chamber. The dusk fell, and she heard the sounds of locking up the house and going to bed, and began to understand that neither supper nor bed awaited her that night. Elizabeth quietly cleared a s.p.a.ce on the floor in the moonlight, heaping boxes and baskets on one another, till she had room to lie down, and then, after kneeling to pray, she slept more peacefully than Queen Mary did in her Palace.

She was awoke suddenly at last. It was broad daylight, and somebody was rapping at the street door.

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

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

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

Just as Amy Clere put her head out of the window. Mr Maynard, who did not reckon patience among his chief virtues, and who was tired of waiting, signed to one of his men to give another sharp rap, accompanied by a shout of--"Open, in the Queen's name!"

"Saints, love us and help us!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 I unlock 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're at 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 light run of her daughter's steps; and then Elizabeth heard the bolts drawn back, 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 of a good Catholic on so ill an errand. But I am in search of a maid of yours, by name Elizabeth Foulkes, whose name hath been presented a afore the Queen's Grace's Commission for heresy. Is this the maid?"

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

"Eh, bless me, no!" cried Amy, in terror. "I'm as good a Catholic as you 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 s.h.i.+ve last night for supper. Don't take _me_, for mercy's sake!"

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

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

Mrs Clere knew well that suspicion had attached to her husband's name in time past, which made her more desirous to free herself from all complicity 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 only words! I told him I'd say the moon was made o' green cheese if he wanted. Why shouldn't you?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just stop and think a moment, what it would be to be led in this way through the streets of a town where nearly everybody knew you, as if you had been a thief or a murderer!--led by a cord like an animal about to be sold--nay, as our Master, Christ, was led, like a sheep to the slaughter! Fancy what it would be, to a girl who had always been respectable and well-behaved to be used in this way: to hear the rough, coa.r.s.e jokes of the bystanders and of the men who were leading her, and not to have one friend with her--not one living creature that cared what became of her, except that Lord who had once died for her, and for whom she 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 kept silence. Don't you think it was hard to bear?

When Elizabeth reached the Moot Hall and was taken to the prison, for an instant she felt as if she had reached home and friends. Mrs Silverside bade her welcome with a kindly smile, and Robert Purcas came up and kissed her--people kissed each other then instead of shaking hands 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.