The King's Daughters Part 22

"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 G.o.d's in heaven."

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

"There's G.o.d'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 a.s.sented 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 n.o.body 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 wors.h.i.+p my Lord G.o.d, 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 G.o.d,"

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.