The King's Daughters Part 23

"He asked me if I did mean to entreat you and my father to be good Catholics; and when I denied the same, gave me some ill words."

Rose said nothing about the burning, and as she dexterously kept her injured hand out of her mother's sight, all that Alice realised was that the girl was a trifle less quick and handy than usual.

"She's a good, quick maid in the main," said she to herself: "I'll not fault her if she's upset a bit."

While Rose was helping her mother to dress, the Bailiff was questioning her step-father whether any one else was in the house.

"I'm here," said John Thurston, rising from the pallet-bed where he lay in a corner of the little scullery. "You'd best take me, if you want me."

"Take them all!" cried Tyrrel. "They be all in one tale, be sure."

"Were you at ma.s.s this last Sunday?" said the Bailiff to Thurston. He was not quite so bad as Tyrrel.

"No, that was I not," answered Thurston firmly.

"Wherefore?"

"Because I will not wors.h.i.+p any save G.o.d Almighty."

"Why, who else would we have you to wors.h.i.+p?"

"Nay, it's not who else, it's what else. You would have me to wors.h.i.+p stocks and stones, that cannot hear nor see; and cakes of bread that the baker made overnight in his oven. I've as big a throat as other men, yet can I not swallow so great a notion as that the baker made Him that made the baker."

"Of a truth, thou art a naughty heretic!" said the Bailiff; "and I must needs carry thee hence with the rest. But where is thy wife?"

Ay, where was Margaret? n.o.body had seen her since the Bailiff knocked at the door. He ordered his men to search for her; but she had hidden herself so well that some time pa.s.sed before she could be found. At length, with much laughter, one of the Bailiff's men dragged her out of a wall-closet, where she crouched hidden behind an old box. Then the Bailiff shouted for Alice Mount and Rose to be brought down, and proceeded to tie his prisoners together, two and two,--Rose contriving to slip back, so that she should be marched behind her parents.

Note 1. This part of the story is all quite true, and I am not putting into Rose's lips, in her conversation with Mr Tyrrel, one word which she did not really utter.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

IN COLCHESTER CASTLE.

The whole population of Much Bentley seemed to have turned out to witness the arrest at the Blue Bell. Some were kindly and sympathising, some bitter and full of taunts; but the greater number were simply inquisitive, neither friendly nor hostile, but gossipping. It was now four o'clock, a time at which half the people were up in the village, and many a woman rose an hour earlier than her wont, in order to see the strange sight. There were the carpenters with baskets of tools slung over their shoulders; the gardeners with rake or hoe; the labourers with their spades; the fishermen with their nets.

The Colne oyster-fishery is the oldest of all known fisheries in England, and its fame had reached imperial Rome itself, nearly two thousand years ago, when the Emperor Caligula came over to England partly for the purpose of tasting the Colchester oyster. The oysters are taken in the Colne and placed in pits, where they are fattened till they reach the size of a silver oyster preserved among the town treasures. In April or May, when the baby oyster first appears in the river, it looks like a drop from a tallow candle; but in twenty-four hours the sh.e.l.l begins to form. The value of the oyster sp.a.w.n (as the baby oysters are called) in the river, is reckoned at twenty thousand pounds; and from five to ten thousand pounds' worth of oysters is sold every year.

"Well, Master Mount, how like you your new pair o' bracelets?" said one of the fishermen, as William Mount was led out, and his hands tied with a rough cord.

"Friend, I count it honour to bear for my Lord that which He first bare for me," was the meek answer.

"Father Tye 'll never preach a better word than that," said a voice in the crowd.

Mr Simnel looked up as if to see who spoke.

"Go on with thy work, old cage-maker!" cried another voice. "We'll not find thee more gaol-birds to-day than what thou hast."

"You'd best hold your saucy tongues," said the nettled Bailiff.

"Nay, be not so tetchy, Master Simnel!" said another. The same person never seemed to speak twice; a wise precaution, since the speaker was less likely to be arrested if he did not repeat the offence. "Five slices of meat be enough for one man's supper."

This allusion to the number of the prisoners, and the rapacity of the Bailiff, was received with laughter by the crowd. The Bailiff's temper, never of the best, was quite beyond control by this time. He relieved it by giving Mount a heavy blow, as he pushed him into line after tying his wife to him.

"Hit him back, Father Mount!" cried one of the voices. William Mount shook his head with a smile.

"I'll hit some of you--see if I don't!" responded the incensed Bailiff, who well knew his own unpopularity.

"Hush, fellows!" said an authoritative voice. "Will ye resist the Queen's servants?"

John Thurston and his wife were next tied together, and placed behind the Mounts, the crowd remaining quiet while this was being done. Then they brought Rose Allen, and fastened her, by a cord round her wrists, to the same rope.

"Eh, Lord have mercy on the young maid!" said a woman's voice in a compa.s.sionate tone.

"Young witch, rather!" responded a man, roughly.

"Hold thy graceless tongue, Jack Milman!" replied a woman's shrill tones. "Didn't Rose Allen make broth for thee when we were both sick, and go out of a cold winter night a-gathering herbs to ease thy pain?

Be shamed to thee, if thou knows what shame is, casting ill words at her in her trouble!"

Just as the prisoners were marched off, another voice hitherto silent seemed to come from the very midst of the crowd. It said,--

"Be ye faithful unto death, and Christ shall give you a crown of life."

"Take that man!" said the Bailiff, stopping.

But the man was not to be found. n.o.body knew--at least n.o.body would own--who had uttered those fearless words.

So the prisoners were marched away on the road to Colchester. They went in at Bothal's Gate, up Bothal Street, and past the Black Friars'

monastery to the Castle.

Colchester Castle is one of the oldest castles in England, for it was built by King Edward the Elder, the son of Alfred the Great. It is a low square ma.s.s, with the largest Norman keep, or centre tower, in the country. The walls are twelve feet thick, and the whole ground floor, and two of the four towers, are built up perfectly solid from the bottom, that it might be made as strong as possible. It was built with Roman bricks, and the Roman mortar still sticks to some of them.

Builders always know Roman mortar, for it is so much harder than any mortar people know how to make now--quite as hard as stone itself. The chimneys run up through the walls.

The prisoners were marched up to the great entrance gate, on the south side of the Castle. The Bailiff blew his horn, and the porter opened a little wicket and looked out.

"Give you good-morrow, Master Bailiff. Another batch, I reckon?"

"Ay, another batch, belike. You'll have your dungeons full ere long."

"Oh, we've room enough and to spare!" said the porter with a grin.

"None so many, yet. Two men fetched in yestereven for breaking folks'

heads in a drunken brawl; and two or three debtors; and a lad for thieving, and such; then Master Maynard brought an handful in this morrow--Moot Hall was getting too full, he said."

"Ay so? who brought he?"