Chapter Thirty Two.
One summer day.
The nineteenth of June was the loveliest of summer days, even in the Martyrs’ Field at Canterbury, in the hollow at the end of which the seven stakes were set up. The field is nearly covered now by the station of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, but the hollow can still be traced whence the souls of His faithful witnesses went up to God.
John Banks was early on the ground, and so secured a front place. The crowd grew apace, until half the field was covered. Not only residents of the city, but casual sight-seers, made up the bulk of it, the rather since it was somewhat dangerous to be absent, especially for a suspected person. From the neighbouring villages, too, many came in—the village squire and his dame in rustling silks, the parish priest in his cassock, the labourers and their wives in holiday garb.
Then the Castle gates opened, and the Wincheap Gate; and forth from them came a slow, solemn procession, preceded by a crucifer bearing a silver cross, a long array of black-robed priests, and then the Lord Bishop of Dover, in his episcopal robes, followed by two scarlet-cassocked acolytes swinging thuribles, from which ascended a cloud of incense between his Lordship’s sacred person and the wicked heretics who were to follow. Two and two they came, John Fishcock the butcher, led like one of his own sheep to the slaughter, and Nicholas White the ironmonger; Nicholas Pardue and Sens Bradbridge; Mrs Final and Emmet Wilson. After all the rest came Alice Benden, on the last painful journey that she should ever take. She would mount next upon wings as an eagle, and there should for her be no more pain.
The martyrs recognised their friend John Banks, and each greeted him by a smile. Then they took off their outer garments—which were the perquisites of the executioners—and stood arrayed every one in that white robe of martyrdom, of which so many were worn in Mary’s reign; a long plain garment, falling from the throat to the feet, with long loose sleeves buttoned at the wrists. Thus prepared, they knelt down to pray, while the executioners heaped the faggots in the manner best suited for quick burning. Rising from their prayers, each was chained to a stake. Now was the moment for the last farewells.
John Banks went up to Alice Benden.
“Courage, my mistress, for a little time! and the Lord be with you!”
“Amen!” she answered. “I thank thee, Jack. Do any of my kin know of my burning?”
“Mistress, I told not your brethren, and methinks they wot not of the day. Methought it should be sore to them, and could do you but a little good. I pray you, take me as ’presenting all your friends, that do bid you right heartily farewell, and desire for you an abundant entrance into the happy kingdom of our Lord God.”
“I thank thee with all mine heart, Jack; thou hast well done. Give, I pray thee, to my brother Roger this new shilling, the which my father sent me at my first imprisonment, desiring him that he will give the same unto mine old good father, in token that I never lacked money, with mine obedient salutations.”
The gaoler now approached her to place the faggots closer, and Banks was reluctantly compelled to retire. From her waist Alice took a white lace which she had tied round it, and handed it to the gaoler, saying, “Keep this, I beseech you, for my brother Roger Hall. It is the last bond I was bound with, except this chain.”
Then the torch was put to the faggots.
“Keep this in memory of me!” reached John Banks, in the clear tones of Alice Benden; and a white cambric handkerchief fluttered above the crowd, and fell into his outstretched hands. (These farewells of Alice Benden are historical.)
And so He led them to the haven where they would be.
“No, not one looked back, who had set his hand to this ploughing!”
There was a hard task yet before John Banks. He had to visit eight houses, and at each to tell his awful tale, to father and mother, brother and sister, son and daughter—in three instances to husband or wife—of the martyrs who had gone home. His first visit was to Seven Roods.
“Well, Jack Banks! I thought you’d been dead and buried!” was Tabitha’s sarcastic intimation that it was some time since she had seen him.
“Ah, Mistress Hall, I could well-nigh wish I had been, before I came to bring you such tidings as I bring to-day.”
Tabitha looked up in his face, instantly dropped the mop in her hand, and came over to where he stood.
“’Tis more than ‘may be,’” she said significantly, “and I reckon ’tis more than ‘must be.’ John Banks, is it done?”
“It is done,” he replied. “‘The Lord God hath wiped away all tears from her eyes.’”
“The Lord look upon it, and avenge her!” was the answer, in Tabitha’s sternest and most solemn voice. “The Lord requite it on the head of Edward Benden, and on the head of Richard Thornton! Wherefore doth He not rend the heavens and come down? Wherefore—” and as suddenly as before, Tabitha broke down, and cried her heart out as Banks had never imagined Tabitha Hall could do.
Banks did not attempt to reprove her. It was useless. He only said quietly, “Forgive me to leave you thus, but I must be on my way, for my tidings must yet be told six times, and there be some hearts will break to hear them.”
“I’ll spare you one,” said Tabitha, as well as she could speak. “You may let be Roger Hall. I’ll tell him.”
Banks drew a long breath. Could he trust this strange, satirical, yet warm-hearted woman to tell those tidings in that house of all others? And the white lace, which the gaoler, knowing him to be a Staplehurst man, had entrusted to him to give, could he leave it with her?
“Nay, not so, I pray you, and thank you, Mistress. I have an especial message and token for Master Hall. But if you would of your goodness let Mistress Final’s childre know thereof, that should do me an easement, for the White Hart is most out of my way.”
“So be it, Jack, and God speed thee!”
Turning away from Seven Roods, Banks did his terrible errand to the six houses. It was easiest at Fishcock’s, where the relatives were somewhat more distant than at the rest; but hard to tell Nicholas White’s grey-haired wife that she was a widow, hard to tell Emmet Wilson’s husband that he had no more a wife; specially hard at Collet Pardue’s cottage, where the news meant not only sorrow but worldly ruin, so far as mortal eye might see. Then he turned off to Briton’s Mead, and told Mary, whose tears flowed fast.
“Will you speak to him?” she said, in an awed tone.
“No!” said Banks, almost sternly. “At the least—what doth he?”
“Scarce eats a morsel, and his bed’s all awry in the morning, as if he’d done nought but toss about all the night; I think he sleeps none, or very nigh. I never speak to him without he first doth, and that’s mighty seldom.”
Banks hesitated a moment. Then he went forward, and opened the door of the dining-room.
“Mr Benden!” he said.
The room was in semi-darkness, having no light but that of the moon, and Banks could see only just enough to assure him that something human sat in the large chair at the further end. But no sound answered his appeal.
“I am but now arrived from Canterbury.”
Still no answer came. John Banks went on, in a soft, hushed voice—not in his own words. If the heart of stone could be touched, God’s words might do it; if not, still they were the best.
“‘She shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light upon her, neither any heat. For the Lamb that is in the midst of the Seat hath fed her, and hath led her unto fountains of living water; and God hath wiped away all tears from her eyes.’”
He paused a moment, but the dead silence was unbroken.
One word more. “The Lord have mercy on thy soul, thou miserable sinner!” Then Banks shut the door softly and went away.
There we leave Edward Benden, with the black silence of oblivion over his future life. Whether the Holy Spirit of God ever took the stony heart out of him, and gave him a heart of flesh, God alone knows. For this, in its main features, is a true story, and there is no word to tell us what became of the husband and betrayer of Alice Benden.
John Banks went on to the last house he had to visit—the little house by the Second Acre Close. Roger Hall opened the door himself. Banks stepped in, and as the light of the hall lantern fell upon his face, Roger uttered an exclamation of pain and fear.
“Jack! Thy face—”
“Hath my face spoken to you, Master Hall, afore my tongue could frame so to do? Perchance it is best so. Hold your hand.”
Roger obeyed mechanically, and Banks laid on the hand held forth the long white lace.
“For you,” he said, his voice broken by emotion. John Banks’ nerves were pretty well worn out by that day’s work, as well they might be. “She gave it me for you—at the last. She bade me say it was the last bond she was bound with—except that chain.”
“Thank God!” were the first words that broke from the brother who loved Alice so dearly. The Christian spoke them; but the next moment the man came uppermost, and an exceeding bitter cry of “O Alice, Alice!” followed the thanksgiving of faith.
“It is over,” said Banks, in a husky voice. “She ‘shall never see evil any more.’”
But he knew well that he could give no comfort to that stricken heart. Quietly, and quickly, he laid down the new shilling, with its message for the poor old father; and then without another word—not even saying “good-night,” he went out and closed the door behind him. Only God could speak comfort to Roger and Christabel in that dark hour. Only God could help poor Roger to tell Christie that she would never see her dear Aunt Alice any more until she should clasp hands with her on the street of the Golden City, and under the shade of the Tree of Life. And God would help him: John Banks was quite sure of that. But as he stepped out into the summer night, it seemed almost as if he could see a vision—as if the outward circumstances in which he had beheld the trio were prophetic—Alice in the glory of the great light, Roger with his way shown clearly by the little lamp of God’s Word, and Edward in that black shadow, made lurid and more awful by the faint unearthly light. The moon came out brightly from behind a cloud, just as Banks lifted his eyes upwards.
“Good God, forgive us all!” he said earnestly, “and help all that need Thee!”
Alice was above all help, and Roger was sure of help. But who or what could help Edward Benden save the sovereign mercy of God?