Chapter Eight.

The Crown of Life.

“Welcome scaffold for precious Christ.”
Reverend James Renwick.

It so happened that the 9th of February, to which the prisoners had been remanded, was not a day devoted to baking, brewing, cleaning, or washing, in the household of Mistress Winter; who, not in complimentary language, gave Agnes her permission to spend half-an-hour in the Chapter-house.

Already, before the sitting of the Consistory, Bishop Bonner had sent, first for Pygot and Knight, and afterwards for Tomkins and Hunter, into his “great chamber,” and asked them if they were willing to recant. They all refused, “not being persuaded in their consciences” that the doctrines propounded to them were true. These four were then brought into the Consistory, and a paper was offered them to sign, containing a synopsis of their belief. The statement appears to have been a fair and true definition of their creed, for all four attached their names to it without hesitation.

It was just at this time that Agnes entered the Chapter-house, as these prisoners were being removed, and John Laurence was brought forward.

“Pray you, come hither to me,” said Bonner, with a show of friendliness, due to his prisoner’s priesthood.

Calmly enough, to outward show, Agnes looked on his face as he came up to the Bishop,—that face so plain and uncomely to other eyes, so dear and beautiful to hers. There would be time enough for weeping hereafter, in that dreary future, of which the vista seemed to stretch before her in illimitable desert: but now she could afford to lose no tone of that yoke, no moment of the time permitted for gazing on that face. She might never see him again until they should stand together before the throne of God.

John Laurence answered every question asked of him calmly and firmly. He admitted that he was a priest, eighteen years in orders, and sometime a Black Friar professed. But Bonner’s spies had told him more than this; and it was not his wont to omit the wringing of a heretic’s heart.

“Art thou not ensured unto a maid in way of marriage?”

“I am so, my Lord,” said John Laurence.

“Didst thou truly propose to wed with her?”

“By God’s leave, I did.”

And Agnes Stone, standing in the crowd, heard herself thus confessed before God and man—a confession which, she full well knew, stamped him who made it, in the eyes of these his judges, with indelible disgrace.

“And what is thine opinion on the Sacrament?” inquired Bonner in a confidential manner.

“It is a remembrance of Christ’s body.”

“Then what sayest thou of them which believe, as we do, that it is Christ’s body?”

“I say that they are deceived.”

“Thinkest thou that all do err which believe not as thou dost?” said Bonner with his usual bluster.

“I do say so, my Lord,” was the determined answer.

Once more the prisoners were remanded, but only until afternoon. Agnes did not dare to stay. She had ascertained from Cicely Marvell, whom she saw in the crowd, that prisoners’ friends were often permitted a farewell interview between sentence and execution; and if she meant to apply for that, she must not risk Mistress Winter’s anger by remaining now. Cicely promised to bring her news of the sentence.

“Lo’ you now! here cometh my fair Lady Dominica!” was Dorothy’s salutation, as Agnes re-entered the kitchen. “What news, sweet Mistress Blackfriars? Is thy goodly sweet-heart consecrate Lord Bishop of Duneery, or shall he but be Master Doctor Dean of Foolscap?”

Agnes vouchsafed no answer.

“Woe betide us! here is Madam Gospeller hath lost her tongue!” cried Dorothy. “Do but give me to wit, prithee, sweetest Sacramentary! So dear love I all Black Friars, I may never sleep till I know.”

“They be yet again remanded,” replied Agnes dreamily.

Though she felt sure what the end would be, it was impossible to realise it. Surely all that was passing must be some dreadful dream, from which she would presently awake, perhaps in the little bed which used to be hers in her aunt’s pretty cottage, and find that all the past, for eight years, had been a groundless vision.

Yet Dorothy’s torturing pin-pricks were real enough. All day long she persisted in worrying Agnes by pretended sympathy—so patently pretended that it was excessively annoying. The towel was snatched from her as she was washing her hands, with an entreaty that Dorothy might take that trouble for her; the mop was hidden where she could not find it, with an assurance that it would but increase the bitterness of her sorrow to discover it; invisible strings were stretched across the kitchen where she was sure to fall over them,—in order, as Dorothy tenderly intimated, to turn her thoughts from the painful anxiety which she must be enduring. It seemed to Agnes as if night and certainty would never come. Yet how could she wish it, when she felt so sure what the awful certainty would be? The hours wore on; the dark came at last; and when the night had fairly set in, Cicely Marvell’s soft tap was heard on Mistress Winter’s door. Agnes opened it herself. Dorothy had indeed rushed to do it, but fortunately Agnes contrived to reach it before her. It was evident that Cicely was loth to tell her terrible news, though Dorothy begged her, over Agnes’ shoulder, to relieve her heartrending suspense. Was it from one faint throb of womanly feeling in her usually hard heart, that Mistress Winter, in sharp tones, summoned Dorothy within, and left Agnes to hear the news alone?

“Speak, Mistress Marvell,” said Agnes, in that preternaturally calm manner which she had worn from the first. “It is death.”

“Ay, poor Agnes! It is death by fire.”

“And in the meantime?—”

“They lie in Newgate. He shall be taken to Colchester to suffer, being he was there born, the 28th of this March.”

“Then he dieth on the 29th?”

“E’en so.”

He was to die on the very day they had fixed for their marriage. To what had Agnes been looking forward so joyfully during those past weary months?

When the prisoners had reappeared before Bonner in the afternoon, they were asked, for the last time, if they would recant their heresy.

“We are not heretics,” they replied; “the contrary is heresy.”

Then, on these six contumacious men, was passed in due form the sentence of death.

Each was to suffer at the place of his birth: Thomas Tomkins in Smithfield, on the 16th of March; William Hunter, the poor apprentice-boy, at Brentford, on the twenty-sixth; William Pygot at Braintree, and Stephen Knight at Maldon, on the twenty-eighth.

It was only one interview with the prisoner for which Agnes dared to hope, and she waited for it until the day before he was to be degraded from his priestly office. Mistress Winter’s momentary sympathy, if it had existed, was over, and she grumbled a good deal when Agnes preferred her request for a few hours’ leave of absence. But she granted the boon at last.

“It will be the last time,” said Agnes quietly.

No more meetings at Paul’s Cross,—no more summer walks to Clerkenwell,—no more readings from the Cathedral lectern! Instead of that, for him the chariot of fire, and then the King’s welcome home, the white robe, and the palm of victory, and the crown of life. And for her,—ah! what? It might be a forty years’ wandering in the Wilderness of Sinai, with the River of Jordan at its close, ere she could come to the shore of the Promised Land. Yet the Promised Land was sure, as was the Promiser.

A strange specimen of human nature was Alexander, the keeper of Newgate prison: a man who could request Bishop Bonner to burn some more heretics because the cells were inconveniently crowded, and then, after a good supper, sit down and play the fiddle. He was extremely fond of music, though it scarcely exercised a soothing influence in his exceedingly savage breast.

Happily for Agnes, this gentleman happened to be in a good temper when she presented herself at his gates. He admitted her into the great hall, and after a short delay took her down to the low damp cell where condemned prisoners were confined. There she found John Laurence.

They were both very calm,—these two, to each of whom in that hour’s last meeting the bitterness of death was passing. Each tried to be brave for the other’s sake; each strengthened the other’s hand in God.

“This is scarce what we looked for, sweet-heart,” said the Black Friar. “We had gathered a fair dish of honey, but our good Master saw it should harm us, and appointed us in the stead thereof a dish of wormwood.

Neither is all the honey gone from us, for it is sweet to suffer for His sake.”

“I am glad thou hast stood firm,” said Agnes quietly.

“Thou shalt have the bitterer portion, my poor heart! Yet it is for no long season. We must meet soon, in our Father’s House.”

“Truly. And the time may be very short,” she answered.

“And canst thou give me up, mine Agnes, for Christ’s sake? For mark thou, that which is wrenched away is not given.”

She looked up with fixed, tearless eyes.

“Ay, John. I can give thee up for Christ’s sake. But I could not for any other.”

So they parted—for the last time. For when they should meet again in the Father’s House, they would part no more for ever.

“Not for any other!” Is there no special tenderness in the heart of the loving Saviour, for those who have given up that one thing which would not, could not, be resigned for any sake but His?

The next day there was the bitter mockery of degradation. Every vestment of the priesthood was put upon the martyr; one by one they were torn from him with curses. The crown of his head, where the tonsure had been cut, was defaced; the anointed head and hands were roughly scraped, to deprive them of the sacred unction. But the unction from the Holy One was beyond their reach.

Then came the journey to Colchester, and, lastly, the auto da fé. “Not able to go, his legs sore worn with heavy irons, as also his body weakened by evil keeping,” John Laurence was borne in a chair to his chariot of fire. We are told that at this martyrdom there were seen little children running round the stake, crying, “Lord, strengthen Thy servant, and keep Thy promise!” God did keep His promise, and strengthened His servant.

It was soon over; and they had no more that they could do.

There were martyr-crowns for such men as John Laurence. But were there none for women such as Agnes Stone, whose martyrdom lasted, not an hour, but a lifetime,—who laid on the Lord’s altar, not their lives, but all that made life precious?

We are not told what became of her. Nor does it much matter. Rather than sketch a fancy future for such a life as hers, let us remember the true end, when that life was over. For three hundred years, more or less, these two, who gave each other up for Christ, have been given back by Christ to each other: together they have followed the Lamb whithersoever He goeth; the Lord has been their everlasting light, and the days of their mourning have been ended.