“By God’s grace, which alone can strengthen us weak ones; and what is the worst we have to bear—the gibbet and quartering block? Well, they cannot protract it more than half-an-hour; half-an-hour! why had it begun when I entered this cell, it had been over now, and we safe on the other side.”
“Would it had.”
“Yes, and then heaven had already been revealed to our enraptured sight, our eyes would have seen the King in His beauty and the land which is very far off.”
“Where is that land, that glory land?”
“Eye hath not seen, nor ear drunk in its sweet songs of joy; words cannot picture it, nor can the heart of man conceive its bliss, but it lies beyond the gibbet and quartering block, my son; let them do their worst, they know not what they do, and we will pray for them till the last, yes and for King Harry too; God turn his heart, and shew him his sin, and all will be well in dear old England again.”
But the reader is doubtless eager to learn what had taken place to frustrate, as it would seem at first sight, the plans of Sir John Redfyrne.
Perhaps they had not been frustrated, but changed.
That same evening he had informed the governor that he had received a messenger from court to inform him, that the secret chamber was already discovered, and that there was therefore no further occasion, either to put Cuthbert to the torture again, or delay the execution. “Let the criminals have the consolation of each other’s society to-night, and die to-morrow,” he added.