The Basket of Flowers

by Christoph von Schmid

CHAPTER IV.

MARY IN PRISON.

We have already said that Mary was in a faint when she was carried off to prison. When she recovered to realise her condition, she burst into passionate sobbing, but at length, clasping her hands together, she fell down on her knees in prayer. Overcome with terror at her surroundings, filled with sadness at the thought of being separated from her old father, and wearied with the excitement of the day, she threw herself upon her hard straw couch and fell into a heavy sleep.

When she awoke it was so dark that she could hardly distinguish a single object. At first she could not remember where she was. The story of the lost ring came back to her as a dream, and her first idea was that she was sleeping in her own little bed. Suddenly she felt that her hands were chained. Instantly all the sad reality of the past day flashed upon her mind, and, jumping from her bed, she cried out, "What can I do but raise my heart to God?"

Falling upon her knees, Mary then engaged in prayer. She prayed for herself, that she might be delivered, but especially she prayed for her dear father, that in the trouble which had now come upon him the Lord might support him. The thought of her father brought a torrent of tears from her eyes and stopped her prayer.

Suddenly the moon, which had been covered with thick clouds, now shone in a clear sky, and, its rays coming through the iron grating in the prison wall, threw a silvery light on the floor of Mary's cell. By the light thus afforded, Mary could make out the large bricks of which the walls of her prison were built, the white mortar which united them, the place in the wall serving as a table on which her meals were placed. Although her surroundings were so miserable, Mary felt that the moonlight had soothed her heart.

To her astonishment, she became conscious of a sweet perfume filling her cell. Suddenly she remembered that in the morning she had placed in her bosom a bouquet of roses and other sweet flowers which remained from the basket. Taking it in her hand she untied it, and looked at the flowers in the moonlight. "Alas," said she mournfully, "when I gathered these rosebuds and forget-me-nots from my garden this morning, who would have thought that I should be confined in this gloomy prison in the evening? When I wore garlands of flowers, who would have imagined that on the same day I should be doomed to wear iron chains?" Then she thought of her father, and tears fell from her eyes and moistened the flowers which she held in her hand.

"Oh, my father, be sure that I have not the ring."
See page 23.

"Oh, my dear father," she said, "how this bouquet reminds me of the advice which you have given me. From the midst of thorns, I plucked these rosebuds; and thus I know that joy will come to me from the very troubles which now cause me pain. If I had attempted with my own hands to unfold the leaves of these rosebuds, they would have perished; but God with a delicate finger had gradually unfolded their purple cups and shed over them the sweet perfume of His breath. He can disperse the evils which surround me, and make them turn to my good which seemed all evil. Let me then patiently wait His time. These flowers remind me of Him who created them. I will remember Him as He remembers me.