Poor Sens Bradbridge, stretching out her arms, cried aloud to the Bishop—“Good my Lord, will you not take and keep Patience and Charity?”
“Nay, by the faith of my body!” was Dick of Dover’s reply. “I will meddle with neither of them both.”
“His Lordship spake sooth then at the least!” observed one of the amused crowd.
There was one man from Staplehurst among the spectators, and that was John Banks. He debated long with himself on his way home, whether to report the terrible news to the relatives of the condemned prisoners, and at last he decided not to do so. There could be no farewells, he knew, save at the stake itself; and it would spare them terrible pain not to be present. One person, however, he rather wished would be present. It might possibly be for his good, and Banks had no particular desire to spare him. He turned a little out of his way to go up to Briton’s Mead.
Banks found his sister hanging out clothes in the drying-ground behind the house.
“Well, Jack!” she said, as she caught sight of him.
“Is thy master within, Mall? If so be, I would have a word with him an’ I may.”
“Ay, he mostly is, these days. He’s took to be terrible glum and grumpy. I’ll go see if he’ll speak with you.”
“Tell him I bring news that it concerns him to hear.”
Mary stopped and looked at him.