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.