Chapter Ten.
Glorifying the Lord in the Fires.
“Ah, little is all loss,
And brief the space ’twixt shore and shore,
If Thou, Lord Jesus, on us lay,
Through the dark waters of our way,
The burden which Christopheros bore—
To carry Thee across.”
Miss Muloch.
As Lord Marnell sat with Margery in her cell in the evening of the 1st of March, she begged him to grant her a favour. Her contrite husband bade her ask what she would. Margery replied that she greatly wished to write a last letter to her mother. Writing-materials were carefully kept from her. Could Lord Marnell supply her with the means of doing so? He said he would attempt it.
When Alice returned on the following day from Marnell Place, whither she had been to procure a change of linen for her mistress, she brought with her also a loaf of bread. The jailer demurred at this, but Alice urged that Lady Marnell did not like the bread made by the prison baker, and surely the jailer would not grudge her a loaf from home, for the few days she had to live. The jailer shook his head, but let it pass. When Alice was safe in the cell, she broke the loaf, and produced from it, cunningly imbedded in the soft crumb, several sheets of paper folded surprisingly small, a pen, and a little inkhorn. Margery’s eyes glistened when she saw these, and she wrote her letter secretly during the night. But how to get it out of the prison with safety? Alice was able to provide for this also. The letter was sewn in one of the pillows, which would be carried back to Marnell Place after the execution.
The last day of Lady Marnell’s life sped away as other less eventful days do, and the evening of the 5th of March arrived. Alice, having just returned from her usual journey to the house, was disposing of the articles which she had brought with her, when the jailer’s key grated in the lock, and the door was opened. Lady Marnell looked up, expecting to see her husband, though it was rather before his usual time for visiting her; but on looking up, she saw Abbot Bilson.
This feline ecclesiastic came forward with bent head and joined hands, vouchsafing no reply to Margery’s salutation of “Good even, father,” nor to Alice’s humble request for his blessing. He sat down on a chair, and for some minutes stared at Margery in silence—conduct so strange that at length she said, “Wherefore come you, father?”
“To look at thee, child of the devil!” was the civil answer.
Alice, who had just requested the blessing of the priest, was more angry than she could bear with the man. She was just on the point of saying something sharp, when Lord Marnell’s voice behind the Abbot interposed with—