“Verily,” said the old Doctor, when they were gone, “if the childre must be had away, then should I follow; for I do feel in myself as though I were a little child to-night.”
“So you have been, methinks,” responded Isoult, smiling on him, “for assuredly they had enjoyed far less mirth without you.”
And now the dark cloud closed over England, which was to be the one blot on the reign of our Josiah. Poor young King! he was but fourteen; how could he tell the depth of iniquity that was hidden in those cold blue eyes of the man who was hunting the hapless Duke of Somerset to death? Probably there was only one man who fully fathomed it, and that was the victim himself. And his voice was sterling in England no more.
Words fail in the attempt to describe what the Duke’s execution was to the Gospellers. There was not one of them, from the Tyne to the Land’s End, who for the country’s sake would not joyfully have given his life for the life of Somerset. He was only a man, and a sinful man too; yet such as he was, speaking after the manner of men, he was the hope of the Gospel cause. To every Gospeller it was as the last plague of Egypt; and to judge by the lamentations to be heard in all their houses, it might have been supposed that “there was not an house where there was not one dead.” It is not often that a whole land mourns like this. Among her sons England has not many darlings, but those that she has, she holds very dear.
The morning of the 22nd of January came.
“Know you, Mrs Avery,” asked Esther, “if the Duke of Somerset is like to be had afore the Council again, and when it shall be? I would like much to see that noble gentleman, if I might get a glimpse of him.”
Isoult referred the question to John, but he said he had heard nothing; he was going to Fleet Street, and would see if he could find out. But before he set out there came a rapping on the door, and when Ursula opened it, there stood Mr Rose.
“Welcome!” said John to him. “Come in and give us your news.”
“There shall be better welcome for me than them,” he said, in his sad grave manner. “Know you that even this day doth my Lord of Somerset suffer?”
“Is there no help for it?” said Dr Thorpe, sternly.