“Very good,” said the Mayoress, “put it up.”
Amy knew that the purple placard had cost her mother 16 shillings 8 pence, and had been slightly damaged since it came into her hands. She knew also that Mrs Clere would confess the fraud to the priest, would probably be told to repeat the Lord’s Prayer three times over as a penance for it, would gabble through the words as fast as possible, and would then consider her sin quite done away with, and her profit of 7 shillings 4 pence cheaply secured. She knew also that the Mayoress, in all probability, was aware that Mrs Clere’s protestation about not gaining a single penny was a mere flourish of words, not at all meant to be accepted as a fact.
“Is there aught of news stirring, an’ it like you, Madam?” asked Mrs Clere, as she rolled up the placard inside out, and secured it with tape.
“I know of none, truly,” answered the Mayoress, “save to-morrow’s burning, the which I would were over for such spectacles like me not—not that I would save evil folks from the due penalty of their sins, but that I would some less displeasant manner of execution might be found. Truly, what with the heat, and the dust, and the close crowds that gather, ’tis no dainty matter to behold.”
“You say truth, Madam. Indeed, the last burning we had, my daughter here was so close pressed in the crowd, and so near the fire, she fair swooned, and had to be borne thence. But who shall suffer to-morrow, an’ it like you? for I heard nought thereabout.”
Mrs Clere presented the little parcel as she spoke.
“Only two women,” said the Mayoress, taking her purchase: “not nigh so great a burning as the last—so very likely the crowd shall be less also.”
The crowd was not much less on the waste place by the Lexden Road, when on the 17th of September, 1557, those two martyrs were brought forth to die: Agnes Bongeor, full of joy and triumph, praising God that at length she was counted worthy to suffer for His Name’s sake; Margaret Thurston, the disciple who had denied Him, and for whom therefore there could be no triumph; yet, even now, a meek and fervent appeal from the heart’s core, of “Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee!”
As the chain was being fastened around them a voice came from the crowd—one of those mysterious voices never to be traced to a speaker, perpetually heard at martyrdoms.
“‘He remembered that they were but flesh.’ ‘He hath remembered His covenant forever.’ ‘According to Thy mercy, remember Thou me!’”