“Now do be discreet, Bessy, and say as he says. Bless you, it’s only words! I told him I’d say the moon was made o’ green cheese if he wanted. Why shouldn’t you?”
“Mistress Amy, it would be dishonour to my Lord, and I am ready for anything but that.”
“Good lack! couldst not do a bit o’ penance at after? Bess, it’s thy life that’s in danger. Do be wise in time, lass.”
“It is only this life,” said Elizabeth quietly, “and ‘he that saveth his life shall lose it.’ They that be faithful to the end shall have the crown of life.—Master Bailiff, I am ready.”
The Bailiff looked up at the fair, tall, queenly maiden who stood before him.
“I trust thou art ready to submit to the Church,” he said. “It were sore pity thou shouldst lose life and all things.”
“Nay, I desire to win them,” answered Elizabeth. “I am right ready to submit to all which it were good for me to submit to.”
“Come, well said!” replied the Bailiff; and he tied the cord round her hands, and led her away to the Moot Hall.
Just stop and think a moment, what it would be to be led in this way through the streets of a town where nearly everybody knew you, as if you had been a thief or a murderer!—led by a cord like an animal about to be sold—nay, as our Master, Christ, was led, like a sheep to the slaughter! Fancy what it would be, to a girl who had always been respectable and well-behaved to be used in this way: to hear the rough, coarse jokes of the bystanders and of the men who were leading her, and not to have one friend with her—not one living creature that cared what became of her, except that Lord who had once died for her, and for whom she was now, for aught she knew, upon her way to die! And even He seemed as if He did not care. Men did these things, and He kept silence. Don’t you think it was hard to bear?
When Elizabeth reached the Moot Hall and was taken to the prison, for an instant she felt as if she had reached home and friends. Mrs Silverside bade her welcome with a kindly smile, and Robert Purcas came up and kissed her—people kissed each other then instead of shaking hands as we do now,—and Elizabeth felt their sympathy a true comfort. But she was calm under her suffering until she caught sight of Cissy. Then an exclamation of pain broke from her.