By her side was a tall, grey-haired dame, trembling exceedingly.
One delicate white hand flickered before the elder woman's eyes, all blind with tears and anguish.
Then the Doctor's wife cried, "Rowland, Rowland, where art thou?"
Dr. Taylor answered, "Dear wife, I am here."
Then she came to him, and he took a younger girl, who had been clinging to her mother's skirts, his little daughter Mary, in his arms, dismounting from his horse as he did so, with none to stay him. He, his wife, and the tall girl Elizabeth, knelt down and said the Lord's Prayer.
At the sight of it the Sheriff wept apace, and so did divers others of the company, and the salt tears ran down Johnnie's cheeks and splashed upon his breast-plate.
After they had prayed Dr. Taylor rose up and kissed his wife, and shook her by the hand, and said: "Farewell, my dear wife, be of good comfort, for I am quiet in my conscience. God shall stir up a father for my children."
After that he kissed his daughter Mary and said, "God bless thee and make thee His servant," and kissing Elizabeth also he said, "God bless thee. I pray you all stand strong and steadfast unto Christ His Word, and keep you from idolatry."
The tall lady clung to him, weeping bitterly. "God be with thee, dear Rowland," she said; "I shall, with God's grace, meet thee anon in heaven."
Then Johnnie saw the serving-man, a broad, thick-set fellow, with a keen, brown face, who had been standing a little apart, come up to Dr. Taylor. He was holding by the hand a little boy of ten years or so, with wide, astonished eyes, Thomas, the Doctor's son.