She thought of these things; she grasped her temples and endeavoured to pray; but the terrors of a death so awful paralyzed her, and she could not collect her energies sufficiently to address even that God before whom she was so shortly to appear. All she had endured, and was then enduring, seemed trifles to the sufferings that were yet to come—the stake—the faggots!
The strong chain that secured her wrists to each other, retaining them a yard apart, and that yet stronger fetter which secured her left ankle to the wall of her bed, holding her in childlike helplessness; the frequent entrance of Sanders Screws and his assistants, or the equally brutal warders, outraging and violating all her privacies by day and by night; the desertion of her friends; her hopelessness of rescue, of mercy, and of life, were all merged in the terrors of her coming execution.
"Three days! three days! three days!—my God! Oh, my God!" she exclaimed, "only three days!"
And falling on her knees, she buried her face in her hands; but, poor being! her thoughts were too incoherent for utterance, or relief in prayer.
To one in such extreme misery, death could not in itself be very appalling; but it was the thought of Roland, of her mother, of her brother, of her family honour, and her own blighted name—blighted at least for a time, by the studied vengeance of one whom she deemed all but insane, that racked her heart with agony; while the mode of death by which she was to die, filled her whole soul with terror. Of its ignominy she thought little; for she had a bright certainty that her innocence would one day be asserted, if not by the blessed hand of Heaven, by the good sword of her gallant lover—for Jane Seton thought like a true Scottish woman of the sixteenth century.
While stooping over the only chair her chamber contained, on her knees, and in the paroxysm we have described, some one, whose entrance she had not heard, touched her on the shoulder. She looked up with a stupefied aspect, and beheld John of the Silvermills, with his long solemn beard, portentous visage and wizard-like cap, embroidered with the emblems of the Trinity, eternity, and religion—the triangle, the circle, and the cross. He wore a long black cassock-coat, trimmed with white fur; a large pouch hung at his girdle, and he leaned on a walking-staff. He raised his high cap, and partly with respect, and partly with fear, assisted her to rise and to seat herself.
Jane had become so faint, and had sunk so much since the day of trial, that the unglutted and unmerciful authorities feared she might escape the fangs of justice, by dying before the festival of St. Margaret the Martyr—that night to which all Edinburgh, indeed all in the three Lothians, looked forward with tiptoe and morbid expectation: thus the learned and deeply read physician of the royal household, John of the Silvermills (or, as he signs his name in various documents of that age, "Jhone o' ye Sillermylne"), was ordered to attend and prescribe for her health.
"Oh, good Master Apothegar!" she exclaimed, while the tears almost started into her arid eyes at the sight of a face that was familiar, and which seemed to regard her with something akin to commiseration. "Oh, Master Doctor," she added, taking his hands in her own, "dost thou think they will destroy him too?"
"Him—who?" stammered the apothegar, disengaging his lean and bony fingers from her cold and clammy grasp, as gently but decidedly as he could, "who, madam?"
"Sir Roland Vipont," replied Jane, disdaining to notice this undisguised dread or aversion, though her heart fired at it.