"Such sights are far too sad and dreadful for young eyes. Indeed, I know not how any one can take pleasure in witnessing the horrible death of a fellow-creature."
Mistress Jane looked a little abashed.
"But these are heretics and blasphemers, madam! Surely you will allow that they deserve their deaths."
"If we all had our deserts, we should be cast into a hotter fire than Smithfield!" said my aunt. "Even the fire that never can be quenched."
Mistress Jane looked decidedly offended.
"One would think you were one o' the Gospelers yourself, madam! For my part, I ever paid my dues to Holy Church and took the sacrament regular on the great feast days, and I have always given alms in charity—yes, to every begging friar that came along, besides making two pilgrimages to the shrine of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, and if that won't insure my salvation, I wonder what will? I'm not like some folks that grudge a poor widow so much as a jaunt to London," with a spiteful glance at her sister. "Every one knows 'tis a good work to assist at the burning of a heretic."
We children glanced at each other again, which my aunt seeing, after exchanging a look with our hostess, said rather quickly—
"If you have finished your dinners, children, you may run out and play."
"Yes, to be sure!" said the dame. "Dolly, take the young ladies out and show them the new chickens and the little ducklings swimming in the pond."
I, for one, would rather have staid to hear the talk in which I felt a kind of dreadful interest, but I was used to obey without a word, of course. Dolly was a nice, good-natured, bouncing girl, who was much delighted with the new ribbons and kirtle my aunt had brought for her. She did her best to entertain us; leading us all about the farm and showing us the young fowls and the lambs at play in the pasture. In the course of our rambles, we passed a little ruinous house, half-overgrown with nettles and brambles, but yet bearing the marks of having once been a church-building of some sort.