A FRIEND IN NEED
It was with much apprehension that Francis awaited the return of the secretary. Stories that she had heard regarding the tortures inflicted upon prisoners in the Tower came to her mind with such vividness and force as to cause her soul to sicken with fear.
“I must not think on them,” she said, trying to drive this terror from her mind. For diversion she arose and examined the inscriptions in the room. “How many there have been before me!” she mused gazing at the coats of arms and other devices with which the walls were covered. “What melancholy memorials of illustrious and unfortunate people! Here is the name of the Earl of Arundel.”
She looked long and earnestly at the autograph of that unhappy nobleman, Phillip Howard, Earl of Arundel, who was beheaded for aspiring to the hand of Mary Stuart. 251 This name was written boldly over the fireplace, and the girl turned from it with a sigh as the thought occurred to her that all who were connected in any manner with that ill-starred princess must meet with some untoward fate.
She passed with a shudder from the next inscription bearing the recent date of 1582, which read:
| “Thomas Miagh which liethe here alone |
| That fain wold from hence begone |
| By torture straunge my trouth was tryed |
| Yet of my liberty denied;” |
for that “torture straunge” suggested thoughts of too painful a nature to dwell upon. The next bore the date, “Anno D. 1571, 10 Sept., and read:
“The most unhappy man in the world is he that is not patient in adversities; for men are not killed with the adversities they have, but with the impatience they suffer.”
And so she went from one to another, marveling at the resignation, patience and endurance breathed by many of the inscriptions, and shuddering at the thought of those 252 “straunge tortures” which were hinted at by others.
Three days elapsed. On the morning of the fourth day, as Francis sat listlessly awaiting the coming of her jailer with her noonday meal, which was the only diversion that her prison life afforded, the door opened to admit, not her keeper, but Sir Francis Walsingham and two warders. Every particle of color left her face at sight of him, and she uttered a silent prayer for help as she arose in response to his greeting.