Father Harcourt's voice was not so clear, as he was an old man; but I heard Mr. Sheriff How presently interrupt him. (He was upon horseback close beside the gallows.)
"Or of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey's death?" he asked.
"Did you not write that letter concerning the dispatch of Sir Edmund
Berry Godfrey?"
"No, sir," cried the old man very loud. "These are the words of a dying man. I would not do it for a thousand worlds."
He went on to affirm his innocence of all laid to his charge; and he ended by begging the prayers of all in the communion of the Roman Church in which he himself died.
When Mr. Anthony Turner had spoke a while, again Sheriff How interrupted him.
"You do only justify yourselves here," he said. "We will not believe a word that you say. Spend your time in prayer, and we will not think your time too long."
But Mr. Turner went on as before, affirming his entire innocence; and, at the end he prayed aloud, and I heard every word of it.
"O my dear Saviour and Redeemer," he cried, lifting up his eyes, and his hands too as well as he could for the cords, "I return Thee immortal thanks for all Thou hast pleased to do for me in the whole course of my life, and now in the hour of my death, with a firm belief of all things Thou hast revealed, and a stedfast hope of obtaining everlasting bliss. I cheerfully cast myself into the arms of Thy mercy, whose arms were stretched on the Cross for my redemption. Sweet Jesus, receive my spirit."
Then Mr. Gavan spoke to the same effect as the rest, but he argued a little more, and theologically too, being a young man; and spoke of Mariana the Jesuit who had seemed to teach a king-killing doctrine; but this sense on his words he repudiated altogether. He too, at the end, commended his soul into the hands of God, and said that he was ready to die for Jesus as Jesus had died for him.