The new minister of Edinburgh, a soft-spoken, King-fearing man, came near. John Mure looked at him.
'Of what religion art thou?' he asked. 'Ay, verily, of the King's religion. Were my time not so circumscribed, I would have at thee with texts, thou time-serving rogue. Ay, and would swinge thee with them soundly, too.'
'In what religion dost thou die?' said the minister. For it was a customary question in those days, when men were forced to live and die on the borderland of many creeds.
John Mure smiled as he bent his head to the block.
'Of the ancientest persuasion,' said he, 'for I am ready to believe in any well-disposed god whom I may chance to meet in my pilgriming. But in none will I believe till I do meet him. Nevertheless do thou, like a wise, silly bishop, stick to the King and thy printed book!'
Which saying was remembered when the minister was afterward made a bishop by the King's favour.
With these words, John Mure threw out his hands with a sharp jerk—for that was the customary signal. The broad axe rose and fell, flashing in the sun a moment ere it crashed dully upon the block. The Westland men gave a shout, and the heathen spirit of John Mure of Auchendrayne, carrying such a load of sin and bloodshedding as never soul did before or since, fared forth alone to its own place.
CHAPTER LI
MARJORIE'S GOOD-NIGHT
Even as the axe was falling, Marjorie Kennedy sank down upon the platform of the scaffold, as though the stroke had fallen upon her. I sheathed my sword, and sprang upon the slippery stage to hold her up. When I took her in my arms she was soft and pliable in all her limbs like a little child. Till now she had been like a woman of steel, or rather like one carven in alabaster, as I have said. But now she lay in my arms like a new-born babe on the nurse's lap.