While he is yet in prison, and his sentence yet unpassed, although certain, Margaret—for she has now been for some time the wife of good William Roper—loses her baby; for when do sorrows ever fall singly—can any thing than this be more beautiful, more true?
“Midnight.
“The wild wind is abroad, and, methinketh, nothing else. Sure, how it rages through our empty courts! In such a season, men, beasts, and fowls cower beneath ye shelter of their rocking walls, yet almost fear to trust them. Lord, I know that thou canst give the tempest double force, but do not, I beseech thee! Oh! have mercy on the frail dwelling and the ship at sea.
“Dear little Bill hath ta’en a feverish attack. I watch beside him while his nurse sleeps. Earlie in the night his mind wandered, and he told me of a pretty ring-streaked poney noe bigger than a bee that had golden housings and barley-sugar eyes; then dozed, but ever and anon kept starting up, crying ‘Mammy, dear!’ and softlie murmured, ‘Oh,’ when he saw I was by. At length I gave him my fore-finger to hold, which kept him ware of my presence without speaking, but presentlie he stares hard toward ye foot of the bed, and says fearfullie, ‘Mother, why hangs yon hatchet in the air, with its sharp edge turned towards us!’ I rise, move the lamp, and say, ‘Do you see it now?’ He sayth, ‘No? not now,’ and closes his eyes. After a good space, during the which I hoped he slept, he says in quite an altered tone, most like unto soft, sweet music, ‘There’s a pretty little cherub there now, alle head and noe body, with two little wings aneath his chin; but, for alle he’s soe pretty, he is just like dear Gaffer, and seems to know me . . . . . and he’ll have a body agayn, too, I believe, by-and-by . . . . . . . Mother, mother, tell Hobbinol there’s such a gentle lamb in heaven!’ And soe, slept.
“He’s gone, my pretty . . . . . ! slipt through my fingers like a bird! upfled to his own native skies, and yet whenas I think on him, I can not choose but weepe . . . . . Such a guileless little lamb! . . . My Billy-bird! his mother’s owne heart. They are alle wondrous kind to me . . . .
“How strange that a little child shoulde be permitted to suffer soe much payn, when of such is the kingdom of heaven! But ’tis onlie transient, whereas a mother makes it permanent, by thinking it over and over agayn. One lesson it taughte us betimes, that a natural death is not, necessarilie the most easie. We must alle die. . . . . . As poor Patteson was used to say, ‘The greatest king that ever was made, must bed at last with shovel and spade.’ . . . . . and I’d sooner have my Billy’s baby deathbed than King Harry’s, or Nan Boleyn’s either, however manie years they may yet carry matters with a high hand. Oh, you ministers of evill, whoever you be, visible or invisible, you shall not build a wall between my God and me . . . . . . I’ve something within me, grows stronger and stronger, as times grow more and more evill; some woulde call it resolution, but methinketh ’tis faith.”
And then comes the terrible catastrophe, the glorious devotion, the patient martyrdom, the heroic womanhood. Throughout the whole of this exquisite little volume, the interest, the tone, the vigor, the pathos, the poetry, the sublimity, is ever on the ascendant; and in this splendid passage it reaches its climax. Almost as we read, we see what passeth; altogether we feel it to our own heart’s core; scarcely can we refrain to accept it as fact not fiction. What writer of any day has effected much more than this?
“And then came ye frightfulle sentence.
“Yes, yes, my soul, I know; there were saints of old sawn asunder. Men of whom the world was not worthy.