A heavy chain was then passed around Carver’s body and made fast to the stake. Left to himself for a moment, the martyr then called out in a loud voice, “Farewell, dear brethren, farewell! Our Church is encompassed about by deadly enemies, who seek its destruction, and it is for the restoration of that Church that my blood is this day freely poured forth. It will not be shed in vain. Comfort ye amid your troubles, and remain stedfast in your faith! Happier days shall soon dawn upon you. Farewell, O, farewell!”
No sooner had he concluded this valediction which was responded to by loud lamentations from the majority of the assemblage, than the men began to heap fagots around him, filling the barrel with dry gorse and brushwood.
Before the pile, which was heaped up to his shoulders, could be lighted, the martyr exclaimed, “Blessed are they who die in the Lord. Thrice blessed are they who die in the Lord’s cause. Fear not them that kill the body, for they cannot kill the soul. He that shall lose his life for my sake shall find it, saith our blessed Saviour, in the which hope I now die. Again, dear brethren, I bid you farewell!”
“A truce to thy blasphemy!” cried Brand, seizing a torch and applying it to the pile.
Fast and fierce burnt the fire, and quickly mounted the flame, but, to judge from the serene expression of his countenance, it might have been as innocuous to the martyr as was the blaze of the burning fiery furnace to the three Israelites. Not a groan escaped Derrick Carver, and his last words were, “I go to obtain my reward.”
Captain Brand was as good as his word. A rare bonfire was seen that day at Lewes. Fagots and brushwood were heaped upon the pile till the flames rose up higher than the upper windows of the old hostel, and the heat was so great, that those nearest the blazing mass drew back half scorched.
When the fire had burnt out, all that remained was a heap of ashes, in the midst of which stood a charred stake with an iron chain attached to it.
Such was the martyrdom of Derrick Carver.
His memory is not forgotten in Lewes; and on the fifth of November in each year, a great torchlight procession, composed of men in fantastic garbs and with blackened visages, and dragging blazing tar-barrels after them, parades the High Street, while an enormous bonfire is lighted opposite the Star Inn, on the exact spot where Derrick Carver perished, into which, when at its highest, various effigies are cast. A more extraordinary spectacle than is presented by this commemoration of the Marian persecutions in Lewes it has never been our lot to witness.
End of the Sixth Book.