Chapter Eleven.
A Meeting with Master Overton.
I left Smithfield far behind me, and found myself again amidst the streets of the City, when, overcome by my feelings, I sank on one side of the road, just within an archway. How long I remained there I know not, when I heard a voice addressing me by name:
“Rise, my boy; rise, Ernst Verner; I will conduct you to your home.”
I looked up and saw the friar whom I had met in the morning.
“I am thankful I found you,” he said, “or in your fainting state you might have suffered injury from some of the thieves and cut-purses who infest this City. What has happened to you?”
I told him that I had fled from the burnings at Smithfield.
“I do not wonder at that,” he answered; “it was a fearful sight.”
“And the poor lady with whom I saw you on her way thither, has she escaped?” I asked.
“No; she was among those who suffered death. She witnessed a good confession, and died, I believe, rejoicing, without feeling one pang of pain.”