"Do ye believe that the Spirit of Christ has been, is, and will be, with
the Church, not suffering her to be deceived?"
"We do so believe," replied the prisoners.
"Have you," pursued Bonner, "being infamed to me as heretics, not been a
good space in my house, and been there fed, and instructed by those
desirous of your soul's welfare--and yet you refuse this belief?"
The accused admitted all this.
"Will ye now conform?"
"In no whit, until it be proved by Holy Scripture," came the decisive
answer.
"If not," demanded the Bishop, "what grounds have you to maintain your
opinion? Who is of the same opinion? What conference have ye had
therein with any? What comfort and relief had you from any, and their
names and dwelling-places?" [Note 1.]
This was a deliberate request that they would accuse their friends and
teachers. But the prisoners did not respond.
"We have no ground but the truth," they said, "which we were taught by
Doctor Taylor, of Hadleigh, and such other."
Since Taylor of Hadleigh was already burnt to ashes, this admission
could do him no harm.
The accused persons were then remanded until nine o'clock the next
morning, and advised in the meantime to "bethink them what they would
do."
It was Cicely Marvell who told all this in a low voice to Agnes Stone,
as they stood together under a tree in the meadow behind Cow Lane.
"Keep a good heart, dear maid!" said Cicely encouragingly. "May be it
shall be better than we might fear. `The Lord is very pitiful, and of
tender mercy.'"
But Agnes shook her head. To such a trial she at least anticipated no
other end than death. Too well she knew that, like the Master whose
servant John Laurence was, "for envy they had delivered him."
Perhaps, too, her spirituality was of a higher type than that of Cicely.
She recognised that the Lord's tender mercy lies not in sparing pain to
His chosen, but in being with them when they pass through the purifying
waters, and bearing them in His arms through the fire which is to
consume their earthliness, but not themselves. His is a love which will
inflict the pain that is to purify, and tenderly comfort the sufferer as
he passes through it.
Agnes hardly knew how she passed that Friday evening. Her usual duties
were all done; but she went through them with eyes that saw not, with
deafened ears on which Mistress Winter's abuse fell pointless, for which
Dorothy's sarcasms had no meaning. God was in Heaven, and John Laurence
and his persecutors were on earth: beyond this there was to her nobody
and nothing. The vexations for which she used to care were such mere
insignificant pin-pricks that it was impossible even to notice them now.
So the Friday evening, and the sleepless night, wore away: and the
Saturday morning broke.
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Note 1. These questions, in point of wording, are very much condensed.