-

"By the grace of God, we will not."

Then the awful sentence was passed--to be handed over to the secular
arm--the State, which the Church prayed to punish these malefactors
according to their merits. By a peculiarly base and hypocritical
fiction, it was made to appear that the Church never put any heretic to
death--she only handed them over to the State, with a touching request
that they might be gently handled! What that gentle handling meant,
every man knew. If the State had treated a convicted heretic to any
penalty less than death, it would soon have been found out what the
Church understood by gentle handling!

Then the second sentence, that of the State, was read by the Sheriff.
On Saturday, the nineteenth of June, the condemned criminals were to be
taken to the field beyond the Dane John, and in the hollow at the end
thereof to be burned at the stake till they were dead, for the safety of
the Queen and her realm, and to the glory of God Almighty. God save the
Queen!

None of the accused spoke, saving two. Most bowed their heads as if in
acceptance of the sentence. Alice Benden, turning to Nicholas Pardue,
said with a light in her eyes--

"Then shall we keep our Trinity octave in Heaven!"

Poor Sens Bradbridge, stretching out her arms, cried aloud to the
Bishop--"Good my Lord, will you not take and keep Patience and Charity?"

"Nay, by the faith of my body!" was Dick of Dover's reply. "I will
meddle with neither of them both."

"His Lordship spake sooth then at the least!" observed one of the amused
crowd.

There was one man from Staplehurst among the spectators, and that was
John Banks. He debated long with himself on his way home, whether to
report the terrible news to the relatives of the condemned prisoners,
and at last he decided not to do so. There could be no farewells, he
knew, save at the stake itself; and it would spare them terrible pain
not to be present. One person, however, he rather wished would be
present. It might possibly be for his good, and Banks had no particular
desire to spare him. He turned a little out of his way to go up to
Briton's Mead.

Banks found his sister hanging out clothes in the drying-ground behind
the house.

"Well, Jack!" she said, as she caught sight of him.

"Is thy master within, Mall? If so be, I would have a word with him an'
I may."

"Ay, he mostly is, these days. He's took to be terrible glum and
grumpy. I'll go see if he'll speak w