sing from their prayers, each was chained to a stake.
Now was the moment for the last farewells.

John Banks went up to Alice Benden.

"Courage, my mistress, for a little time! and the Lord be with you!"

"Amen!" she answered. "I thank thee, Jack. Do any of my kin know of my
burning?"

"Mistress, I told not your brethren, and methinks they wot not of the
day. Methought it should be sore to them, and could do you but a little
good. I pray you, take me as 'presenting all your friends, that do bid
you right heartily farewell, and desire for you an abundant entrance
into the happy kingdom of our Lord God."

"I thank thee with all mine heart, Jack; thou hast well done. Give, I
pray thee, to my brother Roger this new shilling, the which my father
sent me at my first imprisonment, desiring him that he will give the
same unto mine old good father, in token that I never lacked money, with
mine obedient salutations."

The gaoler now approached her to place the faggots closer, and Banks was
reluctantly compelled to retire. From her waist Alice took a white lace
which she had tied round it, and handed it to the gaoler, saying, "Keep
this, I beseech you, for my brother Roger Hall. It is the last bond I
was bound with, except this chain."

Then the torch was put to the faggots.

"Keep this in memory of me!" reached John Banks, in the clear tones of
Alice Benden; and a white cambric handkerchief fluttered above the
crowd, and fell into his outstretched hands. [These farewells of Alice
Benden are historical.]

And so He led them to the haven where they would be.

"No, not one looked back, who had set his hand to this ploughing!"

There was a hard task yet before John Banks. He had to visit eight
houses, and at each to tell his awful tale, to father and mother,
brother and sister, son and daughter--in three instances to husband or
wife--of the martyrs who had gone home. His first visit was to Seven
Roods.

"Well, Jack Banks! I thought you'd been dead and buried!" was Tabitha's
sarcastic intimation that it was some time since she had seen him.

"Ah, Mistress Hall, I could well-nigh wish I had been, before I came to
bring you such tidings as I bring to-day."

Tabitha looked up in his face, instantly dropped the mop in her hand,
and came over to where he stood.

"'Tis more than `may be,'" she said significantly, "and I reckon 'tis
more than `must be.' John Banks, is it _done_?"

"It is done," he replied.