Part 23 (2/2)
”Get thee behind me, Satan!” she exclaimed; and, clasping Agnes to her breast, she cried: ”My sister and I will lay down our lives for the truth; but we will never, never consent to live by and for a lie!”
”Then your blood be upon your own heads!” cried the angry officer, as he banged the door behind him.
The morning of the appointed day arrived. The sisters were calm and strong in their resolution. Suddenly the door of their prison opened.
Was it the men come to lead them to the stakes in the stream? Agnes gave a little cry of joy and amaze as she saw the white, worn face of her father.
”My child! my child!” he cried, clasping her in his arms. His emotion was so great that for a moment he could not speak. It was Archie Scott, with a face as white as death, who came and stood before Margaret.
”Agnes is saved,” he said hoa.r.s.ely; ”she is not yet sixteen. She is to be released and set in her father's charge. And the Privy Council in Edinburgh, on receiving old Margaret's submission and the memorial sent by Wigton, promised a postponement of the sentence till the King's mind could be known. But the magistrates will not listen. They will hear nothing; they will go on their own way. Thou art to die to-day, Margaret; and I know not how to bear it!”
She laid her hand upon his arm. Her face was full of joy.
”Nay, if Agnes be spared, my prayers have indeed found their answer. For myself--Archie, Archie, do not look so--I have long thought that to depart and be with Christ is far better; where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.”
There was joy and peace in the girl's face as she was led forth from her prison, and old Margaret, too, repenting her former weakness, held her head high, and spoke with courage and resolution to her friends who had a.s.sembled to see the mournful procession pa.s.s by. All Wigton had come forth to see the martyrs go to their death; and Archie Scott walked near to Margaret, and kept his eyes fixed upon her face, as though to seek to learn something of her spirit.
”Thou wilt be a brother to my sweet Agnes and comfort her,” said Margaret to him once. ”I trow she will be loyal and true to her faith, even though she may be forced to some outward compliance. The Lord will not judge her harshly!”
It seems sad that such n.o.ble and courageous souls as those that animated the martyrs of the Covenant should regard it as a possible offence against G.o.d to attend a service to His honour and glory, and by consecrated servants set aside for His service. Perhaps as Margaret Wilson stood in the midst of the waters, bound to her stake, watching the rise of the flood which must soon overwhelm her--perhaps something of the wider and grander aspects of the One Church--Holy and Catholic--with the Lord for her Head was vouchsafed in vision to her spirit. For, suddenly, as she saw the last struggles of the aged woman who was tied on somewhat lower ground, and knew that a few minutes more would see the end of her own young life, she first broke into words of psalm and holy writ, and then suddenly exclaimed:
”The King! the King! the poor misguided King! May G.o.d bless and pardon him and open his eyes!”
”She recants! she recants!” cried a mult.i.tude of voices from the bank--the voices of those who believed that in this prayer for the monarch Margaret was making a recantation of faith.
”Bring her out! bring her out!” shouted the crowd, in frenzy; and the magistrates, not daring to withstand this public clamour, gave orders for Margaret to be loosed and carried ash.o.r.e.
”Will you retract your errors, foolish girl, and renounce the Covenant?”
they asked when, astonished, but calm and steadfast as ever, she was brought to them.
”I will not!” she answered, with quiet steadfastness. ”As I have lived so let me die! I have nothing to recant. I am Christ's--let me go to Him.”
”Throw her into the water, for a pestilent Covenanter” cried the magistrates; and in another moment the deep swirling waters closed over the slight heroic frame of Margaret Wilson. Another Christian martyr had gone fearlessly to her death.
AGOSTINA OF ZARAGOZA
The beautiful young Countess Burita was the first to set the example of heroism and humanity.
Cowering behind their insufficient walls, and hearing the terrible roar and crash of artillery about them, seeing the French take up a firm position on the Torrero, from whence they could sh.e.l.l the devoted city of Zaragoza at their ease, what wonder that the Spaniards--the women and children at any rate--shrank in terror from the thought of a protracted siege, and cried aloud that nothing could save them?
But the old fighting spirit of the past was arousing and awakening in the souls of the men. The tyrannical temper of Napoleon, and his aggressive disposition of the Spanish crown to his own brother, had inflamed the ire of the Spaniards from the n.o.bles to the peasants; and, though a long period of misgovernment had weakened the country, destroyed the vigour of the nation, and rendered the soldiers of little use in the open field, yet it had not killed the old stubborn fighting spirit within them, and when their pa.s.sions were aroused, the flames had still the power to spring forth from the ashes of the past, and there were moments when all the old chivalry of former ages seemed to awake within them.
It was this spirit that animated the defenders of Zaragoza when Aragon revolted against the rule of the French, and they resolved at least to hold the ancient capital against the foe.
Hopeless the task seemed; for the defences were of the most meagre description; the only strong part of the wall being the ancient Roman portion, the high brick houses within having no shelter or means of defence from the sh.e.l.ls and bombs that came screaming and rattling over them.
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