Five days, however, elapsed at Poghley before any news came from Arthur at Oxford, and then it was brought by Dr. Langton, who, upon Dalaber’s return, had started forth again to that place, partly to set his house in order and arrange his books and papers before his departure for foreign lands, partly because he hoped his skill in medicine and the arts of healing might prove of use to the victims of the prison house on their release.

For the sisters and Dalaber those days were happily passed, despite the anxiety they felt as to what might be passing in Oxford.  To them it seemed as though the clouds of peril which had hung so long in their sky were rolling fast away.  Dalaber was relieved from that burden of remorse and bitter humiliation which had been weighing upon him.  Humble and contrite for past errors, past weaknesses, he was, and would remain; but he had delivered his soul by his frank admissions to the cardinal, and he could respect and admire the dignity and clemency of that powerful man, and be grateful to him for both.

Freda was his own, as she had never been before ­her mind at rest, her heart satisfied, her old esteem and admiration and trust restored.  Together they wandered through orchard, meadow, and woodland, speaking to each other from the bottom of their hearts, unveiling their most sacred thoughts and feelings, and sharing every aspiration, every hope, every plan for present or future.  The world for them was a pure Arcadia; they almost forgot for the time being the more troublous world without.

It was like a green oasis in their lives, like a haven of rest and peace after driving storms and perilous hurricanes.  They lived in the sunshine, and thanked God in their hearts, and received that rest and refreshment of body, soul, and spirit of which both stood rather sorely in need.

Then on the fifth day, as the sun was drawing towards its setting, Dr. Langton returned.  They pressed eagerly round him to learn the news.  His face was thoughtful and very grave.

“They are bringing Master Clarke.  He is not more than a few miles distant.  He will be here before dark.  I have come to make all ready for him.”

“Is Arthur with him?” asked Magdalen, whose hands were clasped about her father’s arm.

“Yes; he is riding at a foot pace beside the litter.  We have had to carry him thus all the way, and by very gentle stages.  At the first I doubted if he could bear the journey.  But he was himself desirous to see Poghley once again, and we decided to risk it.  He has borne the journey almost better than I had feared.”

“And now we will nurse him back to health and strength,” cried Magdalen, with earnestness.  “Alas that so good a man should have to suffer so sorely!”

Freda observed that her father turned his head slightly away.  She felt a sort of constriction at the heart, but it was Dalaber who put the next question.

“Is only Clarke coming hither?” he asked.  “What of Sumner and Radley who were with him in prison?”

Dr. Langton paused a brief while before answering, and then he said in a low and moved voice: 

“Radley was scarce alive when we came to them.  They were all taken to the Bridge House, where we had made preparation to receive them.  But he died within a few hours.  I scarce know whether he did really understand that liberty had come at last.  On the morning of the second day Sumner died, and we thought that Clarke was lying in articulo mortis; but I tried in his case a certain drug, the use of which I have only recently discovered, whereupon he fell into a quiet, natural sleep, and the fever began to leave him.  There is much sickness again in the town, and it seemed to me well that, if he could bear removal, he should be taken where stronger and purer air could be breathed.

“Yesterday, very early in the morning, we started forth.  Arthur had had an easy litter constructed under his own eyes, which can be slung between two horses walking gently and evenly.  In this way we have brought him.  In another hour he should be here.  I wish to make ready some large and airy chamber that opens direct upon the garden, where he can be carried daily to inhale the scents of the flowers and be enwrapped by the sunshine.  If there be a chance of recovery ­”

Dr. Langton stopped short, and Magdalen looked earnestly into his face.  She read his thoughts there.

“You think he will die?”

“I fear so.  I misdoubt me if there can be any rally.  And in truth, my child” ­he drew Magdalen gently onwards with him towards the room which he had fixed upon in his own mind as the one most suited to his purpose ­“in truth, I know not if it were true kindness to seek to save that stainless life.  I had speech with Dr. Higdon anent this very matter only the night before we started forth, and he told me that, albeit the bishop had been persuaded by the cardinal to permit the release of the prisoners for the present, yet that, should any recover ­and in particular, Master Clarke ­he was like to demand his surrender later into his own merciless hands; and it is well known that he has said that, since Wolsey would not burn Garret or Ferrar when he had them in his clutches, be would burn Clarke so soon as he was able to stand his trial.  Some even say that he only suffered the men to be released from prison that Clarke should be sufficiently recovered to perish at the stake.”

Magdalen shuddered and hid her face in her hands.

“Oh that such things should be!  And in a Christian land, and within the very Church of Christ itself!”

“We will trust it is not true,” spoke Dr. Langton gravely, “or that more Christian and more merciful counsel may prevail.  But in all truth I know full well that, short of a miracle, Clarke will only come here to die.  Perhaps the best that we can wish for him now is a peaceful and painless passing away in the midst of his friends, with no more fears of prison or martyrdom before his eyes; for in sooth I think his soul has soared into a region where all fear and anxiety are left behind.”

Magdalen’s eyes were full of tears.  She had been from the first deeply attracted both by the words and by the personality of John Clarke, and sometimes she had had intimate talks with him on spiritual matters, which had made an indelible impression upon her heart.

She now busied herself diligently in making ready for his reception that pleasant sunny chamber which her father had selected.  The great canopied beds of the day were too heavy and ponderous to be easily moved; but smaller couches and abundant bedding were quickly collected, and the room began to glow with the masses of flowers that Freda brought in from the garden and woodland beyond.  The place was fragrant with the breath of cowslip and primrose, whilst, as the light faded from the west, the dancing flames of the log fire on the hearth gave a cheery air of welcome.

The sisters stood clasping hands as their friend was brought in by the bearers, and tenderly laid upon one of the two soft couches made ready ­one beside the window, and one in a warmer situation near to the hearth.

It was upon this one that he was laid first, and Magdalen caught her breath in a little sob as she gazed upon his face ­it was so thin and sunken, so absolutely colourless.  The eyes were closed, and though there was an expression of deep peace and happiness upon the face, it looked to her more like the face of one who has triumphed in death than of one who is living and breathing yet.

Dalaber flung himself upon his knees beside the couch with a lamentable cry upon his lips.

“My master! my master! my friend!” he cried, and at the sound of these words and the familiar voice the long lashes quivered and slowly lifted themselves, and they saw the dim, sweet smile steal over the wan face.

“Is that Anthony?  I cannot see.  God bless thee, my son!  He is giving me all I could ask or wish.”

Dr. Langton signed to his daughters to come away.  The patient had no strength for further greetings then.  Freda’s eyes were blind with tears as she found herself hurrying from the room, and Magdalen threw herself into her husband’s arms, weeping aloud in the fulness of her heart.  He held her closely to him; he too was deeply moved.

“But we must not grieve for him, my beloved; as he himself has said so many times during these days, ’To depart, and to be with Christ, is far better.’  He goes forth so joyfully into the great unseen that we must not seek too much to hold him back.  His Lord may have need of him elsewhere.  In truth, he is more fit for heaven than earth.”

“He dies a martyr, if any ever did!” spoke Freda, choking back her tears, and speaking with shining eyes.  “He has laid down his life for a testimony to the truth.  What martyr can do more than that?”

“Is there no hope of his life?” asked Magdalen, still clinging to her husband’s arm.

“Your father fears not,” answered Arthur; “and in sooth, after hearing the story of their imprisonment, I think the same myself.  Oh, the patience, the sweetness, the self forgetfulness, with which he has borne all!  One could weep tears of blood to think that such things are done to living saints on earth in the name of religion.”

They looked breathlessly at Arthur, and he spoke again.

“I will not describe to you what we found when we entered the prison.  Enough that one would not herd one’s swine in such a place.  Two out of the three were dying; and the third, though sick as you now see him, was yet dragging himself from one to the other, to minister to their still greater needs, as he had done from the first, giving to them of his own meagre food and water ­neither of which was fit for human beings to touch ­and enduring all the slow agonies of fevered thirst day after day, that their in some way be lightened.

“Sumner lived to tell us that.  From the first Radley had sickened, as the strong men ofttimes do in such places more quickly than the weaker and feebler of body.  Clarke, who had brought his body into subjection by fasting, who had nursed the sick in their filthy homes, and spent weeks at times in fever-stricken spots ­he resisted longest the ravages of the fell prison fever.  He and Sumner nursed Radley as best they might.  Then Sumner fell sick, and Clarke had them both to care for.

“To the very last he tended them.  Though well nigh in as evil a case, he yet would rise and crawl to them, and give them food and water, or moisten their lips when they could no longer eat the coarse prison fare.  His patience and sweetness were not quite without effect even on the jailer, and from time to time he would bring them better food and a larger measure of water.

“But even so, there was none to help or succour them in their hour of extremest need.  May God look down and judge the things which pass upon this earth, and are done by those who take His name freely upon their lips!  He whose eyes see all things have seen those three men in their prison house.  May He be the judge of all things!”

“Thank God you came in time!” spoke Magdalen, with streaming eyes.  “Thank God they did not die in that foul hole!”

“I do thank Him for that.  I fear me poor Radley did not know that release for him had come; his greater release followed so hard afterwards.  But Sumner lived long enough to know us, and to rejoice in the hope that Clarke’s life would be spared.  We did not tell him how little chance there was of that.  ’He is one of God’s saints upon earth,’ were amongst his last words; ’surely He has a great work for him to do here.  Afterwards he will walk with Him in white, for he is worthy.’  And then in broken words he told us the story of those weeks in prison; and with a happy smile upon his lips he passed away.  He did not desire aught else for himself.  He left Clarke in the hands of his friends.  He folded his hands together and whispered, ‘Say the Nunc dimittis for me, and the last prayer;’ and as we did so his soul took flight.  The smile of holy triumph and joy was sealed by death upon his face.”

“Faithful unto death,” whispered Freda softly to herself, “he has won for himself a crown of life.”

Anthony came to her presently, looking strangely white and shaken.  They passed together out into the moonlight night.  He was deeply moved, and she saw it; and her silence was the silence of sympathy.

“If only I had shared their faith, their steadfastness, their sufferings!” he spoke at last.

But she laid her hand upon his arm and whispered tenderly: 

“Think not now of that.  The past is not ours; and I know that God has forgiven all that was weak or sinful in it.  No sin repented of but is washed away in the blood of the Lamb.  Let us rejoice in that there are ever those who will follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, both here and hereafter, and will sing the song that no man else can learn.  And if we ourselves fail of being counted in that glorious numbered host, may we not rejoice that others are found worthy of that unspeakable glory, and seek to gain strength and wisdom and grace from their example, so that in the days to come we may be able to tread more firmly in the narrow way they have travelled before us?”

They saw him the next day, for he asked to be moved out into the garden, into the sunshine of the sweet spring day.  Weak as he was, Dr. Langton was of opinion that nothing could either greatly hurt or greatly restore him.  And to fulfil his wishes was the task all were eager to perform.  So, when the light was just beginning to grow mellow and rosy, and the shadows to lengthen upon the grass, Clarke was carried out and laid upon a couch in the shelter of the hoary walls, whilst he gazed about him with eyes that were full of an unspeakable peace and joy, and which greeted with smiling happiness each friendly face as it appeared.

They knew not how to speak to him; but they pressed his wasted hand, and sat in silence round him, trying to see with his eyes and hear with his ears, and listening to the fitful words which sprang from time to time to his lips.

“It is like the new heavens and the new earth,” he said once ­“the earth which the Lord will make new, free from the curse of sin.  Ah, what a glorious day that will be!  If this fallen world of ours can be so beautiful, so glorious, so full of His praise, so full of heavenly harmonies, what will that other earth he like, where He will reign with His saints, and sin and death shall be no more?”

It seemed to others as though he were already living in that new earth of peace and joy, and in the immediate presence of the Lord.  The light in his eyes grew brighter day by day, the shining of his face more intense.  As his hold upon the things of this world relaxed, so did his sense of heavenly realities increase in intensity.  All his words were of peace and love and joy.  It seemed as though for him the veil were rent in twain, and his eyes saw the unspeakable glories beyond.

His gratitude to those who had brought him forth from the prison and set him in this fair place was expressed again and again.  But once, in answer to something Freda spoke, he said with a wonderful lighting of the eyes: 

“And yet, if you can believe it, we were strangely happy even there, for the Lord was in the midst of us, as surely as He is here amid this peace and loveliness.  When we are holding Him by the hand, feeling His presence, seeing His face in the darkness, believing that it is His will for us to be there, it is strange how the darkness becomes light, the suffering ceases, the horror all passes away.  I do not mean that the enemy does not intervene ­that he does not come and with his whispers seek to shake our faith, to cloud our spirits, to shroud us in darkness and obscurity.  But thanks be to God, His Son, having overcome temptation in human flesh, we in His strength, by Him, and through Him, and in Him, have power to overcome.  Satan came; but he did not stay, for One that was mightier was with us.  Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

That was all he ever spoke of the prison life ­no word of its hardships and sufferings, only of the power of the Lord to take away the bitterness, and to comfort, cheer, and strengthen.  And so they ceased to think or to speak of it, too.  It had not hurt him.  The iron had never entered into his soul.  And almost by now he had forgotten.  All was peace and joy and love.  And even the knowledge that his companions had passed away was no trouble to him.

“We shall meet so soon again,” he said, and the light deepened in his eyes.  “I am so curious to know how it is with the departed ­whether they lie at rest as in a heaven-sent sleep, while their heart waketh; or whether the Lord has work for them beyond the grave, into which they enter at once.  I long to know what that blessed state is like, where we are with Christ, yet not in the glory of the resurrection, but awaiting that at His good pleasure.  Well, soon all this will be made known to me; and I cannot doubt we shall meet again in joy and love those with whom we have walked in fellowship upon this earth, and that we shall in turn await those who follow after into peace, and so with them look forward to the glorious day when the living shall be changed and the dead receive their bodies back, glorified in resurrection life, and so enter all together into the presence of God, presented as one holy mystical body to Him, the Bride of the Lamb.”

There was just one shadow that fell for a moment athwart the perfect peace and joy of this departure.  But it was not one that could touch his spirit for more than a moment.

As he felt life slipping fast away, and knew that very soon he must say farewell to earth and its sorrows and joys, he called Arthur to his side and asked: 

“Will they admit me to the rite of the Holy Communion before I die?”

It was a question which Arthur had foreseen, and he had himself taken a special journey to Oxford to see the dean upon that very point.

But Clarke still lay beneath the ban of excommunication.  He was still regarded as a heretic; and although, after all he had passed through, much sympathy was expressed for him, and any further cruelty was strongly deprecated, yet the law of the church forbade that the holy thing should be touched by unhallowed hands, or pass unhallowed lips.

So now he looked compassionately into Clarke’s face and said: 

“I fear me they will not do so.  I have done what I can; but they will not listen.  None may dare to bring it to you until the ban of the church be taken off.”

Clarke looked into his face at first with a pained expression, but gradually a great light kindled in his eyes.  He half rose from the couch on which he was lying, and he stretched forth his hands as though he were receiving something into them.  Then looking upwards, he spoke ­spoke with a greater strength than he had done for many days ­and a vivid smile illuminated his face.  They were all standing about him, for they knew the end was near, and they all saw and heard.

“Crede et manducasti,” he said; and then, with a yet more vivid illumination of his features, he added in a whisper, “My Lord and my God!”

Then he fell back, and with that smile of triumph upon his face, passed away.

Over his remains, which were permitted to lie in consecrated ground, they set up a white cross; and beneath his name were the words: 

“Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”