'"
Mr. FitzHerbert leaned over again to the priest at this point and
whispered something. Mr. Simpson nodded, and raised his eyes.
"Mr. Sherwood," he said, "was a scholar from Douay, but not a priest. He
was lodging in the house of a Catholic lady, and had procured mass to be
said there, and it was through her son that he was taken and charged
with recusancy."
Again ran a rustle through the benches. This executing of the laity for
religion was a new thing in their experience. The priest lifted the
paper again.
"'I found that Mr. Sherwood had been racked many times in the Tower,
during the six months he was in prison, to force him to tell, if they
could, where he had heard mass and who had said it. But they could
prevail nothing. Further, no visitor was admitted to him all this time,
and I was the first and the last that he had; and that though Mr. Roper
himself had tried to get at him for his relief; for he was confined
underground and lay in chains and filth not to be described. I said what
I could to him, but he said he needed nothing and was content, though
his pain must have been very great all this while, what with the racking
repeated over and over again and the place he lay in.
"'I was present again when he suffered at Tyburn, but was too far away
to hear anything that he said, and scarcely, indeed, could see him; but
I learned afterwards that he died well and courageously, as a Catholic
should, and made no outcry or complaint when the butchery was done on
him.
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