Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/56

 40 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 63. passed to Dumbarton I have read all the five books of Moses, Joshua, and Judges, and now I am in Samuel. I see the mercy of God wonderful, and always inclined to have pity on his people ; for howbeit he punished them oft, yet when they turned to him he was merciful again.' The Old Testament had not been Morton's only study. Lady Ormiston, when he was first arrested, had given him an ominous present, Bradford's 'Meditations on Death ; ' and the stern sad man, sitting caged upon the rock above the waters of Clyde, had made ready for his end by patient thought upon it. A few passages from this book were read to him ; and then, as it was still early, he was called to. his ' dishine,' 1 ' which he ate with great cheerfulness, the ministers and he drinking to each other/ and ' promising to drink by-and-by toge- ther in the Kingdom the immortal drink which would never suffer them to thirst again.' He had a weary morning, for others of the Edinburgh clergy came to see him, and to prevent false reports from going abroad, the confession was repeated to them from the beginning. At two o'clock he dined, and imme- diately after one of the keepers entered to say that the preparations were complete, and that his presence was waited for in the Grass Market. He did not know that the time was so near. ' They have troubled me overmuch this morning with worldly 1 Dejeune.