Mary knelt on the black cushion, and resting
her head calmly on the block, exclaimed:

"Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend
my spirit."

The servants burst forth again with
groans and sobs, and the axe fell. Faintly
and tremblingly, however, the ruffian struck,
for he had to give three blows before he
cut through the thin, white neck. Then
when the fair head fell on the sounding
planks, the man raised it, and holding it at
arm's length, exclaimed:

"God save Queen Elizabeth!"

The Earl of Kent, stepping to the headless
body said, in a loud voice, "So perish
all the enemies of the queen's gospel!"

But no one said Amen, to that cruel
wish. When the executioner raised the
body the queen's little pet dog was found
nestling under the black gown, and after
being once forced away, more faithful than
many a courtier, it went and lay down
sorrowfully between the head and the body.
Thus perished Mary after forty-five years'
sorrow in this troublesome world.

King James, driven by mere filial
decency, removed the body of his mother from
Peterborough choir, but not till nine years
after his accession. The prophetical
Northamptonshire saying at the time was:

"Stuart shall not prosper, since the dead
have been moved in their grave."

Mary now rests under a rich canopied
tomb in Westminster Abbey, where her
fair cousin, "a little more than kin, and
less than kind," also lies. If an impartial
person from this side of the Tweed, looks
at the two faces, he will, the crow surmises,
pronounce Elizabeth's the handsomer, in
spite of all the romance that has accumulated
over the grave of this fair but false
Queen Mary.

Peterborough is proud of that honest,
staunch old divine, Paley, who was born
there in 1743, his father being a minor canon
that summer in residence. In person the
prebend of Carlisle was a short podgy man,
with clever bushy brows, a snub nose, and
projecting teeth. He always wore a white
wig and a court coat, detesting cassocks,
which he used to say were just like the
black aprons the master tailors wore at
Durham. His gait was awkward, his
action ungraceful, his dialect coarsely
provincial; but his arch smile was delightful
and redeemed all. He seems to have been
a warm-hearted, kind, sensible man, with
a horror of professional humbug and,
indeed, of all hypocrisy and false pretence.
Some of his hearty common-sense sayings
were very happy. Once, at the Hyson
Club, a Liberal association, at Cambridge,
he had to give his reasons for advocating
"braibery and corrooption." "Why," said
he, laughing, "no one is so mad as to
wish to be governed by force, and no
one is such a fool as to expect to be
governed by virtue; so, what remains,
tell me, but 'braibery and corrooption'?"
He was on principle slow to pay debts.
"Never paay mooney," he used to say,
"till you can't help it; soomething may
happen." On the other hand, being really
frugal and thrifty, he always made his wife
and daughters pay ready money at Carlisle.
"It's of no use," he used to say, with a
patient shrug, "to desire the women to
buy only what they want; they will
always imagine they want what they wish to
buy; but that paying ready mooney is such
a check upon their imagination." This
worthy north-country divine used to give
admirable sketches of his early life, when
he was a poor, hopeless, second usher at a
Greenwich school. "I flattered my
imagination when I first went to town," he
used to say, "with the pleasure of 'teaching
the young idea how to shoot.' I
entered a very offensive room, and a little
boy came up as soon as I was seated, and
began: 'B-a-b, bab, b-l-e, ble, babble.'
Wanting a waistcoat, I went into a
second-hand clothes shop, and it so chanced
I bought the very identical garment Lord
Clive wore when he made his triumphal
entry into Calcutta. I then went to a
play, and on coming out found six simultaneous
hands all trying to pick my pockets.
Whether they were rival or conspiring
hands I cannot say. They took from me
a handkerchief not worth twopence. I
felt quite sorry for the disappointment of
the poor scoundrels." Paley was passionately
fond of angling, and made Romney
paint him with a rod in his hand. Although
always riding about his parishes in a good
Vicar-of-Wakefield sort of way, Paley was
always a slovenly and clumsy rider.
"When I followed my father on a pony,
on my first journey to Cambridge, he used
to say, humorously, 'I fell off seven times.'
Every time my father heard a thump, he
would turn round, and calmly say, with his
head half aside, 'Take care of thy money,
lad.' I am so bad a horseman, indeed,"
he continued, "that if any person at all
comes near me when I am riding I
certainly have a fall. Company takes off my
attention, and I have need of all I can
command to manage my horse, though it