ONE THOUSAND FAMOUS THINGS	89
She Sat Beside Me Yesternight
s
he sat beside me yesternight,
With lip and eye so sweetly smiling,
So full of soul, of life, of light.
So beautifully care-beguiling,
That she had almost made me gay,
Had almost charmed the thought away
(Which, like the poisoned desert wind,
Came sick and heavy o'er my mind),
That memory soon mine all would be,
And she would smile no more for me.
Written of a child of sixteen by
John Ruskin in his old age
Sir John Oldcastle Passes Out of the World
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pon the day appointed he was brought out of the tower with his
arms bound behind him having a very cheerful countenance.
Then was he lain upon a hurdle as though he had been a most heinous
traitor to the crown, and so drawn forth into St Giles Field, where
they had set up a new pair of gallows.
As he was comen to the place of execution and was taken from
the hurdle, he fell down devoutly upon his knees, desiring Almighty
God to forgive his enemies. Then stood he up and beheld the
multitude, exhorting them in most godly manner to follow the laws
of God.
Then was he hanged up there in chains of iron, and so consumed
alive in the fire, praising the name of God so long as his life lasted.
This terrible kind of death, with gallows, chains, and fire, appeareth
not very precious in the eyes of men. The righteous seemeth to die,
saith the wise man, in the sight of them which are unwise, and their
end is taken for very destruction. But though they suffer pain
before men, saith he, yet is their expectation full of immortality.
As gold in the furnace does God try his elect. Right dear in the
sight of God, saith David, is the death of his true servants.
From Foxe's Book of Martyrs, on the death of Sir John Oldcastle, the
hero to whose memory Shakespeare apologised for misrepresenting him
The Perfect Peace There Was in Britain
npHEHE was such perfect peace in Britain wheresoever the dominion
1 of King Edwin extended that a woman with her new-born babe
might walk throughout the island from sea to sea without receiving
any harm. That king took such care for the good of his nation that
in several places where he had seen clear springs near the highways
he caused stakes to be fixed, with brass dishes hanging on them
for travellers.	Bede, writing in the Seventh Century