CHAPTER VIII
I
Overhead lay the heavy sky of night-clouds like a curved sheet of darksteel, glimmering far away to the left with gashes of pale light. Infront towered the twin gateway, seeming in the gloom to lean forward toits fall. Lights shone here and there in the windows, vanished andappeared again, flashing themselves back from the invisible waterbeneath. About, behind and on either side, there swayed and murmuredthis huge crowd--invisible in the darkness--peasants, gentlemen,clerks, grooms--all on an equality at last, awed by a common tragedyinto silence, except for words exchanged here and there in an undertone,or whispered and left unanswered, or sudden murmured prayers to a Godwho hid Himself indeed. Now and again, from beyond the veiling wallscame the tramp of men; once, three or four brisk notes blown on a horn;once, the sudden rumble of a drum; and once, when the silence grewprofound, three or four blows of iron on wood. But at that the murmurrose into a groan and drowned it again....
So the minutes passed.... Since soon after midnight the folks had beengathering here. Many had not slept all night, ever since the report hadrun like fire through the little town last evening, that the sentencehad been delivered to the prisoner. From that time onwards the road thatled down past the Castle had never been empty. It was now moving on todawn, the late dawn of February; and every instant the scene grew moredistinct. It was possible for those pushed against the wall, or againstthe chains of the bridge that had been let down an hour ago, to lookdown into the chilly water of the moat; to see not the silhouette onlyof the huge fortress, but the battlements of the wall, and now and againa steel cap and a pike-point pass beyond it as the sentry went to andfro. Noises within the Castle grew more frequent. The voice of anofficer was heard half a dozen times; the rattle of pike-butts, theclash of steel. The melancholy bray of the horn-blower ran up a minorscale and down again; the dub-dub of a drum rang out, and was thrownback in throbs by the encircling walls. The galloping of horses washeard three or four times as a late-comer tore up the village street andwas forced to halt far away on the outskirts of the crowd--some countrysquire, maybe, to whom the amazing news had come an hour ago. Stillthere was no movement of the great doors across the bridge. The men onguard there shifted their positions; nodded a word or two across to oneanother; changed their pikes from one hand to the other. It seemed as ifday would come and find the affair no further advanced....
Then, without warning (for so do great climaxes always come), the doorswheeled back on their hinges, disclosing a line of pikemen drawn upunder the vaulted entrance; a sharp command was uttered by an officer attheir head, causing the two sentries to advance across the bridge; agreat roaring howl rose from the surging crowd; and in an instant thewhole lane was in confusion. Robin felt himself pushed this way andthat; he struggled violently, driving his elbows right and left; waslifted for a moment clean from his feet by the pressure about him;slipped down again; gained a yard or two; lost them; gained three orfour in a sudden swirl; and immediately found his feet on wood insteadof earth; and himself racing desperately as a loose group of runners,across the bridge; and beneath the arch of the castle-gate.
II
When he was able to take breath again, and to substitute thought forblind instinct, he found himself tramping in a kind of stream of meninto what appeared an impenetrably packed crowd. He was going betweenropes, however, which formed a lane up which it was possible to move.This lane, after crossing half the court, wheeled suddenly to one sideand doubled on itself, conducting the newcomers behind the crowd ofprivileged persons that had come into the castle overnight, or had beenadmitted three or four hours ago. These persons were all people ofquality; many of them, out of a kind of sympathy for what was to happen,were in black. They stood there in rows, scarcely moving, scarcelyspeaking, some even bare-headed, filling up now, so far as the priestcould see, the entire court, except in that quarter in which hepresently found himself--the furthest corner away from where rose up thetall carved and traceried windows of the banqueting-hall. Yet, though noman spoke above an undertone, a steady low murmur filled the court fromside to side, like the sound of a wagon rolling over a paved road.
He reached his place at last, actually against the wall of the soldiers'lodgings, and found, presently, that a low row of projecting stonesenabled him to raise himself a few inches, and see, at any rate, alittle better than his neighbours. He had perceived one thinginstantly--namely, that his dream of getting near enough to the Queen togive her absolution before her death was an impossible one. He had knownsince yesterday that the execution was to take place in the hall, andhere was he, within the court certainly, yet as far as possible awayfrom where he most desired to be.
* * * * *
The last two days had gone by in a horror that there is no describing.All the hours of them he had passed at his parlour window, waitinghopelessly for the summons which never came. John Merton had gone to thecastle and come back, each time with more desolate news. There was not apossibility, he said, when the news was finally certified, of getting aplace in the hall. Three hundred gentlemen had had those places alreadyassigned; four or five hundred more, it was expected, would have spacereserved for them in the courtyard. The only possibility was to be earlyat the gateway, since a limited number of these would probably beadmitted an hour or so before the time fixed for the execution.
The priest had seen many sights from his parlour window during those twodays.
On Monday he had seen, early in the morning, Mr. Beale ride out with hismen to go to my lord Shrewsbury, who was in the neighbourhood, and hadseen him return in time for dinner, with a number of strangers, amongwhom was an ecclesiastic. On inquiry, he found this to be Dr. Fletcher,Dean of Peterborough, who had been appointed to attend Mary both in herlodgings and upon the scaffold. In the afternoon the street was notempty for half an hour. From all sides poured in horsemen; gentlemenriding in with their servants; yeomen and farmers come in from thecountryside, that they might say hereafter that they had at least beenin Fotheringay when a Queen suffered the death of the axe. So the darkhad fallen, yet lights moved about continually, and horses' hoofs neverceased to beat or the voices of men to talk. Until he fell asleep atlast in his window-seat, he listened always to these things; watchedthe lights; prayed softly to himself; clenched his nails into his handsfor indignation; and looked again. On the Tuesday morning came thesheriff, to dine at the castle with Sir Amyas--a great figure of a man,dignified and stalwart, riding in the midst of his men. After dinnercame the Earl of Kent, and, last of all, my lord Shrewsbury himself--hewho had been her Grace's gaoler, until he proved too kind forElizabeth's taste--now appointed, with peculiar malice, to assist at herexecution. He looked pale and dejected as he rode past beneath thewindow.
Yet all this time the supreme horror had been that the end was notabsolutely certain. All in Fotheringay were as convinced as men couldbe, who had not seen the warrant nor heard it read, that Mr. Beale hadbrought it with him on Sunday night; the priest, above all, from hiscommunications with Mr. Bourgoign, was morally certain that the terrorwas come at last.... It was not until the last night of Mary's life onearth was beginning to close in that John Merton came up to the parlour,white and terrified, to tell him that he had been in his master's roomhalf an hour ago, and that Mr. Melville had come in to them, his faceall slobbered with tears, and had told him that he had but just comefrom her Grace's rooms, and had heard with his own ears the sentenceread to her, and her gallant and noble answer.... He had bidden him togo straight off to the priest, with a message from Mr. Bourgoign andhimself, to the effect that the execution was appointed for eighto'clock next morning; and that he was to be at the gate of the castlenot later than three o'clock, if, by good fortune, he might be admittedwhen the gates were opened at seven.
III
And now that the priest was in his place, he began again to think overthat answer of the Queen. The very words of it, indeed, he did not knowfor a month or two later, when Mr. Bourgoign wrote to him at
length; butthis, at least, he knew, that her Grace had said (and no mancontradicted her at that time) that she would shed her blood to-morrowwith all the happiness in the world, since it was for the cause of theCatholic and Roman Church that she died. It was not for any plot thatshe was to die: she professed again, kissing her Bible as she did so,that she was utterly guiltless of any plot against her sister. She diedbecause she was of that Faith in which she had been born, and whichElizabeth had repudiated. As for death, she did not fear it; she hadlooked for it during all the eighteen years of her imprisonment.
It was at a martyrdom, then, that he was to assist.... He had knownthat, without a doubt, ever since the day that Mary had declared herinnocence at Chartley. There had been no possibility of thinkingotherwise; and, as he reflected on this, he remembered that he, too, wasguilty of the same crime;... and he wondered whether he, too, would dieas manfully, if the need for it ever came.
* * * * *
Then, in an instant, he was called back, by the sudden crash of hornsand drums playing all together. He saw again the ranks of heads beforehim: the great arched windows of the hall on the other side of thecourt, the grim dominating keep, and the merciless February morning skyover all.
It was impossible to tell what was going on.
On all sides of him men jostled and murmured aloud. One said, "She iscoming down"; another, "It is all over"; another, "They have awakenedher." "What is it? what is it?" whispered Robin to the air, watchingwaves of movement pass over the serried heads before him. The lightswere still burning here and there in the windows, and the tall panes ofthe hall were all aglow, as if a great fire burned within. Overhead thesky had turned to daylight at last, but they were grey clouds thatfilled the heavens so far as he could see. Meanwhile, the horns brayedin unison, a rough melody like the notes of bugles, and the drums beatout the time.
Again there was a long pause--in which the lapse of time wasincalculable. Time had no meaning here: men waited from incident toincident only--the moving of a line of steel caps, a pause in the music,a head thrust out from a closed window and drawn back again.... Againthe music broke out, and this time it was an air that they played--alilting melancholy melody, that the priest recognised, yet could notidentify. Men laughed subduedly near him; he saw a face wrinkled withbitter mirth turned back, and he heard what was said. It was "JumpingJoan" that was being played--the march consecrated to the burning ofwitches. He had heard it long ago, as a boy....
Then the rumour ran through the crowd, and spent itself at last in thecorner where the priest stood trembling with wrath and pity.
"She is in the hall."
It was impossible to know whether this were true, or whether she had notbeen there half an hour already. The horror was that all might be over,or not yet begun, or in the very act of doing. He had thought that therewould be some pause or warning--that a signal would be given, perhaps,that all might bare their heads or pray, at this violent passing of aQueen. But there was none. The heads surged and quieted; murmurs burstout and died again; and all the while the hateful, insolent melody roseand fell; the horns bellowed; the drums crashed. It sounded like someshocking dance-measure; a riot of desperate spirits moved in it,trampling up and down, as if in one last fling of devilish gaiety....
* * * * *
Then suddenly the heads grew still; a wave of motionlessness passed overthem, as if some strange sympathy were communicated from within thosetall windows. The moments passed and passed. It was impossible to hearthose murmurs, through the blare of the instruments; there was one soundonly that could penetrate them; and this, rising from what seemed atfirst the wailing of a child, grew and grew into the shrill cries of adog in agony. At the noise once more a roar of low questioning surged upand fell. Simultaneously the music came to an abrupt close; and, as ifat a signal, there sounded a great roar of voices, all shouting togetherwithin the hall. It rose yet louder, broke out of doors, and was takenup by those outside. The court was now one sea of tossing heads and openmouths shouting--as if in exultation or in anger. Robin fought for hisplace on the projecting stones, clung to the rough wall, gripped awindow-bar and drew himself yet higher.
Then, as he clenched himself tight and stared out again towards the tallwindows that shone in bloody flakes of fire from the roaring logswithin; a sudden and profound silence fell once more before beingshattered again by a thousand roaring throats....
For there, in full view beyond the clear glass stood a tall, blackfigure, masked to the mouth, who held in his out-stretched hands a widesilver dish, in which lay something white and round and slashed withcrimson....
PART IV