CHAPTER IX
I
A great murmuring crowd filled every flat spot of ground and pavementand parapet. They stood even on the balustrade of St. Mary's Bridge;there were fringes of them against the sky on the edges of roofs aquarter of a mile away. No flat surface was to be seen anywhere excepton the broad reach of the river, and near the head of the bridge, in thecircular space, ringed by steel caps and pike-points, where the gallowsand ladder rose. Close beside them a column of black smoke rose heavilyinto the morning air, bellying away into the clear air. A continualsteady low murmur of talking went up continually.
* * * * *
There had been no hanging within the memory of any that had roused suchinterest. Derbyshire men had been hung often enough; a criminal usuallyhad a dozen friends at least in the crowd to whom he shouted from theladder. Seminary priests had been executed often enough now to havedestroyed the novelty of it for the mob; why, three had been done todeath here little more than two months ago in this very place. They gaveno sport, certainly; they died too quietly; and what peculiar interestthere was in it lay in the contemplation of the fact that it was forreligion that they died. Gentlemen, too, had been hanged here now andthen--polished persons, dressed in their best, who took off their outerclothes carefully, and in one or two cases had handed them to a servant;gentlemen with whom the sheriff shook hands before the end, who eyed themob imperturbably or affected even not to be aware of the presence ofthe vulgar. But this hanging was sublime.
First, he was a Derbyshire man, a seminary priest and a gentleman--threepoints. Yet this was no more than the groundwork of his surpassinginterest. For, next, he had been racked beyond belief. It was for threedays before his sentence that Mr. Topcliffe himself had dealt with him.(Yes, Mr. Topcliffe was the tall man that had his rooms in themarket-place, and always went abroad with two servants.... He was tohave Padley, too, it was said, as a reward for all his zeal.) Of course,young Mr. Audrey (for that was his real name--not Alban; that was aPopish _alias_ such as they all used)--Mr. Audrey had not been on therack for the whole of every day. But he had been in the rack-house eightor nine hours on the first day, four the second, and six or seven thethird. And he had not answered one single question differently from themanner in which he had answered it before ever he had been on the rackat all. (There was a dim sense of pride with regard to this, in manyDerbyshire minds. A Derbyshire man, it appeared, was more than a matchfor even a Londoner and a sworn servant of her Grace.) It was said thatMr. Audrey would have to be helped up the ladder, even though he had notbeen racked for a whole week since his sentence.
Next, the trial itself had been full of interest. A Papist priest was,of course, fair game. (Why, the Spanish Armada itself had been full ofthem, it was said, all come to subdue England.... Well, they had hadtheir bellyful of salt water and English iron by now.) But this Papisherhad hit back and given sport. He had flatly refused to be caught, thoughthe questions were swift and subtle enough to catch any clerk. Certainlyhe had not denied that he was a priest; but he had said that that waswhat the Crown must prove: he was not there as a witness, he had said,but as a prisoner; he had even entreated them to respect their ownlegal dignities! But there had been a number of things against him, andeven if none of these had been proved, still, the mere sum of them wasenough; there could be no smoke without fire, said the proverb-quoters.It was alleged that he had been privy to the plot against the Queen (theplot of young Mr. Babington, who had sold his house down there a week ortwo only before his arrest); he had denied this, but he had allowed thathe had spoken with her Grace immediately after the plot; and this was ahighly suspicious circumstance: if he allowed so much as this, the restmight be safely presumed. Again, it was said that he had had part inattempts to free the Queen of the Scots, even from Fotheringay itself;and had been in the castle court, with a number of armed servants, atthe very time of her execution. Again, if he allowed that he had beenpresent, even though he denied the armed servants, the rest might bepresumed. Finally, since he were a priest, and had seen her Grace at atime when there was no chaplain allowed to her, it was certain that hemust have ministered their Popish superstitions to her, and this wasneither denied nor affirmed: he had said to this that they had yet toprove him a priest at all. The very spectacle of the trial, too, hadbeen remarkable; for, first, there was the extraordinary appearance ofthe prisoner, bent double like an old man, with the face of a dead one,though he could not be above thirty years old at the very most; and thenthere was the unusual number of magistrates present in court besides thejudges, and my lord Shrewsbury himself, who had presided at the racking.It was one of my lord's men, too, that had helped to identify theprisoner.
But the supreme interest lay in even more startling circumstances--inthe history of Mistress Manners, who was present through the trial withMr. Biddell the lawyer, and who had obtained at least two interviewswith the prisoner, one before the torture and the other after sentence.It was in Mistress Manners' house at Booth's Edge that the priest hadbeen taken; and it was freely rumoured that although Mr. Audrey had oncebeen betrothed to her, yet that she had released and sent him herself toRheims, and all to end like this. And yet she could bear to come and seehim again; and, it was said, would be present somewhere in the crowdeven at his death.
Finally, the tale of how the priest had been taken by his ownfather--old Mr. Audrey of Matstead--him that was now lying sick in Mr.Columbell's house--this put the crown on all the rest. A hundred rumoursflew this way and that: one said that the old man had known nothing ofhis son's presence in the country, but had thought him to be still inforeign parts. Another, that he knew him to be in England, but not thathe was in the county; a third, that he knew very well who it was in thehouse he went to search, and had searched it and taken him on purpose toset his own loyalty beyond question. Opinions differed as to thepropriety of such an action....
* * * * *
So then the great crowd of heads--men from all the countryside, fromfarms and far-off cottages and the wild hills, mingling with thetownsfolk--this crowd, broken up into levels and patches by river andhouses and lanes, moved to and fro in the October sunshine, and sent up,with the column of smoke that eddied out from beneath the bubblingtar-cauldron by the gallows, a continual murmur of talking, like thesound of slow-moving wheels of great carts.
He felt dazed and blind, yet with a kind of lightness too as he cameout of the gaol-gate into that packed mass of faces, held back by guardsfrom the open space where the horse and the hurdle waited. A dozenpersons or so were within the guards; he knew several of them by sight;two or three were magistrates; another was an officer; two wereministers with their Bibles.
It is hard to say whether he were afraid. Fear was there, indeed--heknew well enough that in his case, at any rate, the execution would bedone as the law ordered; that he would be cut down before he had time todie, and that the butchery would be done on him while he would still beconscious of it. Death, too, was fearful, in any case.... Yet there wereso many other things to occupy him--there was the exhilarating knowledgethat he was to die for his faith and nothing else; for they had offeredhim his life if he would go to church; and they had proved nothing as toany complicity of his in any plot, and how could they, since there wasnone? There was the pain of his tormented body to occupy him; a painthat had passed from the acute localized agonies of snapped sinews andwrenched joints into one vast physical misery that soaked his whole bodyas in a flood; a pain that never ceased; of which he dreamed darkly, asa hungry man dreams of food which he cannot eat, to which he awoke againtwenty times a night as to a companion nearer to him than the thoughtswith which he attempted to distract himself. This pain, at least, wouldhave an end presently. Again, there was an intermittent curiosity as tohow and what would befall his flying soul when the butchery was done."To sup in Heaven" was a phrase used by one of his predecessors on thethreshold of death.... For what did that stand?... And at other timesthere had been no
curiosity, but an acquiescence in old childish images.Heaven at such times appeared to him as a summer garden, with pavilions,and running water and the song of birds ... a garden where he would lieat ease at last from his torn body and that feverish mind, which was allthat his pain had left to him; where Mary went, gracious and motherly,with her virgins about her; where the Crucified Lamb of God would talkwith him as a man talks with his friend, and allow him to lie at thePierced Feet ... where the glory of God rested like eternal sunlight onall that was there; on the River of Life, and the wood of the trees thatare for the healing of all hurts.
And, last of all, there was a confused medley of more human thoughtsthat concerned persons other than himself. He could not remember all thepersons clearly; their names and their faces came and went. Marjorie,his father, Mr. John FitzHerbert and Mr. Anthony, who had been allowedto come and see him; Dick Sampson, who had come in with Marjorie thesecond time and had kissed his hands. One thing at least he rememberedclearly as he stood here, and that was how he had bidden MistressManners, even now, not to go overseas and become a nun, as she hadwished; but rather to continue her work in Derbyshire, if she could.
So then he stood, bent double on two sticks, blinking and peering out atthe faces, wondering whether it was a roar of anger or welcome orcompassion that had broken out at his apparition, and smiling--smilingpiteously, not of deliberation, but because the muscles of his mouth somoved, and he could not contract them again.
* * * * *
He understood presently that he was to lie down on the hurdle, with hishead to the horses' heels.
This was a great business, to be undertaken with care. He gave his twosticks to a man, and took his arm. Then he kneeled, clinging to the armas a child to a swimmer's in a rough sea, and sank gently down. But hecould not straighten his legs, so they allowed him to lie halfside-ways, and tied him so. It was amazingly uncomfortable, and, beforehe was settled, twice the sweat suddenly poured from his face as hefound some new channel of pain in his body....
An order or two was issued in a loud, shouting voice; there was a greatconfusion and scuffling, and the crack of a whip. Then, with a jerk thattore his whole being, he was flicked from his place; the pain swelledand swelled till there seemed no more room for it in all God's world;and he closed his eyes so as not to see the house-roofs and the facesand the sky whirl about in that mad jigging dance....
After that he knew very little of the journey. For the most part hiseyes were tight closed; he sobbed aloud half a dozen times as the hurdlelifted and dropped over rough places in the road. Two or three times heopened his eyes to see what the sounds signified, especially a loud,bellowing voice almost in his ear that cried texts of Scripture at him.
"_We have but one Mediator between God and man, the Man ChristJesus_...."
"_We then, being justified by faith.... For if by the works of the Lawwe are justified_...."
He opened his eyes wide at that, and there was the face of one of theministers bobbing against the sky, flushed and breathless, yetindomitable, bawling aloud as he trotted along to keep pace with thehorse.
Then he closed his eyes again. He knew that he, too, could bandy textsif that were what was required. Perhaps, if he were a better man andmore mortified, he might be able to do so as the martyrs sometimes haddone. But he could not ... he would have a word to say presentlyperhaps, if it were permitted; but not now. His pain occupied him; hehad to deal with that and keep back, if he could, those sobs that werewrenched from him now and again. He had made but a poor beginning in hisjourney, he thought; he must die more decently than that.
* * * * *
The end came unexpectedly. Just when he thought he had gained hisself-control again, so as to make no sound at any rate, the hurdlestopped. He clenched his teeth to meet the dreadful wrench with which itwould move again; but it did not. Instead there was a man down by him,untying his bonds. He lay quite still when they were undone; he did notknow which limb to move first, and he dreaded to move any.
"Now then," said the voice, with a touch of compassion, he thought.
He set his teeth, gripped the arm and raised himself--first to hisknees, then to his feet, where he stood swaying. An indescribable roarascended steadily on all sides; but he could see little of the crowd asyet. He was standing in a cleared space, held by guards. A couple ofdozen persons stood here; three or four on horseback; and one of thesehe thought to be my lord Shrewsbury, but he was not sure, since his headwas against the glare of the sun. He turned a little, still holding tothe man's arm, and not knowing what to do, and saw a ladder behind him;he raised his eyes and saw that its head rested against the cross-beamof a single gallows, that a rope hung from this beam, and that a figuresitting astride of this cross-beam was busy with this rope. The shock ofthe sight cooled and nerved him; rather, it drew his attention all fromhimself.... He looked lower again, and behind the gallows was a columnof heavy smoke going up, and in the midst of the smoke a cauldron hungon a tripod. Beside the cauldron was a great stump of wood, with achopper and a knife lying upon it.... He drew one long steady breath,expelled it again, and turned back to my lord Shrewsbury. As he turned,he saw him make a sign, and felt himself grasped from behind.
III
He reached at last with his hands the rung of the ladder on which theexecutioner's foot rested, hearing, as he went painfully up, the roar ofvoices wax to an incredible volume. It was impossible for any to speakso that he could hear, but he saw the hands above him in eloquentgesture, and understood that he was to turn round. He did so cautiously,grasping the man's foot, and so rested, half sitting on a rung, andholding it as well as he could with his two hands. Then he felt a ropepass round his wrists, drawing them closer together.... As he turned,the roar of voices died to a murmur; the murmur died to silence, and heunderstood and remembered. It was now the time to speak.... He gatheredfor the last time all his forces together. With the sudden silence,clearness came back to his mind, and he remembered word for word thelittle speech he had rehearsed so often during the last week. He hadlearned it by heart, fearful lest God should give him no words if hetrusted to the moment, lest God should not see fit to give him even thatinterior consolation which was denied to so many of the saints--yetwithout which he could not speak from the heart. He had been right, heknew now: there was no religious consolation; he felt none of thatstrange heart-shaking ecstasy that had transfigured other deaths likehis; he had none of the ready wit that Campion had showed. He sawnothing but the clear October sky above him, cut by the roofs fringedwith heads (a skein of birds passed slowly over it as he raised hiseyes); and, beneath, that irreckonable pavement of heads, motionless nowas a cornfield in a still evening, one glimpse of the river--the river,he remembered even at this instant, that came down from Hathersage andPadley and his old home. But there was no open vision, such as he hadhalf hoped to see, no unimaginable glories looming slowly through theveils in which God hides Himself on earth, no radiant face smiling intohis own--only this arena of watching human faces turned up to his,waiting for his last sermon.... He thought he saw faces that he knew,though he lost them again as his eyes swept on--Mr. Barton, the oldminister of Matstead; Dick; Mr. Bassett.... Their faces lookedterrified.... However, this was not his affair now.
As he was about to speak he felt hands about his neck, and then thetouch of a rope passed across his face. For an indescribable instant aterror seized on him; he closed his eyes and set his teeth. The spasmpassed, and so soon as the hands were withdrawn again, he began:
* * * * *
"Good people"--(at the sound of his voice, high and broken, the silencebecame absolute. A thin crowing of a cock from far off in the countrycame like a thread and ceased)--"Good people: I die here as a Catholicman, for my priesthood, which I now confess before all the world." (Astir of heads and movements below distracted him. But he went on atonce.) "There have been alleged against me crimes in which I had neitheract nor part,
against the life of her Grace and the peace of herdominions."
"Pray for her Grace," rang out a sharp voice below him.
"I will do so presently.... It is for that that I am said to die, inthat I took part in plots of which I knew nothing till all was done. YetI was offered my life, if I would but conform and go to church; so yousee very well--"
A storm of confused voices interrupted him. He could distinguish nosentence, so he waited till they ceased again.
"So you see very well," he cried, "for what it is that I die. It is forthe Catholic faith--"
"Beat the drums! beat the drums!" cried a voice. There began a drumming;but a howl like a beast's surged up from the whole crowd. When it diedagain the drum was silent. He glanced down at my lord Shrewsbury and sawhim whispering with an officer. Then he continued:
"It is for the Catholic faith, then, that I die--that which was once thefaith of all England--and which, I pray, may be one day its faith again.In that have I lived, and in that will I die. And I pray God, further,that all who hear me to-day may have grace to take it as I do--as thetrue Christian Religion (and none other)--revealed by our SaviourChrist."
The crowd was wholly quiet again now. My lord had finished hiswhispering, and was looking up. But the priest had made his littlesermon, and thought that he had best pray aloud before his strengthfailed him. His knees were already shaking violently under him, and thesweat was pouring again from his face, not so much from the effort ofhis speech as from the pain which that effort caused him. It seemed thatthere was not one nerve in his body that was not in pain.
"I ask all Catholics, then, that hear me to join with me in prayer....First, for Christ's Catholic Church throughout the world, for her peaceand furtherance.... Next, for our England, for the conversion of all herchildren; and, above all, for her Grace, my Queen and yours, that Godwill bless and save her in this world, and her soul eternally in thenext. For these and all other such matters I will beg all Catholics tojoin with me and to say the _Our Father_; and when I am in my agony tosay yet another for my soul."
"_Our Father_...."
From the whole packed space the prayer rose up, in great and heavy wavesof sound. There were cries of mockery three or four times, but each wassuddenly cut off.... The waves of sound rolled round and ceased, and thesilence was profound. The priest opened his eyes; closed them again.Then with a loud voice he began to cry:
"O Christ, as Thine arms were extended--"
* * * * *
He stopped again, shaken even from that intense point of concentrationto which he was forcing himself, by the amazing sound that met his ears.He had heard, at the close of the _Our Father_, a noise which he couldnot interpret: but no more had happened. But now the whole world seemedscreaming and swaying: he heard the trample of horses beneathhim--voices in loud expostulation.
He opened his eyes; the clamour died again at the same instant.... For amoment his eyes wandered over the heads and up to the sky, to see ifsome vision.... Then he looked down....
Against the ladder on which he stood, a man's figure was writhing andembracing the rungs kneeling on the ground. He was strangely dressed, insome sort of a loose gown, in a tight silk night-cap, and his feet werebare. The man's head was dropped, and the priest could not see his face.He looked beyond for some explanation, and there stood, all alone, agirl in a hooded cloak, who raised her great eyes to his. As he lookeddown again the man's head had fallen back, and the face was staring upat him, so distorted with speechless entreaty, that even he, at first,did not recognize it....
Then he saw it to be his father, and understood enough, at least, to actas a priest for the last time.
He smiled a little, leaned his own head forward as from a cross, andspoke....
"_Absolvo te a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris et Filii et SpiritusSancti_...."
VI
He only awoke once again, after the strangling and the darkness hadpassed. He could see nothing, nor hear, except a heavy murmuring noise,not unpleasant. But there was one last Pain not into which all othershad passed, keen and cold like water, and it was about his heart.
"O Christ--" he whispered, and so died.
THE END
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