Shrewsbury: A Romance

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  I believe that it is one thing to confront with calmness a death thatis known to be inevitable, and quite another and a far more difficultthing to assume the same brow where hope and a chance remain. I am notgreatly ashamed, therefore, that in a crisis which amply justified allthe horror and repugnance which mortals feel at the prospect of suddenand violent dissolution, I fell below the heroic standard, and saidand did things, _miles impar Achilli_.

  Nevertheless, it is with no good-will I dwell on the matter; inwriting, as in life, there are decencies and indecencies; things to betold and others to be implied. Let few words then suffice, alike forthe moment when Charnock, holding back the others, wrung from me,half-swooning as I was, the admission that I had been to Kensington,and that the sentry was not mistaken: and for those minutes offrenzied terror which followed, when screaming and struggling in theirgrasp, now trying to fling myself down, and now shrieking prayers formercy, I was dragged to a spot below the hook, and held there byrelentless fingers while a rope was being fetched from the next room.I had no vision, as I have read some have, of the things done in mylife: but the set, dark faces that hemmed me in under the light, thegrim looks of one, and the scared pallor of another, even Ferguson'shideous visage as he hovered in the background, biting his nailsbetween terror and exultation--all these, even enlarged andmultiplied, I saw with a dreadful clearness, and a keenness of visionthat of itself was torture.

  "Oh, God!" I cried at last. "Help! Help!" For from man I could see nohelp.

  "Ay, man, pray," said Charnock, inexorably. "Pray, for you must die.We will give you one minute. Here comes the rope. Who will fasten it?"

  "A fool," cried a hard gibing voice, from somewhere beyond the circle."No other."

  I started convulsively: I had forgotten the girl's presence. Sodoubtless had the conspirators, for at the sound they turned quicklytowards her; and, the ring of men opening out in the movement, shebecame visible to me. She stood confronting all, daring all. Her lipsred, her face white as paper, her eyes glittering with a strange, wildfierceness. Long afterwards she told me that the sound of my shrieksand cries ringing in her ears had been almost more than she couldbear: that as scream rose on scream she had driven the nails into herpalms until her hands bled, and so only had been able to restrainherself, knowing well that if she would intervene to the purpose hertime was not yet.

  Now that it had come, nothing could exceed the mockery and scorn thatrang in her tone. "A fool," she cried, stridently, "has fetched it,and a fool will fasten it! And, let who hang, they will hang. And twoof you. Ay, you at the back there, will hang them. Why, you are fools,you are all fools, or you would take care that every man among you puthis hand to the job, and was as deep as another. Or, if you likeprecedence, and it is a question of fastening--for the man whofetched, he is as good as dead already--let the hand that wove thenoose, tie it! Let that man tie it!" And with pitiless finger shepointed to the old plotter, who, sneaking, and cringing in thebackground, had already his eye on the door and his mind on retreat."Let him tie it!" she repeated.

  "You slut!" he roared, his eyes squinting, his face livid with fury."Your tongue shall be slit. To your garret, vixen."

  But the others, as was not unnatural, saw the matter in a differentlight. "By ----, the wench is right!" cried Cassel; and Keyes sayingthe same, and another backing him, there was a general chorus of "Ay,the girl is right! The girl is right!" At that the man who had broughtthe rope, threw it down. "There's for me!" he said, gloomily, and withan ugly gleam in his eyes. "Let the old devil take it up. It is hisjob, not mine, and if I swing, he shall swing too."

  "Fair!" cried all. "That is fair!" And, "That is fair, Mr. Ferguson,"said Charnock. "Do you put the rope round his neck."

  "I?" Ferguson spluttered; glaring from under his wig.

  "Yes, you!" the man who had brought the rope retorted with violence."You! And why not, I'd like to know, my gentleman?"

  "I am no hangman!" cried the plotter, with a miserable assumption ofdignity.

  But the words and the evasion only inflamed the general rage. "Andare we?" Cassel roared, with a volley of oaths. "You covenanting,psalm-singing, tub-thumping old quill-driver!" he continued. "Do youthink that we are here to do your dirty work, and squeeze throats atyour bidding? _Peste!_ For a gill of Hollands I would split yourtongue for you. That and your pen have done too much harm already!"

  "Peace!" Charnock said. "Go softly, man. And do you, Mr. Ferguson,take up the rope and do your part. Otherwise we shall have strangethoughts of you. There have been things said before, and it were wellyou gave no colour to them."

  I cannot believe that even I, writhing as a few minutes before I hadwrithed in their hands, and screaming and begging for life, could havepresented a more pitiable spectacle than Ferguson exhibited, thusbrought to book. All the base and craven instincts of a low andcowardly nature, brought to the surface by the challenge thus flung inhis face, he quailed and cowered before the men; and shifting his feetand breathing hard glanced askance, first at one and then at another,as if to see who would support him, or who could most easily bepersuaded. But he found scant encouragement anywhere; the men, savageand ill-disposed, to begin, and driven to the wall, to boot, had nowconceived suspicions, and in proportion as delay and his conductdiverted their rage from me, turned it on him with growing ferocity.

  "Here is the cock of the pit!" cried Keyes, who seemed to be a trooperand a man of no education, lacking even the occasional French word oraccent that betrayed the others' sojourn with King Louis. "D---- him!He would have us hang the man, but won't lay a finger on him himself!He is no Ketch, isn't he? Well, I hang no man either, unless I put ahand on _him_." And he pointed full at the plotter.

  A murmur of assent, stern and full of meaning, echoed his words.

  "Mr. Ferguson," said Charnock, with grave politeness, "you hear whatthis gentleman says? And mind you, if you ask me, he has reason. A fewminutes ago you were forward with us to hang this person. And amonggentlemen to urge another to do what you will not do yourself, laysyou open to comment. It may even be pretended, that if your rogueinformed, you were not so ignorant of the fact as you would have usbelieve you."

  It was wonderful to see how the men, sore and desperate, caught atthat notion, and with what greedy ferocity they turned on the knavewho, only a few moments before, had swayed their passions to his will.It was to no purpose that Ferguson, head and hands shaking as with apalsy, strove frantically to hurl back the accusation. His wontedprofanity seemed to fail him on this occasion, while the violencewhich had daunted men of saner temperaments proved no match forCassel's brutality, who, breaking in on him before he had stammered ascore of words, called him liar and sneak, and, denouncing him withoutstretched finger, was in the act to hound his comrades on him, whensomething caught the ear of one of them, and with a cry of alarm thisman, who stood near the door, raised his hand for silence.

  Rage died down in the others' faces, and involuntarily they clusteredtogether. But the panic was of short duration; hardly had the alarmbeen given and taken, or the lamp which hung against the wall beensnatched down and shaded, before the sound of a key in the doorreassured the conspirators. For me, who throughout the scene, lastdescribed, had leaned half-swooning against the wall, listening, withwhat feelings the reader may easily judge, to the contest for mylife--for me, who now stood reprieved, and for the moment safe, anychange might be expected to be fraught with terror. But whether I hadpassed the bitterness of death, or sheer terror had exhausted mycapacity for suffering, it is certain that I awaited the event withlack-lustre eyes; and hearing a cry of, "It's Mat Smith!" felt neitherfear nor surprise, nor even moved, when Smith entered, followed by awoman, and with a quick glance took in the room and its occupants.

  "Good," said Cassel with an oath. "I thought that the soldiers were onus. But if they had been, curse me, but I would have sent this oldJudas to his place before me!"

  Smith looked with a grim smile f
rom the speaker to Ferguson; andraising his eyebrows, "Judas," said he, with ironical politeness, ashe laid his cloak and cane upon the table, "is it possible that yourefer to my friend Mr. Ferguson?"

  "Strangle your friend!" Cassel answered coarsely. "Do you know thathis man there has blown on the thing and sold us?"

  Smith's eye had already found me, where I leaned against the wall, myhands tied. "I see," he said coolly. "I knew before that the game wasup; and I have been somewhere, and warned someone," he added, with aglance at Charnock, who nodded. "But I did not know how they had theoffice."

  "He gave it! That is how they had it!" Cassel retorted. "And it is mybelief that like man like master! And that that poor piece there wouldno more have dared to inform without his patron's leave than----"

  He left the end of his sentence to be understood; but Charnock, takingup the tale and disregarding Ferguson's mutterings, described in a fewwords what had happened. When he came to the girl's intervention in mybehalf, the woman who had entered with Smith, and who, though sheseemed to be known to the conspirators--for her appearance caused noremark--had hitherto remained fidgetting in the background, movedforward into the room; and approaching the girl, who was sittingmoodily at a table by the fire, touched her cheek with her fingers,and slipping her hand under her chin, turned up her face. To this thegirl made no resistance, and the two women remained looking into oneanother's eyes for a long minute. Then the elder, who was the samewoman I had seen with Smith at the great lady's house in theoutskirts, let the girl's face drop again, with a little flirt of herfingers.

  "Doris and Strephon, I see?" she said with a sneer.