Come Rack! Come Rope!

  CHAPTER VI

  I

  Robin drew a long breath as the door closed behind him. Then he wentforward to the table, and sat on it, swinging his feet, and lookingcarefully and curiously round the room, so far as the darkness wouldallow him; his eyes had had scarcely time yet to become accustomed tothe change from the brilliant sunshine outside to the gloom of theprison. It was his first experience of prison, and, for the present, hewas more interested than subdued by it.

  * * * * *

  It seemed to him that a lifetime had passed since the early morning, upin the hills, when he had attempted to escape by the bedroom, and hadbeen seized as he came out of the press. Of course, he had fought; itwas his right and his duty; and he had not known the utter uselessnessof it, in that guarded house. He had known nothing of what was goingforward. He had heard the entrance of the searchers below, and now andagain their footsteps.... Then he had seen the wainscoting begin to gapebefore him, and had understood that his only chance was by the way hehad entered. Then, as he had caught sight of his father, he had ceasedhis struggles.

  He had not said one word to him. The shock was complete and unexpected.He had seen the old man stagger back and sink on the bed. Then he hadbeen hurried from the room and downstairs. As the party came into thebuttery entrance, there had been a great clamour; the man on guard atthe hall doors had run forward; the doors had opened suddenly andMarjorie had come out, with a surge of faces behind her. But to her,too, he had said nothing; he had tried to smile; he was still faint andsick from the fight upstairs. But he had been pushed out into the air,where he saw the horses waiting, and round the corner of the house intoan out-building, and there he had had time to recover.

  * * * * *

  It was strange how little religion had come to his aid during that hourof waiting; and, indeed, during the long and weary ride to Derby. He hadtried to pray; but he had had no consolation, such as he supposed mustsurely come to all who suffered for Christ. It had been, instead, thetiny things that absorbed his attention; the bundle of hay in thecorner; an ancient pitch-fork; the heads of his guards outside thelittle barred window; the sound of their voices talking. Later, when aman had come out from the house, and looked in at his door, telling himthat they must start in ten minutes, and giving him a hunch of bread toeat, it had been the way the man's eyebrows grew over his nose, and thecreases of his felt hat, to which he gave his mind. Somewhere, farbeneath in himself, he knew that there were other considerations andmemories and movements, that were even fears and hopes and desires; buthe could not come at these; he was as a man struggling to dive, held upon the surface by sheets of cork. He knew that his father was in thathouse; that it was his father who had been the means of taking him; thatMarjorie was there--yet these facts were as tales read in a book. So,too, with his faith; his lips repeated words now and then; but God wasas far from him and as inconceivably unreal, as is the thought ofsunshine and a garden to a miner freezing painlessly in the dark....

  In the same state he was led out again presently, and set on a horse.And while a man attached one foot to the other by a cord beneath thehorse's belly, he looked like a child at the arched doorway of thehouse; at a patch of lichen that was beginning to spread above thelintel; at the open window of the room above.

  He vaguely desired to speak with Marjorie again; he even asked the manwho was tying his feet whether he might do so; but he got no answer. Agroup of men watched him from the door, and he noticed that they weresilent. He wondered if it were the tying of his feet in which they wereso much absorbed.

  * * * * *

  Little by little, as they rode, this oppression began to lift. Half adozen times he determined to speak with the man who rode beside him andheld his horse by a leading rein; and each time he did not speak.Neither did any man speak to him. Another man rode behind; and a dozenor so went on foot. He could hear them talking together in low voices.

  He was finally roused by his companion's speaking. He had noticed theman look at him now and again strangely and not unkindly.

  "Is it true that you are a son of Mr. Audrey, sir?"

  He was on the point of saying "Yes," when his mind seemed to come backto him as clear as an awakening from sleep. He understood that he mustnot identify himself if he could help it. He had been told at Rheimsthat silence was best in such matters.

  "Mr. Audrey?" he said. "The magistrate?"

  The man nodded. He did not seem an unkindly personage at all. Then hesmiled.

  "Well, well," he said. "Less said--"

  He broke off and began to whistle. Then he interrupted himself oncemore.

  "He was still in his fit," he said, "when we came away. Mistress Mannerswas with him."

  Intelligence was flowing back in Robin's brain like a tide. It seemed tohim that he perceived things with an extraordinary clearness andrapidity. He understood he must show no dismay or horror of any kind; hemust carry himself easily and detachedly.

  "In a fit, was he?"

  The other nodded.

  "I am arrested on his warrant, then? And on what charge?"

  The man laughed outright.

  "That's too good," he said. "Why, we, have a bundle of popery on thehorse behind! It was all in the hiding-hole!"

  "I am supposed to be a priest, then?" said Robin, with admirabledisdain.

  Again the man laughed.

  "They will have some trouble in proving that," said Robin viciously.

  * * * * *

  He learned presently whither they were going. He was right in thinkingit to be Derby. There he was to be handed over to the gaoler. The trialwould probably come on at the Michaelmas assizes, five or six weekshence. He would have leave to communicate with a lawyer when he was oncesafely bestowed there; but whether or no his lawyer or any othervisitors would be admitted to him was a matter for the magistrates.

  They ate as they rode, and reached Derby in the afternoon.

  At the very outskirts the peculiar nature of this cavalcade wasobserved; and by the time that they came within sight of themarket-square a considerable mob was hustling along on all sides. Therewere a few cries raised. Robin could not distinguish the words, but itseemed to him as if some were raised for him as well as against him. Hekept his head somewhat down; he thought it better to risk nocomplications that might arise should he be recognised.

  As they drew nearer the market-place the progress became yet slower, forthe crowd seemed suddenly and abnormally swelled. There was a greatshouting of voices, too, in front, and the smell of burning camedistinctly on the breeze. The man riding beside Robin turned his headand called out; and in answer one of the others riding behind pushed hishorse up level with the other two, so that the prisoner had a guard oneither side. A few steps further, and another order was issued, followedby the pressing up of the men that went on foot so as to form a completesquare about the three riders.

  Robin put a question, but the men gave him no answer. He could see thatthey were preoccupied and anxious. Then, as step by step they made theirway forward and gained the corner of the market-place, he saw the reasonof these precautions; for the whole square was one pack of heads, exceptwhere, somewhere in the midst, a great bonfire blazed in the sunlight.The noise, too, was deafening; drums were beating, horns blowing, menshouting aloud. From window after window leaned heads, and, as the partyadvanced yet further, they came suddenly in view of a scaffold hung withgay carpets and ribbons, on which a civil dignitary, in some officialdress, was gesticulating.

  It was useless to ask a question; not a word could have been heardunless it were shouted aloud; and presently the din redoubled, for outof sight, round some corner, guns were suddenly shot off one afteranother; and the cheering grew shrill and piercing in contrast.

  As they came out at last, without attracting any great attention, intothe more open space at the entrance of Friar's Gate, Robin turned againand asked what the matter was
. It was plainly not himself, as he had atfirst almost believed.

  The man turned an exultant face to him.

  "It's the Spanish fleet!" he said. "There's not a ship of it left, theysay."

  When they halted at the gate of the prison there was another pause,while the cord that tied his feet was cut, and he was helped from hishorse, as he was stiff and constrained from the long ride under suchcircumstances. He heard a roar of interest and abuse, and, perhaps, alittle sympathy, from the part of the crowd that had followed, as thegate close behind him.

  II

  As his eyes became better accustomed to the dark, he began to see whatkind of a place it was in which he found himself. It was a square littleroom on the ground-floor, with a single, heavily-barred window, againstwhich the dirt had collected in such quantities as to exclude almost alllight. The floor was beaten earth, damp and uneven; the walls were builtof stones and timber, and were dripping with moisture; there was a tableand a stool in the centre of the room, and a dark heap in the corner. Heexamined this presently, and found it to be rotting hay covered withsome kind of rug. The whole place smelled hideously foul.

  From far away outside came still the noise of cheering, heard as throughwool, and the sharp reports of the cannon they were still firing. TheArmada seemed very remote from him, here in ward. Its destructionaffected him now hardly at all, except for the worse, since ananti-Catholic reaction might very well follow.... He set himself, withscarcely an effort, to contemplate more personal matters.

  He was astonished that his purse had not been taken from him. He hadbeen searched rapidly just now, in an outer passage, by a couple of men,one of whom he understood to be his gaoler; and a knife and a chain andhis rosary had been taken from him. But the purse had been put backagain.... He remembered presently that the possession of money made aconsiderable difference to a prisoner's comfort; but he determined to doas little as he was obliged in this way. He might need the money moreurgently by and by.

  * * * * *

  By the time that he had gone carefully round his prison-walls, evenreaching up to the window and testing the bars, pushing as noiselesslyas he could against the door, pacing the distances in everydirection--he had, at the same time, once more arranged and rehearsedevery piece of evidence that he possessed, and formed a number ofresolutions.

  He was perfectly clear by now that his father had been wholly ignorantof the identity of the man he was after. The horror in the gasping facethat he had seen so close to his own, above the strangling arm, set thatbeyond a doubt; the news of the fit into which his father had fallenconfirmed it.

  Next, he had been right in believing himself watched in the shepherd'shut, and followed down from it. This hiding of his in the hills, thediscovery of him in the hiding-hole, together with the vestments--thesetwo things were the heaviest pieces of testimony against him. Moreremote testimony might be brought forward from his earlieradventures--his presence at Fotheringay, his recognition by my lord'sman. But these were, in themselves, indifferent.

  His resolutions were few and simple.

  He would behave himself quietly in all ways: he would make no demand tosee anyone; since he knew that whatever was possible would be done forhim by Marjorie. He would deny nothing and assert very little if he werebrought before the magistrates. Finally, he would say, if he could, adry mass every day; and observe the hours of prayer so far as he could.He had no books with him of any kind. But he could pray God forfortitude.

  * * * * *

  Then he knelt down on the earth floor and said his first prayer inprison; the prayer that had rung so often in his mind since Mary herselfhad prayed it aloud on the scaffold; and Mr. Bourgoign had repeated itto him.

  "As Thy arms, O Christ, were extended on the Cross; even so receive meinto the arms of Thy mercy, and blot out all my sins with Thy mostprecious Blood."