Shrewsbury Part 29

"But G----! If the Secretary knows that his Grace is in England----"

"Well?"

"What will he not know?"

"I cannot say what he will not know, Mr. Charnock," the plotter answered, with a cunning smile that brought his wig to his eyebrows.

"But I can say what he did not know. He knew nothing of your little business. For the rest, when he left me I missed my man here, and coming to enquire, learned that he had been seen to join the Secretary at the door of the house, speak to him, and go away with him. That was enough for me. I changed my lodging, slipped away here, and had been here an hour when you came. As soon as you said that some one had peached to-day I knew who it was. Then Keyes cried that he was here, and there he was."

"But how did he come to be here?" Charnock asked sternly, and with suspicion.

"G.o.d knows!" said Ferguson, shrugging his shoulders; "I don't."

"You did not bring him?"

"Go to, for a fool! Perhaps he came to listen, perhaps he was sent. He knew of this place. For the rest, I have told you all I know, and it is enough or should be. Hang the dog up! There is a beam and a hook.

You hound, you shall swing for it!" he shrieked, pa.s.sionately, as he brought his crimson, blotched face close to mine, and threatened me with his two swollen fingers. "You thought to outwit me, did you? You, you dog! You crossed me and thought to sell me, did you? You dolt! you zany! you are sold yourself! Sold and shall swing! Swing! Ay, and so shall all my enemies peris.h.!.+"

"An end to that," said Charnock, pus.h.i.+ng him away roughly. "All the same, if this is true, he shall swing."

"Well, it is true enough," cried a man thrusting himself forward, while with shaking knees and chattering teeth, and tongue that refused to do its work, I strove to form words, to speak, to say or do something--something that might arrest the instant doom that threatened me. "It is true enough," continued he coolly. "I was on the watch at the Kensington end this afternoon and saw the Secretary arrive and go in to the Dutchman. And he had this bully boy with him.

I know him again and can swear to him."

CHAPTER XXVIII

I believe that it is one thing to confront with calmness a death that is known to be inevitable, and quite another and a far more difficult thing to a.s.sume the same brow where hope and a chance remain. I am not greatly ashamed, therefore, that in a crisis which amply justified all the horror and repugnance which mortals feel at the prospect of sudden and violent dissolution, I fell below the heroic standard, and said and did things, _miles impar Achilli_.

Nevertheless, it is with no good-will I dwell on the matter; in writing, as in life, there are decencies and indecencies; things to be told and others to be implied. Let few words then suffice, alike for the 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 of frenzied terror which followed, when screaming and struggling in their grasp, now trying to fling myself down, and now shrieking prayers for mercy, I was dragged to a spot below the hook, and held there by relentless 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 my life: but the set, dark faces that hemmed me in under the light, the grim looks of one, and the scared pallor of another, even Ferguson's hideous visage as he hovered in the background, biting his nails between terror and exultation--all these, even enlarged and multiplied, I saw with a dreadful clearness, and a keenness of vision that of itself was torture.

"Oh, G.o.d!" I cried at last. "Help! Help!" For from man I could see no help.

"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. So doubtless had the conspirators, for at the sound they turned quickly towards her; and, the ring of men opening out in the movement, she became visible to me. She stood confronting all, daring all. Her lips red, her face white as paper, her eyes glittering with a strange, wild fierceness. Long afterwards she told me that the sound of my shrieks and cries ringing in her ears had been almost more than she could bear: that as scream rose on scream she had driven the nails into her palms until her hands bled, and so only had been able to restrain herself, knowing well that if she would intervene to the purpose her time was not yet.

Now that it had come, nothing could exceed the mockery and scorn that rang 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 two of 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 put his hand to the job, and was as deep as another. Or, if you like precedence, and it is a question of fastening--for the man who fetched, he is as good as dead already--let the hand that wove the noose, tie it! Let that man tie it!" And with pitiless finger she pointed to the old plotter, who, sneaking, and cringing in the background, had already his eye on the door and his mind on retreat.

"Let him tie it!" she repeated.

"You s.l.u.t!" 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 different light. "By ----, the wench is right!" cried Ca.s.sel; and Keyes saying the 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 brought the rope, threw it down. "There's for me!" he said, gloomily, and with an ugly gleam in his eyes. "Let the old devil take it up. It is his job, 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 a.s.sumption of dignity.

But the words and the evasion only inflamed the general rage. "And are we?" Ca.s.sel roared, with a volley of oaths. "You covenanting, psalm-singing, tub-thumping old quill-driver!" he continued. "Do you think that we are here to do your dirty work, and squeeze throats at your bidding? _Peste!_ For a gill of Hollands I would split your tongue 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 strange thoughts of you. There have been things said before, and it were well you gave no colour to them."

I cannot believe that even I, writhing as a few minutes before I had writhed in their hands, and screaming and begging for life, could have presented a more pitiable spectacle than Ferguson exhibited, thus brought to book. All the base and craven instincts of a low and cowardly nature, brought to the surface by the challenge thus flung in his face, he quailed and cowered before the men; and s.h.i.+fting his feet and breathing hard glanced askance, first at one and then at another, as if to see who would support him, or who could most easily be persuaded. But he found scant encouragement anywhere; the men, savage and ill-disposed, to begin, and driven to the wall, to boot, had now conceived suspicions, and in proportion as delay and his conduct diverted their rage from me, turned it on him with growing ferocity.

"Here is the c.o.c.k of the pit!" cried Keyes, who seemed to be a trooper and a man of no education, lacking even the occasional French word or accent 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 a hand on _him_." And he pointed full at the plotter.

A murmur of a.s.sent, stern and full of meaning, echoed his words.

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

It was wonderful to see how the men, sore and desperate, caught at that notion, and with what greedy ferocity they turned on the knave who, only a few moments before, had swayed their pa.s.sions to his will.

It was to no purpose that Ferguson, head and hands shaking as with a palsy, strove frantically to hurl back the accusation. His wonted profanity seemed to fail him on this occasion, while the violence which had daunted men of saner temperaments proved no match for Ca.s.sel's brutality, who, breaking in on him before he had stammered a score of words, called him liar and sneak, and, denouncing him with outstretched finger, was in the act to hound his comrades on him, when something caught the ear of one of them, and with a cry of alarm this man, who stood near the door, raised his hand for silence.

Rage died down in the others' faces, and involuntarily they cl.u.s.tered together. But the panic was of short duration; hardly had the alarm been given and taken, or the lamp which hung against the wall been s.n.a.t.c.hed down and shaded, before the sound of a key in the door rea.s.sured the conspirators. For me, who throughout the scene, last described, had leaned half-swooning against the wall, listening, with what feelings the reader may easily judge, to the contest for my life--for me, who now stood reprieved, and for the moment safe, any change might be expected to be fraught with terror. But whether I had pa.s.sed the bitterness of death, or sheer terror had exhausted my capacity for suffering, it is certain that I awaited the event with lack-l.u.s.tre eyes; and hearing a cry of, "It's Mat Smith!" felt neither fear nor surprise, nor even moved, when Smith entered, followed by a woman, and with a quick glance took in the room and its occupants.

"Good," said Ca.s.sel with an oath. "I thought that the soldiers were on us. But if they had been, curse me, but I would have sent this old Judas to his place before me!"

Smith looked with a grim smile from the speaker to Ferguson; and raising his eyebrows, "Judas," said he, with ironical politeness, as he laid his cloak and cane upon the table, "is it possible that you refer to my friend Mr. Ferguson?"

"Strangle your friend!" Ca.s.sel answered coa.r.s.ely. "Do you know that his man there has blown on the thing and sold us?"

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

"He gave it! That is how they had it!" Ca.s.sel retorted. "And it is my belief that like man like master! And that that poor piece there would no more have dared to inform without his patron's leave than----"

He left the end of his sentence to be understood; but Charnock, taking up the tale and disregarding Ferguson's mutterings, described in a few words what had happened. When he came to the girl's intervention in my behalf, the woman who had entered with Smith, and who, though she seemed to be known to the conspirators--for her appearance caused no remark--had hitherto remained fidgetting in the background, moved forward into the room; and approaching the girl, who was sitting moodily 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 the girl made no resistance, and the two women remained looking into one another's eyes for a long minute. Then the elder, who was the same woman I had seen with Smith at the great lady's house in the outskirts, let the girl's face drop again, with a little flirt of her fingers.

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

CHAPTER XXIX