IF A MAN GIVETH HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS, HE CAN DO NO MORE
IT was at the inn of Michot that Bess Lukens had heard the dreadful
news about Dicky Egremont. She had gone to St. Germains to spend the
Sunday with her friend, Madame Michot. Saturday evening was now the
one gay evening in the week at the inn, when it recovered some of its
pristine splendor. The common room was quite full, punch was brewing,
and there was an occasional burst of song.
“But it is not what it was five years ago,” sighed Madame Michot to
Bess, who sat by her on the little platform by the large door, with the
writing-table and the grille, looking into the great room.
Madame Michot, taking advantage of Bess’s presence to look after the
kitchen administration, left her to preside at the bureau. Bess, who
was, as usual, very handsomely dressed, looked quite regal in Madame
Michot’s great chair, on her improvised throne.
She found some of her acquaintances among those who came to pay
their score,--more paid in cash than in the old days,--and each of
the gentlemen passed Mademoiselle Luccheni a compliment, which Bess
returned in kind. Many inquired how the merry war progressed between
the Abbé d’Albret and herself; at which Bess showed all her rosy
dimples and white teeth, and replied that she understood the Abbé
was ailing,--going into a decline, fretted thereto by Mademoiselle
Luccheni. The evening was far spent, when the door opened, and François
Delaunay, looking as neat and as pious as usual, entered.
A chorus of welcome greeted him; gentlemen inquiring how the Duchess
did; and was he out on parole; and what time was he obliged to report;
and other remarks indicating his condition of servitude. To all this,
François replied good-naturedly, and then turned to greet Bess.
“Sit you down there,” said Bess, pointing to a footstool which François
placed on the step of the platform, bringing his head on a level with
Bess’s waist, “and I’ll let you see, Mr. François,” she continued,
“that I can look the duchess as well as that old Beaumanoir woman,--no
offence meant. How is she?”
François shook his head dolefully.
“Very gay. Plays incessantly, and will have me to play and drink. She
complained of me to-night that I had never been really drunk since
I had lived in her house; and when I would have spent the evening
quietly, with my books and my writing-book, she fairly drove me out of
the house, to have some adventures and come back and tell her. So I
came to the inn of Michot.”
“I am afraid,” said Bess, shaking her head solemnly, “by what she said
about your never being drunk, that she suspects the game you have been
practising on her, playing drunk.”
“I suspect she does, too. Oh,” cried François, in a burst of
confidence, “if I were but free and independent, if I had but a
thousand francs a year, I would lead the life I desire,--books and
science, and, perhaps, take orders.”
“Poor François!” replied Bess, laughing. “I have known men affect pious
to gull their patrons; but never saw I before a man who had to affect
to be dissolute.”
“’Tis all due to your King Charles the Second. But for him, I could
have lived in peace with my aunt; but the effort to make myself appear
like that dissipated King, whom I detest and despise, is killing to
me.” And then François went into the common room.
Some one started a Jacobite song, “Awa’, Whigs, awa’!” and there was a
rousing chorus, at which Bess, on her dais, stood up, and her rich and
powerful soprano could be heard ringing like a bird above the masculine
voices. Presently a stranger entered, who seemed to have news; and in
a few moments François Delaunay left the group which surrounded the
new-comer, and coming out of the room to Bess, said, with a pale face,--
“There is very desperate news about Richard Egremont. He went to
England three weeks ago, was apprehended, and now lies in Newgate gaol
under sentence of death. Such is the news brought from London.”
Bess remained silent for a moment.
“They’ll hang him, sure,” she said. “They hanged Sir John Fenwick and
the rest; and Dicky,--Mr. Egremont, I mean,--being a Jesuit, will have
no chance for his life.”
Then, after a moment, she continued: “If I were there, with money, I
might help him. It a’n’t so hard to get out of Newgate--” She stopped
at this, and François said,--
“If I had the money I would give it you; but, alas!” He turned out his
pockets, showing a few crowns.
“I have some money at Paris, but there’s no knowing how much might
be needed; we might have to charter a vessel to bring him back. I
wonder,” she continued, an idea striking her, “if that old woman--”
“The Duchess? She is a free and liberal woman--sometimes,” replied
François.
“You come with me,” was Bess’s sudden response, seizing her hood and
cloak, and calling for Jacques to take her place.
In two minutes she was walking rapidly through the quiet streets, and
then through the forest, black and still, François finding difficulty
in keeping up with her. It was little more than ten o’clock at night
when they reached the château de Beaumanoir, a mile from the edge of
the forest; but all was dark in the building, except a single window.
François led Bess through a small door, and then she demanded of a
sleepy porter to be shown Madame do Beaumanoir’s room.
“But Madame the Duchess is in bed. I dare not,” replied the man.
“Very well,” replied Bess, coolly, and making a dash for the stairs at
her right; “I can find my way without any of you stupid lackeys.”
She had no difficulty, once in the corridor, in marking Madame de
Beaumanoir’s room; and when she knocked loudly at the door, a maid
appeared.
“I want to see your mistress, this moment,” cried Bess, in agitation.
“I am afraid it is impossible; madame is in her bed, with the curtains
drawn,” replied the woman, civilly enough.
Bess wasted no words on her, as she had wasted none on the lackey, and
with one strong arm thrusting the maid aside, she entered the anteroom,
and marched through to the bedroom, where a night-light burned by a
great green and gold bed. The maid, recovering herself, dashed after
her; but Bess waved her back, and seizing the bed-curtain, drew it
back. As she did so, Madame de Beaumanoir, who was in the bed, uttered
a piercing shriek, and disappeared under the bedclothes. This conduct,
so astonishing on Madame de Beaumanoir’s part, staggered Bess; but she
held her ground stoutly.
The maid then began adding her screams to Madame de Beaumanoir’s,--
“Go away! go away! Madame wishes you to leave the room at once! For
God’s sake, go!”
Bess, more and more amazed, still declined to budge. Madame de
Beaumanoir, under the bedclothes, continued to emit shrieks; but the
maid, ceasing her noise, ran to a chiffonier, and taking from it a wig
and a set of Paris teeth, returned to the bed, motioning frantically to
Bess, upon whom light began to break.
“I will go into the anteroom for five minutes,” she said, loftily; “but
I shall return at the end of that time, as I am compelled to see Madame
the Duchess.”
With this, she marched out. Five minutes later, when she came back
into the bedroom, Madame de Beaumanoir was sitting up majestically in
bed, a full set of very white teeth in her mouth, her cheeks reddened,
and a wig on her head, though in the haste of preparation, the maid
had clapped the wig on before removing the nightcap. But Madame de
Beaumanoir, serenely unconscious, and with her stateliest air, said:
“Pray, pardon my agitation; but I was much alarmed at having my
bed-curtains pulled open, and seeing a stranger at my bedside.”
Bess, in the midst of her distress, could not but smile, but she only
said,--
“I did not know I was so alarming. However,” she added, gravely, “your
Ladyship’s Grace must know that only something of the most pressing
nature would induce me to rouse you at this hour. It is to tell you
the desperate news concerning D-- I mean Mr. Richard Egremont, the
Jesuit priest. He is now in Newgate prison under sentence of death. I
take horses for Paris this night on my way to London to see if he can
be saved. I know that hateful prison well, and if I have money enough
I may be able to get him out of that place and out of England. I have
some money in Paris,--a thousand livres,--but I know not if that will
be enough. You once told me--that day upon the terrace long ago--that
if I wanted a service to come to you. Now I come to you to redeem that
promise. I want more money--much money--all the money you can lay
your hands on to-night--to help me save Mr. Richard Egremont from the
gallows. If I live I will pay it back, whether I can save his life or
no.”
Madame de Beaumanoir looked at Bess, as she deliberately uttered this.
“I know a good deal about you, Lukens,” she said, condescendingly; “you
want some money immediately. You shall have all that I can command at
this moment. I scarcely know young Egremont, but I know his cousin, Mr.
Roger Egremont, and I knew all that family in days past.”
She motioned to the maid, who brought her a dressing-case; from it she
took some gold and notes.
“Here,” she said, “are about twelve hundred livres. Take them and try
to save the poor lad. I cannot bear the thought of a good-looking
Englishman being hanged. There are too few of them anyway. François
shall take you to Paris to-night.”
Bess put the money into the pocket of her gown, and then, stooping
over, surprised Madame de Beaumanoir very much by giving her a rousing
smack of a kiss on either cheek. And then, running out, she called
loudly,--
“Mr. François! Mr. François! you are to take me to Paris to-night!”
An hour after midnight the sober house of Papa Mazet was knocked up by
Bess, with François, and when the sunrise of a July morning was gilding
the spires of Paris, Bess, with François still for an escort, was well
out of Paris on the road to Calais.
On the afternoon of the second day Bess Lukens touched her native soil
again after an absence of more than seven years.
She felt no thrill of joy, or of any other emotion, when she looked
about her on the shore at Dover. She had been a miserable creature in
England; all her early associations with her own country were repugnant
to her. The passionate attachment which Dicky Egremont felt for his own
land was a mystery to Bess Lukens.
“Now, Mr. Roger may well love Egremont; but Dicky, without an acre of
ground, a stick or a stone in England--why can’t the boy rest quiet in
France?” For nothing could ever make Bess believe Dicky to be aught but
a boy still.
Bess’s knowledge of the humble class to which she belonged was
complete, and she knew perfectly well how to achieve success with
innkeepers, post-boys, and the like. So she inaugurated her journey to
London by walking up boldly to the first decent inn she saw, and asking
for the landlord, and demanding, first, dinner, and afterward horses
for London. At the same time she offered some French gold in exchange
for English money.
The landlord looked at her keenly, but Bess, handsomely dressed and
perfectly calm and composed, was entirely at her ease.
“How did you come by this, mistress?” asked the innkeeper, turning over
the gold.
“’Tis none of your business, sir,” tartly replied Bess. “If you don’t
want to change it, there’s other inns, I reckon, in Dover; and if you
change it, don’t you go for to playing me any tricks in the exchange. I
know to a farthing what I ought to have, and I’ll have it if there is
law in the land.”
Boldness is the best diplomacy in the world sometimes, and Bess Lukens
was always master of this sort of diplomacy. The innkeeper, who would
probably have had her arrested had she shown the smallest timidity, was
himself somewhat awed by Bess’s lofty tone and commanding manner, and
proceeded to change the money. Bess watched him narrowly, pounced upon
a couple of worn sixpences, threw them out, and then demanded that the
horses should be made ready while she ate.
The innkeeper very obsequiously followed her commands, but his
curiosity tempted him to say, in the presence of the postilions, just
as Bess was starting, “I should think, ma’am, you’d be afeerd to go the
journey to London alone.”
“Afraid of what?” demanded Bess, her foot on the step of the chaise,
and turning back with her bright eyes full of scorn. “Afraid of what?
Of these two post-boys? La! I could wallop ’em both together;” which
seemed true, as both postilions were considerably smaller than she was.
“And afraid of highwaymen? Not me. I’d say, ‘Take my money: it’s not
much, for most of what I have is in the bank at London; but just let me
go my way,’--which they would.” Bess’s money, however, was mostly in
notes, and those were very artfully concealed in her stockings.
And so saying, she stepped into the chaise, and was soon bowling along
rapidly to London.
Her thoughts on the way were anxious, but not wholly gloomy. She relied
on her money and on her knowledge of the prison to get Dicky out. And
she knew him to be so intelligent and so familiar with England that
once out of prison he could escape detection almost anywhere, and as
soon as the hubbub of his disappearance had quieted down, it would be
easy enough to smuggle him across the water. The whole of the day was
consumed in the journey, and it was past nightfall on a soft July night
when her chaise rolled under the dark and forbidding archway of Newgate
she so well remembered. It seemed darker and blacker to her than ever,
and the grimy lantern that swung overhead was like a sinister eye in an
evil face.
There was a main door, which was bolted and barred, but a little way
off was a small door, opening, as it were, into a cellar. Bess went
straight to this little door, and beat a thundering rat-tat-tat upon
it. In a moment it was opened, showing her a dismal little room, in
which sat Diggory Hutchinson, looking not a day older than he was when
he so awkwardly sued for Bess’s favor, seven years before.
“You don’t know me, Diggory,” said Bess with a bright smile, walking
forward into the light from a couple of tallow candles.
Truly, Diggory knew her, and yet did not know her. Was this modish
creature, with her silk mantle, her embroidered hood, her fan at her
side, and a jewel in her stomacher, old Tim Lukens’s niece? Diggory
tried to reconstruct her as he remembered her,--in her coarse stuff
gown, and clumsy shoes, with her shapely arms showing below her short
sleeves. But it was vain. There were two Bess Lukenses, and to this one
he was stranger, and was a little afraid of her.
“Come, man,” cried Bess, “I am here on important business, and I want
you to keep it quiet. Are there any Jesuit gentlemen here?”
“Yes,” answered Diggory, still disconcerted. “Mr. Richard Egremont,--a
cousin to him as was Mr. Roger Egremont, that you remembers.”
“That’s all I want to know,” replied Bess, cheerfully, surprised that
she should have found her man so easily, and found him alive. “Now,
like a good man, don’t go rousing the place. I know you need not. I
know how Newgate is conducted, bad luck to it, and you won’t be for
getting me in any trouble, now, will you? That’s a good Diggory.”
She had stepped up close to Diggory, and had put one strong,
well-shaped hand upon his arm, and looked into his eyes with a frank,
compelling gaze. Many men and women stronger and better than poor
Diggory Hutchinson had succumbed to the natural charm of that glance
and that touch, so he only said,--
“I’ll not be getting you in any trouble if you don’t get into it
yourself.”
“Of course, Diggory,” continued Bess, in a wheedling voice. “You’ll not
turn me in the street this time of night. Sure, you’ll let me sleep in
a cell, without telling anybody, and if you will agree to let me stay
I’ll tell you what I came for.”
“In course,” replied Diggory, still very much puzzled. Not having seen
Bess during the period of her metamorphosis, he was naturally the more
struck with the change. She was so exquisitely handsome, and so well
dressed, and in addition to her old good-naturedly hectoring way, she
had a subtle note of command in her voice, and a pleasant look of
authority in her eye. Diggory was at a loss to know what had turned
Bess Lukens into this dazzling creature.
“You must know, my good Diggory,” said Bess, in a condescending tone,
“that I have been in France these last seven years, and I have spoke
so much French that if I fall into it now and then, you’ll not be
surprised. I am one of the singers at the King’s Opera in Paris.”
“I remembers,” said Diggory, “thou wert always a-singing and
a-trilling. You always made a mighty noise.”
Bess smiled with the air of a gracious princess on Diggory. “Singing is
well paid, my good lad, if one can sing well enough.”
“Are you married, Bess?” asked Diggory, after a pause.
“No, and I have no mind to be. There is enough trouble in this life to
give everybody a plenty, and I don’t want to increase my share of it by
marrying. But if I could ever marry anybody, it would be an Englishman.
I love the French _en masse_, that means the whole of ’em, but I am not
for marrying any one of ’em.”
Diggory took this as a personal compliment, and grinned, and then
Bess, abruptly turning the conversation, said, “And when is Mr. Dicky
Egremont to be tried?”
“He don’t need to be tried no more,” calmly replied Diggory. “He were
tried and convicted once, and that’s enough. He were resentenced day
before yesterday, and he is to be hanged to-morrow morning, by six of
the clock.”
At these dreadful words, uttered in the cool and matter-of-fact manner
of a prison keeper, Bess started from her chair, clasped her hands,
and stood mute and stunned with horror. Diggory, hardened to all the
frightful scenes of a gaoler’s life, looked quietly at her face,
suddenly grown pallid, at her dilating eyes, at her tall and graceful
figure, first rigid with the shock of what she had heard, and then
trembling violently.
She could not speak, but motioned him to go on. Diggory, to whom Dicky
Egremont was no more and no less than one of many Jesuit gentlemen who
had walked calmly into the prison and calmly out again to the gallows,
could think of nothing else to say but to repeat:
“He was resentenced o’ Monday, that was day before yesterday; and he
is to be hanged o’ Thursday, that’s to-morrow.” Then, seeing in Bess’s
wild white face a look of agonized inquiry, he continued, with the best
possible intentions,--
“The Jesuit gentlemen, you know, is always quartered afore they’re
dead. Ketch, the hangman, wanted me to turn his ’prentice, and was
a-going to show me on a calf, but I hadn’t no stomach for it.”
The dingy room swam before Bess, and the two miserable candles
danced up and down. A vision passed before her of Dicky, lying on
the ground,--she knew all about it, although she had never seen an
execution. Diggory, after a pause, spoke again. “Them Jesuits is hard
to kill. One of ’em when I was a boy held out for half an hour after he
was out open. He set up on the ground and made that papist sign like
this here.” Diggory crossed himself. “He were a handsome old man too,
and one of the gentry. A duke come to see him afore he was hanged. ’Tis
no telling how long they’ll live after they are cut down.” Suddenly
Bess’s strong self-control gave way. She uttered a loud and piercing
scream; her voice, always clear, melodious, and penetrating, echoed
through the stone archways and corridors of the vast building, like the
death cry of music itself. Diggory, at this, flew at her, stopping her
mouth with his palm, and Bess sunk on a chair.
“Hush! hush!” he cried. “They’ll catch you and I’ll lose my place, I
will.”
There was a deep silence afterward. Bess’s mind was in a tumult, while
Diggory listened for coming footsteps.
“Nobody’s coming,” he said, after five minutes had passed. “They think
it’s some o’ the prisoners. Oftentimes they screams like that,--we
don’t take no notice unless they has a regular spell of it.”
“Diggory,” gasped Bess after a while, “you ever had a good heart. Take
me to Mr. Egremont’s cell. I know you have a pass-key. Diggory, I will
give you this jewel, I swear I will, if you will but let me see Mr.
Egremont.”
She unfastened with trembling fingers the brooch from her breast, and
pressed it in his hand.
“I don’t want nothing,” said Diggory, bashfully. “I know, and you know,
Bess, that it’s worth my place, and maybe something worse, to let you
into Mr. Egremont’s cell to-night,--but I’ll do it. Howsomedever, I
must go and see the guard first.”
Bess handed him all the gold and paper money she could find in her
purse. “Use it all,--and I have more,--only let me see Mr. Egremont
this night.”
Diggory went out, closing and locking the door after him. Bess sat
trembling with horror. She had been frightened about Dicky,--she feared
that he would get himself in trouble, as Roger had done,--but that it
would come to this, she had not fully expected. It seemed hours before
Diggory returned; in truth it was but little more than twenty minutes.
“Come,” he said, in a low voice, “and don’t make not the least bit of
noise.”
Bess rose, and Diggory, blowing out the candles, led the way to the
corridor, and then downward to a cellar. For the first time in her
life, physical weakness almost overcame Bess Lukens. In their stealthy
progress along dark and unused passages and cellars, through dismal
corridors and noisome courts, she often had to stop and lean, half
fainting, on Diggory. At last they reached a narrow stair, at the top
of which was a cell, with a lantern in it, and a stone bench. Here
Diggory left Bess, and after a moment another door silently opened, and
in walked Dicky Egremont.
He was handcuffed, but otherwise had no fetters or chains,--and was
fully dressed in a shabby cassock, and had his beretta on his head,
from which his short, curling light hair escaped. Never had Bess seen
his pleasant, boyish face more calm and smiling.
“How good this is of you, dear Bess,” he said, and took her hand.
But Bess, albeit mindful of Diggory’s warning to make no noise, was
sobbing convulsively, and trying to stifle her sobs in her mantle. She
could not speak, but Dicky could, in his usual soft and artless voice.
“Come,” he said, “you have done me the greatest service in the world by
coming to me, and I think you must have run an extra hazard,--and now
you sob so you can neither speak nor hear me. ’Tis no way to do.” But
Bess could only sob and sob for a while longer, Dicky waiting patiently
meanwhile. Presently, under the spell of his composure, she grew calm.
“True,” she whispered, “I have my whole life to cry in,--and only a
little while to be with thee. But, oh, Dicky, cannot money get thee
out of this? I have a plenty,--my own and Madame de Beaumanoir’s,--and
I know this place well,--and Diggory Hutchinson, the turnkey, is my
friend.”
“No Bess. ’Tis useless. Perhaps a week ago--but not now. However,
’tis no matter. Better men than I have died as I shall die to-morrow
morning. I am no hero,--but I hope I can die as becomes a priest and a
gentleman.”
“Tell me all,” said Bess, still trembling convulsively, “that I may
take it back to France,--to those that love you,--to poor Roger.”
“Yes,” replied Dicky, his bright eyes moistening a little. “I should
like Roger, whom I love best of any person in the world, to know how I
came to this pass. Well, to make a long story short, I got the mission
to England, although every one of my countrymen in the Society of Jesus
was on file as eager to go. I came as a strolling fiddler, and was safe
enough for a time. I even lay in the village of Egremont several days
and nights. You have no notion, Bess!” cried Dicky, his tone growing
animated, “how I liked my fiddler’s life. You see, it was mostly in the
open air,--and it was so sweet to be in English fields and woods again,
and to be at Egremont!”
There was a kind of rapture in his voice.
“How you and Roger do love Egremont!” sighed Bess,--she had said it
many times before.
“Yes, we are simple about it, I think. But, Bess, that last week of
freedom was the very happiest of my life. Was it not good of God to
give me so much happiness--and the very sort I would have asked--at the
very last?”
“No!” cried Bess, in whom nature was ever stronger than grace. “It is
not good of God to let you be murdered,--to--”
Bess stopped; something in Dicky’s eye compelled her.
“And then,” said Dicky, resuming where he had left off, “it was so good
to play my fiddle as much as I liked. You see, Bess, at the seminary
there were more serious things to do; and I never could manage to have
the company of my dear fiddle for more than half an hour in the day.
The Superior made me play the great organ in church,--but I never loved
it like my fiddle. And I played English tunes all the time, except
once, at the very last; and I was confused, and played ‘Les Folies en
Espagne,’ and that was the beginning of my being discovered.” And then,
actually laughing, Dicky said, “Tell that to Madame de Beaumanoir.”
Bess, with tears dropping down her pale face, motioned him to go on.
“As I tell you, I was a whole week in and about Egremont, baptizing
and administering the sacraments, and saying mass between midnight and
dawn. I grew a beard, and no one knew me. I did not, however, spend
every night with the Catholic villagers, for fear it might arouse
suspicion. Sometimes I lay at taverns, paying for my supper by my
fiddling; and when I stayed with the farmer lads, I was up with the
dawn and in the fields, working for my dinner; and at the noontime
I would play while the rustics danced,--it did me good to see their
simple joyousness, and oftentimes I felt like jumping up and shaking
a leg, and fiddling too. And in truth, Bess,” here Dicky blushed, “I
actually did it once or twice, from pure joy at finding myself at
Egremont once more, with the honest people there, and the sun shining
so merrily. I pitied poor Roger when I should have to tell him how
sweet the whole place looked. The oak avenue is gone, but I never saw
such sward anywhere as at Egremont, nor such delicious air. And such
excellent eggs and milk; better, I am sure, than can commonly be found.”
A ghost of a smile appeared upon poor Bess’s face, pale and drenched
with tears.
“All went well for a whole week, and on the very next day Hodge, the
shoemaker in the village, was to take a load of turnips to Exeter, and
I was to meet him on the road, and he was to give me a lift. But then
I got a message from some poor people in the next parish, and I had to
go to them. I went in the day, and in the night the people assembled
at the house of a Catholic farmer, and I baptized several children,
and heard confessions and said mass at midnight. All was over, and
the people were departing quietly before daybreak, when some of the
King’s people passing by suspected something, and entered the house.
I barely had time to flee, carrying my fiddle, as that was necessary
to my disguise; but they captured my cassock and some other things. It
was a dark night, fortunately, and as I escaped through a back lane,
although the whole pack were after me, I managed to give them the slip.
I thought the safest thing to do was to return to Egremont, that being
likely the last place they would look for me,--Sir Hugo being very
active in hunting down Catholics.”
“Was that villain there?” cried Bess. “May God punish him!”
“You shall hear. I walked and ran the rest of the night, and just
as the sun was rising I found myself in the Egremont woods. Oh, how
sweet they were! There was so much dew on the grass that it looked
like rime, and so many primroses; but I will not say another word
about Egremont. Although my beard disguised me well, I thought it best
not to stop in our village, but went on further, several miles, to
another one. I got my breakfast at the inn, and then asked for work
in the fields, which was given me. At noon, when we had dinner,--the
poor men and women dividing theirs with me,--I tuned up my fiddle to
play to them, when I saw, riding along the highroad, not a stone’s
throw from me, Hugo Stein. I thought he was in Germany,--I had heard
so,--but it seems he returned unexpectedly only the day before. I was
so disconcerted at the sudden sight of him that instead of playing
‘Green Sleeves,’ as I was about to, I found myself playing ‘Les Folies
en Espagne,’ which is much played on the continent, but not known here.
Sir Hugo stopped his horse, looked at me very hard, then leaping his
horse over the hedge he rode at me, saying,--
“‘You are a popish priest in disguise. I know you, Richard Egremont!’
“I laughed, and went on with my fiddling, although at that very moment
I knew that I was to die on the gibbet. He then seized me by the
collar, saying,--
“‘Come with me. I shall hand you over to the magistrates.’
“I knew all was over then, and putting my fiddle under my arm, I
walked along by his side as he again took the road toward Egremont.
And to show you, Bess, how hard it is to forgive one’s enemies, and
the enemies of those one loves, I could not but think, ‘Oh, had I but
a good horse, and sword or pistol in my hand, would I not make you
payment for the wrongs you have heaped on us, miserable bastard that
you are!’ And in truth, Bess, although I hope I shall have grace given
me to-morrow morning to forgive Sir Hugo, I have it not yet.”
“I should think not!” replied Bess, with much simplicity.
“I followed him to Egremont, for Sir Hugo is very active in enforcing
the laws against poachers and papists,--he classes them together,--and
often detains suspected persons at Egremont until they can be put in
Whitford gaol. He took me into the house,--oh, Bess, I thought I could
be calm and cool under all things, but when I saw the rooms where I
had played when a boy, and thought of Roger, I could scarcely forbear
weeping.
“Sir Hugo took me into the little book-room, off the gallery library,
the very place I wished to go, as I knew of the ‘priests’ hole;’ but he
said to me, smiling, ‘I know what you are looking for. It is closed up.
The present owner of Egremont obeys the laws of the realm, and harbors
no man against the law.’ I spoke no word, except, looking hard at the
place in the wall where it had been, I said, without reflection, ‘God’s
will be done.’ He kept me there until the next day,--the last night I
was ever to spend under the roof of Egremont,--and the next day, my
cassock and other things being found, the country was in an uproar, the
Whigs demanding my blood, and others who would have been more merciful
were afraid to speak, for fear of being thought implicated in last
year’s hanging business. It was considered best, however, to remove
me to London nine days ago, as some of the poor people at Egremont
were muttering very much, and threatening to attack the Whitford gaol.
So I was brought here and resentenced on Monday, before the Court of
the King’s Bench, to be hanged, cut down while I was yet alive, and
quartered. I was, however, spared that part of the sentence of Sir
John Friend and Sir William Perkins, whose heads and quarters were
ordered nailed to Temple Bar.”
A death-like paleness overspread Bess’s usually ruddy face. She was
physically so strong, and in her buffet with the world she had acquired
so much self-possession that her own agitation actually frightened her.
She sat white and silent, and trembling in every limb. Not so Dicky,
who was as calm as if the morning’s sun were not the last he was to
see. “Now, Bess Lukens,” he said in a cheerful voice, meant to compose
her, “listen to what I say, for I charge you with my farewells. I have
nothing to give any one but my blessing. First, make my duty to my
King, the Queen, and the Prince of Wales, and tell them I die their
loyal and dutiful subject, as becomes an Egremont. Tell my superiors
that I trust in God for grace to die in a manner befitting the Society
of Jesus, and I thank them for having sent me here. As for Roger, say
to him that I ever loved him best of anybody in the world, and that
when I remember my boyhood, friendless but for him, and recall that I
never learned from him or saw in him anything but the nicest honor, I
cannot express the gratitude that fills my heart. It did my heart good
to see how our poor people at Egremont still had him in loving memory,
and longed for him to come back. And for you, Bess, the best and truest
of friends--”
For the first time Dicky’s musical voice broke. Here was the actual
farewell of the dying to the living. “You who have come to me when
I expected to see no familiar face. Well, Bess, remember what I
often said to you when you sang those sweet songs and anthems to my
violin,--pray that we again sing them together in Paradise.”
Bess rose. She had told him little or nothing of what she had meant to
say to him. She had not even told him about Madame de Beaumanoir and
the money, but she felt herself unequal to more. Her strong body and
her strong soul were alike giving way. As she went toward the door,
like a sleep-walker, she heard Dicky’s clear, sweet voice calling after
her,--
“Good-bye, dear friend; God bless thee forever and ever!”
His manacled hands were uplifted in blessing, his round, boyish face
had a new and glorified expression, his eyes were glowing with faith
and courage,--Dicky Egremont had grown to the full stature of a man,
nay, of a hero.
By sunrise next morning the distance from Newgate prison to Tyburn was
crowded with people, mostly on foot, but many on horseback, others in
carts and chaises, and some even in coaches. The executions usually
took place in the prison, but the execution of a young Jesuit of good
family was too interesting an occasion for the citizens of London to be
deprived of the full sight,--public executions being public holidays
in London town. The drawing and quartering were likely to be highly
interesting, and these Jesuit gentlemen had a reputation ever since the
time of Queen Elizabeth of dying with much propriety.
It was a hazy July morning, the blue mist lying low along the river
front, and a pallid sun shining dimly out of a gray sky. The green
spaces in Hyde Park were full of a tumultuous crowd, laughing, talking,
eating, and all tending toward Tyburn. Some wished to secure the
best places so as to see the tortures to be inflicted on the young
gentleman; others were willing to forego that in order to watch the
bearing of the condemned on his tedious way in the cart from Newgate to
Tyburn.
Among those earliest on the ground at Tyburn was Bess Lukens. She was
attired altogether in black, and her tall and handsome figure and
her striking beauty were intensified by her sombre dress. Her clear
complexion was pale; and her face, although full of keen sorrow, was
calm. All that was most earthly in her beauty was refined away, and
her bearing was perfectly quiet, dignified, and lofty. By her side
stood Diggory Hutchinson, in his holiday clothes. He was by no means
so composed as Bess Lukens, but looked about him anxiously, and seemed
nervous, though not irresolute. The multitude about the scaffold
speedily recognized the fact that the tall, pale, handsome young woman,
in her black gown and hood, was one near to the condemned. The crowd
looked at her curiously and not unsympathetically; nor did they press
upon her, so that she stood in a little ring of people, as it were,
with Diggory close behind her. She bore the scrutiny of many eyes
without flinching, and, indeed, was unconscious of it. Whispers began
to be circulated about her as the crowds were increased by thousands,
who began to pour, like a mighty river, from all quarters of the town
into the Tyburn district. Some said, “She is his sister;” others, “She
was in love with him;” and others again, “She tried to rescue him;” but
Bess remained calm and unnoticing. At last one man, more callous and
curious than the most, came up to her and said:--
“You seem to be mightily consarned, miss. Maybe you knowed the
condemned.”
“I know him well,” replied Bess, in her clear, penetrating voice.
“Is it true,” asked the man, emboldened by her reply, “that he is of a
high family?”
“As true as the Gospels,” replied Bess. “It takes men born and bred
like Mr. Richard Egremont to come back here to England, when he thinks
it is his duty, although the gallows beckons to him. Common people like
you and me a’n’t equal to it.”
At this a laugh went around, much to poor Bess’s discomfiture, who
looked about with sad and anxious eyes, wondering what she had said to
provoke a laugh.
The man, a respectable-looking tradesman, nettled by her words, replied
tartly:--
“Look a-here, mistress. If you are so monstrous fond of this here
traitor and Jesuit as is about to get his deserts, maybe you are in the
same boat with him; maybe you’d be better off in prison than free!”
“If you think I can be frightened you don’t know me,” replied Bess,
still composed. “I am not afraid to say that I am a friend to Mr.
Richard Egremont; as true a gentleman and as loyal an Englishman as
ever stepped; only, they won’t let him practise his religion here. And
there’s a plenty of people here as feels sorry for him, and knows he
a’n’t deserving of his fate. But you are all cowards, and afraid you’ll
be taken up if you speak your minds, and so you keep as still as mice.
But I am not afraid.”
At that Diggory said to Bess, in a low voice,--
“For God’s sake, Bess, hold thy tongue, or we may both find ourselves
in gaol!”
“Why?” asked Bess, quietly. “I’m a freeborn Briton. I can speak my
mind, can’t I, if I say no evil of the powers? And I tell you, Diggory
Hutchinson, that nothing on earth can make me say anything but the
truth when I am asked about Mr. Richard Egremont!”
Then there was a faint and distant roar,--the sound of many voices. The
victim was approaching; and that menacing shout, ever growing nearer
and louder, was a cry for blood.
The man who had questioned Bess then began again:
“But I say, mistress--”
“Hold your tongue!” cried a woman near to him. “Have you no heart in
your body, man, that you can keep tormenting this poor soul as is in
trouble enough, God knows?”
The man slunk off at this, and the people near Bess kept a respectful
silence.
The roar swelled deeper and louder and nearer, as the streets leading
from the Newgate quarter became black with approaching people. The
howl for blood echoed to the heavens and again to the earth beneath;
and when it seemed to fill the universe, the crowd parted, showing the
cart, and in it Dicky Egremont and one of his gaolers.
Bess Lukens’s keen eyes sought Dicky’s face, thinking it would be
strange and glorified, as she had seen it the night before; but instead
he looked exactly the same pleasant-faced, boyish Dicky she had seen
playing the fiddle in Madame Michot’s garden, singing Jacobite songs
and laughing with her and Roger at St. Germains. His face had its
usual ruddy hue; his few days of confinement had not robbed him of
either flesh or color. He was seen to be pleasantly conversing with his
companion, Ketch, who sat on the bench beside him. He wore his cassock
and beretta; his hands were tied together behind him.
As he came into full view, something like a groan and shudder went
around among a part of the crowd,--he was so young, so fresh-colored,
so full of life. He turned around, and his eyes fell upon the gallows
and all the other gruesome preparations for his death, but he did
not show so much as by the flicker of an eyelash the least fear or
shrinking.
The cart was now driven up close, the sheriff’s men closed around it,
and the gaoler, getting out himself, prepared to aid the prisoner to
descend. But Dicky, always agile, jumped lightly out of the cart,
hampered as he was.
The crowd pressed closer about the roped-off space, and among them
was Bess Lukens. As she caught Dicky’s eyes, he gave her a glance of
recognition, but forbore to speak or bow, or in any way indicate that
he knew her. But poor Bess cried out loudly,--
“God bless and help thee, Mr. Egremont!”
“I trust He will,” answered Dicky, simply.
The people who frequented executions liked to have their excitement
spun out, and the best part of the show was to them the last words
of the condemned. No officers of the law would have dared to balk a
London mob of the pleasure of hearing a victim in his own defence; and
so, when a ribald voice shouted out, “Come now, Master Jesuit, tell
us how you come to be here,” an instant hush fell upon the assembled
multitudes.
“My friends,” said Dicky,--his voice ever the sweetest and clearest,
with something in it of the freshness of the larks and blackbirds at
Egremont,--“I came here because it was my duty. I will not say how I
came.”
At this, the woman who had rebuked Bess’s tormentor suddenly burst into
tears and interrupted him by crying out,--
“It was a shame to send thee here, poor boy.”
“I was not sent,” said Dicky; “it was by favor that I came. Every
Englishman in the Society of Jesus wished to come in my place. This is
our native country, and we love her, although she persecutes us. And
I call God to witness, and you, His creatures, to believe that I die
joyfully for my King, James Stuart, and for my religion. I was offered
my life if I would abjure both, but no true man can barter his honor
and his conscience for his life. I ask those of you who have mercy in
your hearts to pray of God that I be delivered of my sins, and also, as
no man of the Society of Jesus who has fallen under the executioner’s
hand has died other than as a man and a Jesuit should die, so pray that
an Egremont be not the first to do otherwise. For although at this hour
I am about to face the great God before whom gentle and simple are
alike, yet I would not die unworthy of my ancestors. And if it be a sin
to think of such things at such a time, I humbly ask pardon of God for
that, along with my other offences. I pardon all those who have brought
me to this, as I hope to be pardoned, and I thank God that after much
tribulation His grace has enabled me to say that from my heart.”
As Dicky finished speaking, there was a silence, a silence that was
like that of the grave, among all those vast multitudes of people
who filled the open space, choked the streets, and made the roofs
and windows black with humanity. And in the midst of it the hangman,
dressed in red, appeared upon the scaffold so strangely and quickly
that he seemed like a spectre. As soon as Dicky saw this scarlet-clad
and masked figure, he walked steadily up the rickety steps of the
gallows and turned to have his hands untied. This the hangman did, and
then went through the usual form of asking pardon of the condemned.
“I pardon thee freely, my friend,” replied Dicky, “and give thee the
only thing I have left which will be of service to thee.”
He took from the pocket of his rusty cassock a fine silk handkerchief,
which he handed the hangman, at the same time saying a word to him in a
whisper.
The hangman then removed the cassock, and Dicky took off the beretta
which had covered his fair hair. The hangman rolled the cassock and
beretta into a bundle, and then threw them carelessly behind him. They
fell almost at the feet of Diggory Hutchinson, who quickly seized the
parcel, and hid it under his cloak without being seen.
Dicky then stood in his black breeches and stockings and his white
shirt, the graceful lines of his young figure silhouetted against the
morning sky. The delicacy of his hands and feet, his girlish red and
white complexion, were singularly striking.
He had no crucifix, but he clasped his hands and prayed silently for
the space of a minute. Then, raising his head, he looked about him,
smiling. The sun, which had been shining hazily, now suddenly blazed
out in splendor, and all the earth was bathed in the golden glory.
As Dicky’s intrepid eyes lighted upon Bess Lukens, standing pressed
against the rope, she cried out in her musical, high-pitched voice,--
“God bless thee!” to which Dicky called back, “God bless thee!”
Then, making the sign of the cross, he turned to the hangman.
There was a breathless silence. A few women sobbed and shrieked, and a
few men, racked with emotions strange to them, swore furiously, having
no other mode of expression. They saw the young figure drawn up; there
were a few convulsive movements, and all was still.
The crowd, mostly bloodthirsty, began to yell, “Cut him down! Cut the
Jesuit down! He’ll be dead before he is quartered!” The hangman was
long in doing this, but presently Dicky Egremont lay upon the ground
livid and panting; no groan escaped him.
The executioner then produced his instrument,--a butcher’s knife
sharpened like a razor. He plunged it into the quivering young body
before him. There was no cry, but a stifled exclamation, “Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit!” The butcher did his horrid work; the
more bloody-minded in the multitude crowding about him to dip their
handkerchiefs in the young Jesuit’s blood, and to tear off strips from
his gory clothing. But Dicky Egremont felt but one pang; the Lord Jesus
had received his spirit.