“The last, the fatal hour is come
That bears my love from me;
I hear the death-note of the drum,
I mark the gallows tree.
The bell has toll’d; it shakes my heart;
The trumpet speaks thy name;
And must my Gilderoy depart
To bear a death of shame?”
--_Campbell._
The watery sun of the third morning slowly dispelled the mists that
filled the vale of Warkcliff. Although the day was only yet in its
infancy, one would have thought, from seeing the crowd, that all the
denizens of the village and all the peasantry from the surrounding
domains had gathered in the open market place. Great numbers of the
rustics were armed; and parties of troopers, in De Ermstein’s pay,
pranced up and down, quelling disturbance, and maintaining order.
That concourse had assembled to behold the mosstrooper die. The busy
hammer of the artisan was heard sounding on the gibbet, which was in
course of erection in the centre of the market. It was finished after
much labour, and the workmen sat down at the foot of it, and, throwing
by their tools, partook heartily of bread and ale, which they shared
with some few notorious topers of the village who gathered round them.
Healths were drunk, and jests bandied about from mouth to mouth, as if
at some merry festival; troops of urchins romped around the gibbet;
mothers held up children in their arms to see it; and every window was
open and filled with eager faces. The armed men began to gather in
close ranks around the scene of death, and the crowd increased.
And now the bell in the old steeple began to toll, announcing the hour
of death. The sound of trumpets from the castle denoted that the
prisoner had been brought up from his cell. The gates were flung open,
and the cavalcade of death issued forth. Every murmur of the crowd was
hushed. Every eye was turned toward that grim procession. Amidst a
strong force of horsemen and footmen, under the personal leadership of
Sir Dacre, appeared the condemned outlaw. A cart, covered with black
cloth, and drawn by a sorry nag, stood near the gate. The hangman sat
at the head of it, in a grim dress, and having his face hidden by a
black vizard. The captive ascended the cart with the assistance of a
tall monk, who also followed him into it, and seemed preparing him for
death.
Somervil’s chains were away, but his hands were bound at his back by a
thick cord. His head was bare, and his long tresses flowed on his
shoulders, or blew in the gale. Not a shade of fear was perceptible
upon his calm countenance; his step never faltered; not a tremor ran
through a limb. He rose superior to his cruel doom. This fearful end
to his career had lost its usual terrors, and nothing could shake his
stoical courage and defiant haughtiness.
The bell still tolled! The sandglass of the outlaw’s life was fast
running out. If he had one painful emotion, it was when he thought of
Eleanor and the hopes of his heart, which were now withered and
destroyed. _She_ would hear of his sad fate, and mourn long without
consolation; but she would never behold his grave.
The bell tolled! And he who had striven for years to pierce the dark
mystery of his lineage was to die, and the secret to be impenetrable.
What frightful iniquity lay on the head of those who had reft him from
his parents’ arms, and brought him to a death like this. The hope of
his whole life was to discover his parentage, and to assume his own
just rank; but how had such a hope been crushed! And he would die,
ignorant of the mother at whose breast he hung.
The bell tolled! And when he beheld the crowd, and the armed men, and
the tall gibbet, and the open windows, fierce thoughts rushed like
furies through his heart. His death-scene was to be a holiday
spectacle; he was to be butchered, like the Gladiator of the
Colosseum, to make a holiday. O, how he thought of some grim night, of
rain and storm and darkness, when the wild bands of Cheviot would
burst upon Warkcliff and make it blaze to heaven!
The bell tolled! The shade of Eleanor again! The memory of the gentle
being who loved him! His thoughts could not forsake _her_! And how his
death would break her heart!
On with the procession! On to the spot of death. Let the bell toll,
and the trumpets blow, and the crowd shout. The prisoner was still
undaunted. Not all the triumph and the malice of his foes could shake
his stern composure.
He sat down in the cart beside the monk, who, with his missal open,
was muttering in a low tone, indistinctly heard by the prisoner, but
unheeded by him. The hangman sat watching them twain. But the monk was
so tall, so darkly cowled, so gaunt, and so repulsive. What he read,
or what he muttered, no one knew. He might have been muttering
fiendish spells.
The horsemen in front cleared away the crowd before the slowly-rolling
cart. The murmuring of the crowd broke out afresh, and men pressed and
fought forward, and children were held high up to look at _him_; and
women gazed keenly, and, turning to each other, said how handsome he
was, and so noble was his look. A sound of pity here and there was
drowned in the general noise; the guards called out for open room, and
horses pranced and bore back the eager spectators. And swords and
spears flashed, and feathers waved and danced, and the cart slowly
rolled on, bearing its doomed burden.
It rolled on slowly, and then stopped beneath the gibbet. The place of
death was reached. The rope hung dangling to and fro, and swaying in
the wind. The hangman rose and put forth his hand to seize it, but the
wind was so strong that he could not come near it for many minutes,
and this little incident furnished food for jest and laughter. He at
length caught it and made a noose.
The outlaw stood up lightly and looked around with an unmoved
countenance. Some seemed to be of the belief that he meant to address
the crowd; but it was not so. The bell ceased. Far down the valley the
old battle still waged between the morning mist and the sun and wind,
and the outlaw cast a long glance down the valley to descry the
distant hills of Cheviot; but, until the sun and wind had vanquished
their enemy, the blue hills of Cheviot could not be seen.
The hangman now approached the captive with the noosed rope in his
hand. Somervil involuntarily shuddered at the approach of that
dingy-looking, vizarded miscreant; but by that hideous miscreant’s
hands he must die.