THE RACK--THE DEVIL'S MARK.
"If on the rack you strain our bursting sinews;
If from the bleeding trunk you lop our limbs;
Or with slow fires protract the hours of pain,
We must abide it all."--_Boadicea_.
As yet neither the boot nor thumb screws had been adopted by the
Scottish courts; the ancient rack alone was the instrument of
torture, and now it stood before the eyes of the startled people in
all its naked and mysterious horror. Though totally repugnant to the
fundamental laws of Scotland, which are based on those of Rome, the
practice of obtaining confessions by torture in the Privy Council and
High Court of Justiciary was not discontinued until a hundred and
sixty years after the date of our history, in the reign of William
III., who, whatever he was in South Britain, will ever be remembered
in the north as one who was merciless as a Mohawk.
The rack, which Dobbie had uncovered, was a large frame of oak,
raised three feet from the floor, like a long, narrow bed without
spars, but having two rings at the head and two at the foot. The
aspect of this engine, with all its accompanying blocks, pulleys,
chains, and handspikes in the sockets of the windlass, froze Father
St. Bernard with horror. He crossed himself, beat his breast, and
closed his eyes.
Old and withered, with a long beard and a hollow-jawed sardonic
visage, with leering eyes, a fangless mouth, and bandy legs, Sanders
Screw, the torturer and headsman--the presiding genius over this
infernal machine--looked like an overgrown imp, as, with his
concurrents, he hurried agilely from ring to ring, and from rope to
rope, putting the whole in working order.
"_Agnus Dei!_" muttered the old priest, who, in a little volume which
he wrote, has transmitted an account of these things to us; "all this
for one frail body! May Heaven make it without feeling, even as the
hearts of those around us."
Powerless and unresisting, Jane was borne between Sanders Screw and
Nichol Birrel towards the rack, and placed within its frame. Birrel
remembered Roland Vipont and Douglasdale; and, trembling with joy and
revenge, made himself more than usually active. The costume of Screw
and his two concurrents had something strikingly horrible in it;
their doublets were scarlet--the judicial colour in Scotland--but
their brawny arms were bared to the elbow; and they wore dirty
leather aprons, extending from their necks to their knees. Lady
Jane's garments swept the floor, and her long hair, which became
unbound as her triangular cap fell off, floated over the shoulder of
Screw as he adjusted her in the frame. Then a shudder came over her
as the rings and cords were secured to her ankles and wrists, her
beautiful arms being extended at full length above her head,
revealing the exquisite rounding of her bust and waist. The whole
arrangement did not occupy a moment.
While in this frightful and humiliating position, with her head
supported in the hands of Screw's apprentice, and her blue silk skirt
drooping on the floor, Redhall dared not look towards her, but sat
down beside the rack, and bent his bloodshot eyes upon the blank
sheet of paper, whereon the coming confession was to be written. He
trembled excessively. On the other side was the physician, who
attended all such _questioning_--John of the Silvermills--clad in
deep mourning, like all the courtiers and dependents of the king,
with a white St Andrew's cross on his black velvet mantle, and having
a large pouch at his girdle, wherein were various revivifying drugs
and essences.
Gently, but unceremoniously, the greater part of Jane's attire had
been loosened by the rapid application of a pair of scissors.
"Now then, the devil's mark," said the lord president, shading his
eyes with his hand, and peering forward over his desk.
Nichol Birrel, sworn pricker of the High Court, now approached with
his needle, and ruthlessly uncovered the whole neck, shoulders, and
bosom of the unhappy girl. Her skin was dazzlingly white, and shone
like polished ivory in the sunlight which streamed through the deep
mullions of the windows above her in many hazy flakes.
"Oh!" she murmured, and shuddered, while the hot, bitter tears were
seen to ooze from her closed eyelids. An icy sweat burst over
Redhall, to behold that beautiful figure extended, almost nude,
before so many unpitying and so many voluptuous eyes. His agony was
frightful. He could have screamed aloud; and, to prevent himself
doing so, buried his fingers in his breast beneath his robe. And
there she lay, with a form that might have passed for Venus--one so
delicate by nature and nurture, with her slender wrists and round
white ankles enclosed by strong iron bands, and her uncovered bosom
submitted to the eyes of so many men, and the rough paws of the
ruffian Birrel.
There were a few generous hearts in the crowd who cried "_shame!_"
and more than one gallant hand sought the hilt of a sword.
A pink spot, like a little rose-leaf, was discovered between her
bosom and her waist, and to this the pricker, after making the sign
of the cross and other preparations, applied his brod, or needle,
which was three inches long, and, to the horror and astonishment of
all, it sank up to the very handle in the mark, without Lady Seton
wincing once, or seeming even aware that she was touched by the
instrument.
Again and again the operation was repeated, and the pity of the
generous few became blended with the fear and repugnance of the many.
"The mark of hell--the signet of Satan is always thus," said the Lord
Kinloss; "for it is lost to all sensation, and deadened to the touch
of every instrument--it is bloodless."
The long sharp needle of Birrel was pure and bright, as well it might
be; for it was constructed like a theatrical poniard, to _retire_
into the handle with the slightest pressure.
Blank dismay was impressed on every face.
Thrice Redhall asked her, in a hoarse and hollow voice, to confess,
and thrice she gazed at him wildly, but made no reply; for the powers
of life seemed already to have forsaken her. He then made a signal
to Sanders Screw, and turned away his head.
Sanders, with his wrinkled and fibrous hands, grasped the handspikes
of the windlass as a seaman would previous to starting an anchor.
Then, with the whole weight and strength of his meagre body, the
wretch suddenly depressed them, and every joint of the unhappy being
cracked in its socket.
Father St. Bernard muffled his head in his cowl, to shut out the
fearful sound.
She uttered a cry, the horror of which contrasted strangely with the
sweetness and melody of her voice. Redhall felt as if he could have
expired; and, in unison with her, he uttered a groan so painful and
full of despair, that it must have startled all, had it not been
blended with the cry of Jane.
"Mother of God! Mother of God! I will confess--I will confess! Oh,
Roland, Roland!"
At these words Redhall bent his head towards the floor, for he felt
that he had the face of a Nero, the eyes of a fiend, and he gave
another of his horrible smiles. The name of Roland recalled his
hatred, and that hatred triumphed over terror and compunction, as
ferocity did over feebleness. The bars were a little relaxed, but
she was not loosed until the following questions were answered:--
"Jane Seton," said Redhall, in a calm voice, and with an equally calm
visage, for, being master of himself, his whole aspect was now as
still as it the stormy passions which convulsed his heart were dead;
"Jane Seton, dost thou confess to the damnable, the treasonable, and
blasphemous sin of compassing and procuring, by sorcery and idols,
the death of umquhile the queen's grace, of good memorie?"
"Oh, have mercy upon me!" she murmured.
"Dost thou confess it?"
"Yes."
"Attend, clerks of court. Thou dost confess to having a familiar imp
in the shape of a black page, who became the father of thy little
devils?"
"Yes."
"Um--um--_coitus cum diabolo_," muttered a clerk of court, writing.
"How many?"
"I know not."
"Another proof of deep sorcery," said the lord president, "for the
witches of Germany have been known to have twelve imps at a birth."
"And thou didst suckle these uncounted devils at the mark on thy
bosom?"
"Yes, yes; oh, hast thou no pity?"
"Thou false heretic, apostate, liar, and renouncer of thy baptism,
thou dost confess to having read English books, containing the dark
and damnable heresies of----"
"This belongs to another court," said the abbot Mylne. "My Lord
Advocate, we have no jurisdiction here in ecclesiastical matters.
Surely, my lords, no further proofs are required?"
The capped or cowled heads of the fourteen lords shook or nodded an
assent, and, at a word from Redhall Jane was unbound and replaced on
her seat; where, with a pale, distorted face, and half insane aspect,
she gazed about her, with terrified eyes, between the dishevelled
masses of her hair. Her hands, weak, trembling, and almost
dislocated, endeavoured to restore the disorder of her dress, but
failed in their office.
The physician kindly parted her hair, and drew her disordered dress
over her uncovered shoulders.
"Unhappy lady," he whispered, putting something between her lips,
"take this comfit--it renders one almost invulnerable to pain; though
it be not such as those to which the divine Artesius owed his eternal
youth and health. But it is the essence of a wondrous herb; for
whatever God planteth, hath its good or bad qualities."
Without hearing him, intent only on retracting her rack-extorted
confession, she gathered her hair back from her pallid face with
trembling hands, and arose, but only to sink powerlessly on her seat,
for her limbs now refused to sustain her, as her tongue refused to
speak; for though her bloodless lips were moving, they uttered no
sound. Forced by the torture, a bright streak of pink was oozing
from her nostrils.
Again she essayed to speak, but now the jury, without being charged,
and without retiring--for such were not then the customs--by the
voice of their chancellor, unanimously declared her guilty; and after
a brief muttering and bending together of cowled heads, the abbot of
Cambuskenneth proceeded at once to pass the sentence.
Taking off his black monastic cap, he raised his eyes, and was heard
muttering something. "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus
Sancti, et benedictæ Nostræ Dominæ Sanctissimæ Mariæ. Thou false
sorceress," he said, suddenly resuming his cap and raising his
voice,--"thou heretic, blasphemer of thy God, and renouncer of thy
baptism, for the crimes committed and this day doubly proved against
thee by witnesses and from confession, I adjudge thee to be taken to
the Castlehill of Edinburgh at twelve o'clock on the night of the
feast of St. Margaret the martyr, five days from hence, and there to
be burned at a stake, until thou art consumed to ashes, which shall
be scattered to the four winds of Heaven, AND THIS I PRONOUNCE FOR
DOOM!"
The priestly president ended his sentence by extinguishing the candle
which stood at his right hand--an emblem of death, or that hope was
gone for ever. Thereupon, Dobbie the Doomster, clad in sackcloth
braided with white cord, and having a white cross and skull sewn on
his back and breast, approached, and laid a hand upon her shoulder,
signifying that she was now his peculiar charge.
Those lords who were priests waved a benediction to the people, so
much did they (by mere force of habit) mingle religious with civil
ceremony; then the whole bench arose, and the macer shouldered his
mace; but at that moment the clash of swords was heard, and a violent
uproar arose at the door of the Exchequer Hall.