The Greatest Historical Novels & Romances of D. K. Broster. D. K. Broster

them. Archibald Cameron saw the dumb misery on his face and put his hand on his arm.

      “Don’t look like that, my dearest Ewen! I thank God I am ready to be offered, and you need have no apprehension for me to-morrow. It is poor Falconar I shall be sorry for.”

      “Indeed,” said Ewen, finding his voice again, “he seems most painfully apprehensive; he was speaking to me just now. I fear, as he does, that his presence will be no support to you. I was about to ask him whether he could not procure another clergyman to take his place, but so few in London are nonjurors, and I suppose you would——”

      He never finished. The colour came surging over his drawn face, as a wild arrow of an idea sped winging into his brain. “Archie,” he said breathlessly in Gaelic, “if a layman might . . . if it could be contrived . . . could not . . . could not I take his place to-morrow?”

      In the Doctor’s face also the colour came and went for a moment. “My dear Ewen . . . if it is like to prove a trial to Falconar, how would you——”

      “I’d rather stand with you in the cart than see you stand there from a distance, and be unable to get at you,” said Ewen with great earnestness. “I should be near you—I could speak to you. Mr. Falconar says you have no need of his ministrations. And I would not break down, I swear to you! Archie, would you be willing?”

      “Willing!” exclaimed Archie in the same low voice. “I would give one of the few hours left me for your company! But it asks too much of you, Eoghain.”

      “Not so much as to stand in the crowd and watch you like a stranger,” reiterated Ewen. “And—my God, the four minutes must be nearly gone!—’tis as if Providence had planned it, for Mr. Falconar is little under my height, and lame of a leg as I am at times. If I wore his dark clothes—’tis a pity he goes in lay dress, but that cannot be helped—and perhaps his wig, who would look at my face? And the clergyman always drives by himself to Tyburn, does he not?”

      “I believe so,” said Doctor Cameron, considering, “and in a closed carriage. You would not be seen on the way, since you would not travel publicly and slowly, as I shall.”

      “I only wish I could, with you! But, Mr. Falconar apart, would you not rather have some clergyman?” And, as Archie shook his head, Ardroy asked hastily, knowing that his time must be almost up, “Is there anything which I must do . . . there?—To be sure I can ask Mr. Falconar that.”

      “I suppose it is usual to read a prayer. I should like the commendatory prayer from the Prayer Book . . . and I’d a thousand times rather you read that for me than poor Mr. Falconar.”

      “Mr. Cameron,” said Rainsford, impatiently appearing at the door, “you must come instantly, if you please, or I shall be obliged to detain you as a prisoner also—but not here with Doctor Cameron. You have but just time to join Mrs. Cameron in the coach.”

      “I have your leave, then, if I can contrive it?” whispered Ewen.

      Archibald Cameron bent his head. “Good-bye,” he said in English. “Remember my message.”

      And this time Ewen hurried from the room with but the briefest farewell glance, so afraid was he of being detained and prevented from carrying through his scheme.

      By running down the stairs he reached the carriage just before it started. Mr. Falconar, hat in hand, was at the door of it, Mrs. Cameron invisible within.

      “Give me your direction, sir,” said Ardroy hastily to the clergyman. “I must see you when I have escorted Mrs. Cameron home; ’tis of the utmost importance.” (‘Yes, he is much of a height with me,’ said something in his mind.)

      Mr. Falconar gave it. “I shall await you this evening,” he said, and Ewen scrambled into the already moving coach.

      But now, as they drove out under the archway of the Lion Tower, he must put aside his own plan, his own grief, and think of one who was losing even more than he. Jean Cameron was sitting upright in the corner, her hands clasped, looking straight in front of her, and alarming him not a little by her rigidity. Suddenly she said, without looking at him:

      “He is not afraid.”

      “No, madam,” answered Ewen, “no man was ever less afraid.”

      “The pure in heart shall see God,” she murmured to herself. And a moment afterwards, somewhat to Ardroy’s relief, she broke into wild weeping.

      CHAPTER XXIV

       ‘THE SALLY-PORT TO ETERNITY’

       Table of Contents

      Thursday, the seventh of June, 1753, dawned just as those would have wished who were intending to make its forenoon a holiday—sunny and clear-skied, yet not without the promise of a cloud or two later on, whose shadow might be grateful if one had been standing for some hours in the heat. For many of the spectators would begin their pilgrimage to Tyburn very early in the day, in order to secure good places, since, though the great triangular gallows could be seen from almost any distance, the scaffold beside it, for what came after the gallows, was disappointingly low. Moreover, it was a thousand pities not to hear a last speech or confession, if such were made, and that was impossible unless one were fairly near the cart in which the victim stood before being turned off. So hundreds set off between six and seven o’clock, and hundreds, even thousands, more came streaming without intermission along the Oxford road all morning; and the later they came the more they grumbled at the inferior positions which they were necessarily obliged to take up; yet they grumbled with a certain holiday good nature. For though disgraceful scenes did take place at Tyburn, some at least of those who in this eighteenth century came to see a fellow-creature half-hanged and then disembowelled were quiet well-to-do citizens who were conscious of nothing callous or unnatural in their conduct. An execution, being public, was a spectacle, and a free spectacle to boot; moreover, to-day’s was a special occasion, not a mere hanging for coining, or murder, or a six-shilling theft. Of those there were plenty, with a dozen or more turned off at a time; but Tyburn had not seen an execution for high treason for many years, the Jacobite rebels from Carlisle having all met their deaths on Kennington Common.

      And Ewen Cameron, as he sat in Mr. Falconar’s clothes in the shut carriage, which, with some difficulty at the last, had brought him to Tyburn a little before noon, was appalled at the density and magnitude of the crowd, and almost more at the noise proceeding from it.

      Mr. Falconar had only agreed to the substitution with many tergiversations and much misgiving. He was afraid that he was turning his back upon his duty; he was afraid that the fraud might be discovered by one of the Tower officials, if the coach appointed to take him to Tyburn had to follow in its slow course the sledge on which the condemned Jacobite would be drawn there, a transit which would begin at ten and take a couple of hours or more. But while Ewen was closeted with the clergyman there had come a message from the Deputy-Sheriff of Middlesex, in charge of the execution, to say that, owing to the crowds which were anticipated on the morrow, the carriage was to fetch Mr. Falconar from his house at a later hour, and to go to Tyburn by a less frequented route. So Ewen did not follow Archibald Cameron in his sorry and yet perhaps triumphal procession through the streets of London.

      But he was come now, by a less protracted pilgrimage, to the same heart-quelling goal; and he was come there first. He had not alighted nor even looked out. There was a sheriff’s man on the box beside the driver who would tell him, he said, at what moment his services would be required.

      “Till then I should advise your reverence to stay quietly in the carriage,” he was remarking now. “There’s nothing to be gained by standing about, unless you’d wish to get used to the sight of the gallows, and seeing as you ain’t in parson’s dress, some mightn’t know you was the parson.”

      “I will stay in the coach,” said Ewen.

      “You haven’t never attended a criminal here before, sir, I should suppose?”