"Can I not speak with Lord Stanley?" demanded Chartley.
"Not at present, my good lord," replied the gentleman. "He is full of business. The king marches from Leicester to-morrow; and we must not be tardy."
Chartley made no reply, but followed in bitter silence, passing through the groups of gazing idlers round the inn-door, to a room up one flight of stairs, where some of his own servants used to sleep. There he was left alone, with the door locked and barred upon him. A moment after, he heard the tread of a sentry, and then the voice of some one speaking from a window to a person in the street, and saying, "Hie away to the king, and tell him you have caught him. Beseech his grace to send me orders what I am to do with him, for I have no instructions. Add that I will send in our muster-roll to-night."
Chartley mused over what he heard. The words evidently applied to him; and he asked himself what would be the result of the message. The fate of Gray, Vaughan, Hastings, Rivers, Buckingham, warned him of what was likely to befall him; short shrift and speedy death. All the bright visions had vanished; the gay and sparkling hopes that danced in his bosom on the preceding night were still. If death is terrible, how much more terrible when he comes to put his icy barrier between us and near anticipated joys. Chartley could have died in the field with hardly a regret, but the cold unhonoured death of the headsman's axe, the inglorious unresisting fall, it was full of horrors to him. Yet he nerved his spirit to bear it as became him; and he communed with and schooled his own heart for many a live-long hour. The minutes crept on minutes, the shadow wandered along the wall, a thunderstorm closed the day, and the rain poured down in torrents. Chartley marked not the minutes, saw not the shadow, hardly heard the storm that raged without. He thought of Iola; and he asked his heart, "What will become of her?"
They brought him food; but he hardly tasted it, and wine, but he knew there was no consolation there; and when the sun went down, he crossed his arms upon his chest, and, gazing forth from the window, said to himself, "Perchance it is the last that will ever set for me."
Shortly after, alight was brought him; and he asked if he could get paper and pen and ink; but the man went away, saying he would see, and did not return.
The whole night passed. There was no bed in the room; and though once or twice his eyes closed in sleep for a few minutes, with his arms leaning on the table, yet it was but to wake up again with a start. The next morning, dawned fair, but for some hours no one came near him. At length food was again brought, but the man who carried it either would not or could not answer any questions, and the day rolled on, chequered by sounds and sights in the streets, such as commonly are heard and seen in a small town filled with soldiery.
It was a long and weary day, however; and Chartley's heart fell under the most wearing of all things--unoccupied solitude; but, at length, the sky grew grey, and night and darkness came on.
Nearly an hour then passed in utter silence; and the whole house seemed so quiet that Chartley could hardly imagine that Lord Stanley and his train still remained there. But at the end of that time he heard a quick step, the challenge of the sentry at his door, and then the pass-word, "The Crown." The next instant the door opened, and Lord Stanley himself appeared.
There was but slight acquaintance between him and Chartley; and his brow was thoughtful and anxious, boding no good, the young nobleman thought.