The sun had now risen, and we were apprised that My Lord's hour had come by the beating of drums outside the castle and the noise of the people. My Lord hearing this looked at me sorrowfully for a little time and asked me a question in the matter of religion which I thought both terrible and confusing at such a time, but he pressed me and I replied very humbly that for my part I had lived as most men lived in these times, which are corrupt and evil, and that indeed no man could fully understand the unseen things; no, nor so much as conceive them; but that none the less I hoped I might always bear witness to the Faith as did he at that very moment. To which My Lord answered, sighing, "I bear no witness to that, but only to my constancy, and I could wish that they had left me my sword."
I set down for Your Excellency all that happened, but I would not have Your Excellency think that My Lord was troubled in these matters; only it was his custom to debate learning and philosophy and to express doubts that he might hear them answered: this was all. And it is truly said that a man's custom will be seen expressed in the end of his life.
Meanwhile they were waiting for us, and as I was to be the other that might be present with My Lord when he suffered, the priest and I went before him and behind the men-at-arms, while first went the Warden of the Castle. And we found that the scaffold had been put up upon a level with the window at the side of the main gate, which looks westward towards the City. There was a red cloth upon it, a square, but the rest naked, and round it a sort of railing of rope stretched from posts. The whole was guarded by soldiers of the King's Guard who were a-horse, even the drummers. There was a very great crowd of people who were silent, but when they saw My Lord shouted and made a confusion, till the soldiers pressed them back. The Warden asked My Lord whether he would speak to the people, but he shook his head and pressed his lips together so firmly that one would have thought he smiled. Then the Headsman, kneeling upon one knee, as is the custom, asked My Lord's forgiveness for what he was to do, to whom My Lord answered in a cheerful voice that he very heartily forgave him and all others in this matter. And then saying this word "Come," wherein I did not understand his meaning—but he may have been doing no more than call me as one calls a servant—he took off his cloak, which was dark and heavy and which was that which he had commonly carried in the field, very serviceable and without ornament, and this cloak he handed to me, so that I have it and will bring it with me upon my journey. When he had done this he took off also his undercoat, upon which, as upon his cloak, he had kept no sign of his rank nor any jewel, even of his Order; and this done he kissed me and also him whom Your Excellency sent, the Religious; then he knelt down and, as I think, prayed, but very shortly, after which he laid his head upon the block and asked the Headsman if it were fairly so. To which the Headsman said yes, and that at his signal he would strike: which, when it was given, the Headsman struck, and by the mercy of God was ready at his business: so we threw a cloth that had been given us quickly over the body of My Lord, and while the people groaned we lifted him, two men-at-arms, the priest and I together, to set him in a case of wood which was prepared. Only the Headsman showed My Lord's head to the people, and said, "So perish all traitors," while the people still groaned. Then My Lord's head also was given us and we set it very reverently down, and we covered the case with the cloth given us, which was the end of the business of that morning, from which time till now I have not written, but now write as Your Excellency ordered, and in the first hour in which I find myself able and in command of myself to do so.
My Lord was a great Captain.
THE SHADOWS
It is always in a time when one's attention is at the sharpest strain, when innumerable details are separately and clearly grasped by the mind, and, in a word, when the external circumstance of life is most real to us that the comic contrast between ourselves and the greatness outside us can best be appreciated.
We humans make all that present which is never there, and which is always hurrying past us like the tumble of a stream, an all-important thing.
A form of dress unusual at one particularly insignificant moment, a form of words equally unusual, and so forth, seem like immovable eternities to us; they seem so particularly in those moments when we are most thoroughly mixed with our time. Then what fun it is to remember that the whole thing, all the trappings of life, are nothing but a suit of clothes: old-fashioned almost before we have used them, and worthless anyhow.