Its rich and intricate roof towered far away into dusky obscurity; its vast space and lofty walls of polished stone echoed hollowly to their footsteps; and the bright moon, streaming through the mullioned and painted windows, threw a thousand prismatic hues on the oaken floor, on the grotesque corbels, and innumerable knosps and gilded pendants of its beautiful roof,—on the crimson benches of the peers,—on the throne, with its festooned canopy,—on the dark banners and darker paintings, bringing a hundred objects into strong relief, sinking others in sombre shadow, and tipping with silver the square-bladed axes and conical helmets of the Town-guardsmen as they passed the great south oriel, with its triple mullions and heraldic blazonry.
From thence steep, narrow, and intricate stairs led them to the regions of the political Inquisition, and the wind that rushed upward felt cold and dewy as they descended. At the bottom there branched off a variety of stone passages, where flambeaux flared and cressets sputtered in the night wind, and cast their lurid light on the dusky walls. And now a confused murmur of voices announced to the anxious Fenton that he was close to this terrible conclave, whose presence few left but on the hurdle of the executioner.
In an anteroom a crowd of macers, city guardsmen, messengers-at-arms, and officials in the blue livery of the city, laced with yellow, and wearing the triple castle on their cuffs and collars, a number of persons cited as witnesses, &c., lounged about, or lolled on the wooden benches. The ceiling of the apartment was low, and the deep recesses of the doors and windows showed the vast solidity of the massively panelled walls. A huge fire blazed in a grate that resembled an iron basket on four sturdy legs, and its red light glinted on the varied costumes, the weather-beaten visages, polished headpieces and partisans of those who crowded round it. The entrance of Walter Fenton and his escort excited neither attention nor curiosity; and feeling acutely his degraded position, he sought a retired corner, and seated himself on a wooden bench. The groups around him conversed only in whispers. A murmur of voices came at intervals from the inner chamber; and Walter often gazed with deep interest at its antiquely fashioned doorway, the features of which remained long and vividly impressed on his memory; for he longed to behold, but dreaded to encounter, the stern conclave its carved panels concealed from his view.
Anon a cry—a shrill and fearful cry—announced that some dreadful work was being enacted within; every man looked gravely in his neighbour's face, (save Maclutchy, who smiled,) and the blood rushed back on Walter's heart tumultuously. Deep, hollow, and heart-harrowing groans succeeded; then were heard the sound of hammers and the creaking of a block as when a rope runs rapidly through the sheave; then a low murmur of voices again, and all was still; so still, that Walter heard the pulsations of his heart, and in spite of his natural courage, it quailed at the prospect of what he too might have to undergo.
Suddenly the door of the dreaded chamber flew open, and the common Doomster and his two assistants, with their muscular arms bared, and their leather aprons girt up for exertion, issued forth, bearing the half lifeless and wholly miserable Ichabod Bummel. His countenance was pale and ghastly; his teeth were clenched, and his eyes set; his limbs hanging pendant and powerless, bore terrible evidence of the agonies caused by the iron boots, as his fingers, covered with blood, did of the thumb-screws. He groaned heavily.
"What has the gallows loon confessed, Pate?" asked Maclutchy, eagerly.
"Sae muckle, that the pyets will be pyking his head on the Netherbow-porte when the sun rises the morn," replied Mr. Patrick Pincer, the heartless finisher of the law, whose brawny arms and blood-stained apron, together with all the disgusting associations of his frightful occupation rendered him a revolting character. "He defied the haill council as a generation o' vipers; boasted o' being a naturalized Hollander, and denied his ain mother-country."
"Wretch!" muttered Bummel, "well might I deny the land that produces such as thee. But there is yet a time, and in Heaven is all my trust."
"Silence in court!" said the macer, imperiously thrusting the brass crown of his baton in the sufferer's mouth. "Ay, ay, denying his ain country, eh?"
"Till my Lord Clermistonlee recommended a touch o' the caspie-claws, and wow, Sirs, the loon stood them brawly, but when we gied him a twinge wi' the airn buits, my certie! they did mak' him skirl! Did ye no hear him confessing, lads?"