It is rare that the human mind can dwell upon more than one wonder at a period. The neighbourhood, roused by the idle gossiping of the castle damsels, had begun to be astonished at the disappearance of the heir of De la Pole, who was said not to be dead, but deprived of his mother’s tenderness and his father’s succession; and, offended that there should be a secret, they determined that rendering justice to the injured child should be the apology for their own ungenerous curiosity. From this they were diverted by a singular incident.
A meeting of the gentlemen of the county had been called for some public purpose foreign to this narrative. In the midst of this discussion, it was observed that Eustace de la Pole was absent: this, to many who had known of his recent griefs and habits, was nothing singular; but those who resided more remote from the sphere of his influence, felt authorised to demand his presence and attention in a matter which was supposed deeply to interest the class to which he belonged. A messenger was despatched to request his attendance, and was told that he was preparing to wait upon them; and he who was charged with the embassy had scarcely returned to his employers, ere Eustace de la Pole entered the council-chamber, leading by the hand a tall and graceful youth, whom he placed at the table of the council, and behind whose chair he stood while he spoke. His words were few; but their stunning import threw horror and astonishment over the noble assembly. “I present to you this young man,” calmly said he; “and I have assigned to him his appointed place; mine it must be no longer; he is the son of Hugh de Broke, who is lately dead, and who, a few months since, was accused of the murder of John de la Pole. I come to render him a late, though, I trust, not useless justice, and restore the honour of his house. This youth is not only the heir of the fortunes of De la Pole, but of his father’s innocence, since I only was the murderer of my brother.”
It would not be possible to paint all the feelings of the audience who listened to this singular declaration, nor the contrariety of opinions that pervaded the minds of men upon its disclosure. Some asserted that derangement had fastened upon the mind of Eustace, and that he only imagined the fact; others, that grief had wearied him of existence, and that, preferring to die by other hands than his own, he had chosen this method of escaping from life and its convulsions; but the far greater part (as is ever the case in human judgments) decided for the darker side of the question, and concluded the self-accusation to be just, and were only now interested in analysing his motive. The will of the victim too became a subject of infinite wonder; and when, to every interrogatory (save those which implied the participation of Agatha, which he instantly and earnestly denied,) Eustace remained mute, indignation supplied the place of pity; and among those who had been his intimates and friends, had eaten of his bread and drank of his cup, there were not wanting some, who, baffled in their eager pursuit of the marvellous, and offended that a secret was denied to them, even hinted at the torture, as a means of compelling a discovery of his motives and accomplices.
There are many whose sickly existences find health only in the contemplation of the severer agonies of others; many who, without either hatred or malignity, yet love to feed their unnatural and craving appetites for singularities and horrors; and would rather cherish them with the blood of a dear friend, than suffer them to famish for want of sustenance. In small communities and country places, this inclination in the inhabitants is most apparent: here it was cruelly visible. John de la Pole had always been a popular man, and his destiny had afforded them a feast of blood, for which they felt grateful to his memory; from his murderer they could exact it, and they would: the loudest for justice appealed to the king for the application of the torture, and those who pitied the sufferer did not oppose the petition, as curious to behold the result.
The weak and inquisitive prince who then filled the English throne, saw something singular and mysterious in the conduct of the young De la Pole, and therefore unhesitatingly gave his assent to the sentence of his judges. The torture was borne by Eustace without a groan, though a close imprisonment of some weeks might have weakened his spirit and exhausted his bodily strength. He walked calmly and unsupported to the scene of suffering, conversing steadily with Courtenay, who never for an instant forsook him. From any outward tokens of anticipated agony or terror, it would have been difficult to distinguish the criminal from the spectator: he even smiled as he recognised his acquaintances in the crowd assembled to gaze upon his sufferings. There was only one action remarkable in his bearing at this trying juncture; on ascending the scaffold, and while they were binding his arms, his attention was arrested apparently by some object near him, though no one could be seen by the crowd, and during the whole period of the infliction of the “peine forte et dure,” the victim kept his eyes still fastened upon this spot, but without articulating a word. When the accumulated weights pressed so heavily on his sinking breast as to threaten dissolution, he raised his head to look upon his mangled limbs, and surveyed them in silent attention; he then turned his eyes to the spot which had so long occupied their regards, and, pointing with a slow and solemn motion to the load upon his breast, said, in a clear and steady tone, “Thou see’st!”
Eustace was remanded to prison; his friends, his enemies, those who were neither, all besought him with equal earnestness not to die with this secret sin upon his heart; he smiled at their anxiety, but answered nothing to their queries;—they doubted his guilt, ascribed his conduct to madness, to despair;—he replied by throwing off his cap and shewing the scar in his head, from which his brother, in the last agonising grasp of death, had torn the dark and bloody lock which had once so nearly condemned the unfortunate De Broke,—and they were silenced. He continued steadfast to his purpose—silent, sorrowful, but calm.
And where was Agatha during these scenes of insult and endurance? Had she too forsaken the dungeon of her husband, and given up her soul to exultation in his captivity and anguish? She had once, and only once, demanded admittance to his prison; she had remained with him many hours, and retired, like himself, tranquillised from the interview. Soon after, she formally resigned the castle and its dependencies to him whom Eustace had named as the lawful heir: her own son, and his claims, were now no longer remembered, since the crime of his father had deprived him of the succession, which had been awarded by the king to the son of the injured De Broke. After these arrangements, which were performed in silence and celerity, and with only the casual assistance of Courtenay, Agatha withdrew from her native town, and concealed her person and her sorrow for ever from the eyes of the world.
But her desertion of her husband at the tremendous juncture when he so much needed her help and consolation, was not regarded with indignation by the many who considered the circumstances under which she stood: that husband was a murderer, and of whom? The terrible question needed no reply, and Agatha was speedily acquitted; her absence too was a trivial circumstance compared with that of her husband’s situation. All eyes were turned to the prison at Winchester.
At length Eustace de la Pole was led out to die. It was a splendid day, in the season of autumn, on which his mortal career was to terminate. Consideration for the princely blood which flowed in his veins, had forbidden, in his case, the strangulation by the degrading cord, and the axe and the block had been substituted in its room. The novelty of the circumstance drew many thousands round the scaffold, who awaited, in feverish and almost angry impatience, the arrival of him who was to furnish forth the spectacle of the day. He came,—not indeed as before, with an erect and unassisted step, for his limbs had been crushed, and his physical strength destroyed; but his pale countenance was composed, and his soft rich voice was steady and clear, as he conversed at intervals with Courtenay, the priest, and the executioner, who received him courteously, as, led by the two former, he ascended the steps to the scaffold. Of the crowd around he took no heed, but with calm and silent celerity prepared himself for the block. At sight of the noble young man, bare-headed and disrobed for a sad and ignominious death, there were many who could no longer restrain their tears; and hard-hearted grey-headed men who, hating his crime, believed they could find pleasure in his sorrow, and went thither to feast upon his suffering, now wept loudly for him whom, in their first feeling of horror, they had cursed. He appeared unconscious of this change of temper, and seemed rather disposed to hasten than to retard the preparations, for he laid his head down upon his last pillow before the executioner had entirely completed them. He had himself promised to give the signal for the fall of the axe; and while the multitude were anxiously awaiting this movement, they beheld him suddenly raise his head from the block, and gaze intently upon one particular spot upon the scaffold; all eyes were instantly directed towards it, but to them at least no object was visible. He gazed for a few moments with intense earnestness, then calmly replacing his head upon the block, exclaimed in solemn but eager accents, “Thou see’st!” and gave the signal for his death. The axe fell—heavily, rapidly—it was over—swifter than thought. The executioner held up the gory head to the people; the features were calm, the eyes closed; but before he could utter the customary sentence, they had once more opened and fixed themselves upon the same spot which had attracted the last of their living regards; they appeared slowly to follow the movement of some unseen object round the scaffold, till they reached the opposite side; then they withdrew their gaze, quivered for an instant, dropped, dark and immoveable, for ever.
This, as many strange scenes, was however doomed to be forgotten, like other things. Ten years passed away, and ten other wonders had, during that period, interested or frightened the people of Winchester and its surrounding country. John and Eustace de la Pole were no more remembered, or their story only casually mentioned as belonging to the odd things that were; Courtenay had glided into middle age, and the youth for whom Eustace had done so much, had long since written man.—Ten years! How many and how striking may be the changes of ten years! Courtenay had long pondered over the destiny of Agatha, and sighed to think whither her unhappy fate might have conducted her; but the long interval which passed had almost swept her from his mind, when a letter, in her unforgotten character, was one day put into his hand. It was couched in brief and anxious terms, and conveyed a request that he would immediately proceed to her dwelling. Courtenay was no laggard in the cause of humanity; he did not pause to speculate upon this address, or even to wonder at its abruptness, but he set forward instantly, and the morning of the following day saw him knock at a lonely cottage on the coast of Dorsetshire, in the neighbourhood of Corfe Castle. The door was opened by Agatha herself, who, habited in the black robes which she had worn since the sad death of the last of her husbands, received him with courteous sadness. Years had not dimmed the beauty of her matchless face, but sorrow had been busy with its expression; the same lovely features were there, but their once bright character was gone.