Come Rack! Come Rope!

by Robert Hugh Benson

Robin was silent. He knew little or nothing of these things, except from his theological reading. Yet he felt uneasy. The other said nothing.

"And the stars, too?" he asked.

"I hold," said Mr. Bassett, "that the stars have certain influences and powers upon those that are born under their signs. I do not hold that we are so ruled by these that we have no action of our own, any more than we are compelled to be wet through by rain or scorched by the sun: we may always come into a house or shelter beneath a tree, and thus escape them. So, too, I hold, with the stars. There is an old saying, sir: 'The fool is ruled by his stars; the wise man rules them.' That is, in a nutshell, my faith in the matter. I have told Mr. Fenton's fortune here, and Mr. FitzHerbert's, only they will never listen to me."

Robin looked round the room. It was dark outside long ago; they had supped at sunset, and sat for half an hour over their banquet of sweetmeats and wine before coming upstairs. And the room, too, was as dark as night, except where far off in the west, beyond the tall trees of the park, a few red streaks lingered. He felt oppressed and miserable. The place seemed to him sinister. He hated these fumblings at locks that were surely meant to remain closed. Yet he did not know what to say. Mr. John had wandered off to one of the windows and was humming uneasily to himself.

Then, suddenly, an intense curiosity overcame him.

His life was a strange and perilous one; he carried it in his hand every day. In the morning he could not be sure but that he would be fleeing before evening. As he fell asleep, he could not be sure that he would not be awakened to a new dream. He had long ago conquered those moods of terror which, in spite of his courage, had come down on him sometimes, in some lonely farm, perhaps, where flight would be impossible—or, in what was far more dangerous, in some crowded inn where every movement was known—these had passed, he thought, never to come back.

But in that little book-lined room, with these curious things in boxes on the table, and his merry host peering at him gravely, and the still evening outside; with the knowledge that to-morrow he was to ride back to his own country, whence he had fled for fear of his life, six weeks ago; leaving the security of this ex-sheriff's house for the perils of the Peak and all that suspected region from which even now, probably, the pursuit had not altogether died away—here a sudden intense desire to know what the future might hold overcame him.

"Tell me, sir," he said. "You have told Mr. FitzHerbert's fortune, you say, as well as others. Have you told mine since I have been here?"

There was a moment's silence. Mr. John was silent, with his back turned.
Robin looked up at his host, wondering why he did not answer. Then Mr.
Bassett took up the candle.

"Come," he said; "we have been here long enough."