He sat down in the cart beside the monk, who, with his missal open, was muttering in a low tone, indistinctly heard by the prisoner, but unheeded by him. The hangman sat watching them twain. But the monk was so tall, so darkly cowled, so gaunt, and so repulsive. What he read, or what he muttered, no one knew. He might have been muttering fiendish spells.
The horsemen in front cleared away the crowd before the slowly-rolling cart. The murmuring of the crowd broke out afresh, and men pressed and fought forward, and children were held high up to look at him; and women gazed keenly, and, turning to each other, said how handsome he was, and so noble was his look. A sound of pity here and there was drowned in the general noise; the guards called out for open room, and horses pranced and bore back the eager spectators. And swords and spears flashed, and feathers waved and danced, and the cart slowly rolled on, bearing its doomed burden.
It rolled on slowly, and then stopped beneath the gibbet. The place of death was reached. The rope hung dangling to and fro, and swaying in the wind. The hangman rose and put forth his hand to seize it, but the wind was so strong that he could not come near it for many minutes, and this little incident furnished food for jest and laughter. He at length caught it and made a noose.
The outlaw stood up lightly and looked around with an unmoved countenance. Some seemed to be of the belief that he meant to address the crowd; but it was not so. The bell ceased. Far down the valley the old battle still waged between the morning mist and the sun and wind, and the outlaw cast a long glance down the valley to descry the distant hills of Cheviot; but, until the sun and wind had vanquished their enemy, the blue hills of Cheviot could not be seen.
The hangman now approached the captive with the noosed rope in his hand. Somervil involuntarily shuddered at the approach of that dingy-looking, vizarded miscreant; but by that hideous miscreant’s hands he must die.
[Chapter XIII.]
“I curse the hand that did the deed,
The heart that thocht the ill;