“None whatever,” replied Mauger. “Father Feckenham, I understand, offered her two days more, if she would prolong her disputation with him, but she refused. No—no. There will be no further respite. She will suffer on the Green—her husband on Tower Hill.”
“So I heard,” replied Sorrocold—“Poor soul! she is very young—not seventeen, I am told.”
“Poll—poh!” cried Mauger, gruffly—“there’s nothing in that. Life is as sweet at seventy as seventeen. However, I’ll do my work as quickly as I can. If you wish to see a head cleanly taken off, get as near the scaffold as you can.”
“I shall not fail to do so,” returned Sorrocold. “I would not miss it for the world.”
“As soon as the clock strikes twelve, and the Sabbath is ended,” continued Mauger, “my assistants will begin to put up the scaffold. You know the spot before Saint Peter’s chapel. They say the grass won’t grow there. But that’s an old woman’s tale—he! he!”
“Old woman’s tale, or not,” rejoined Winwike, gravely—“it’s true. I’ve often examined the spot, and never could find a blade of herbage there.”
“Well, well,” rejoined Mauger, “I won’t dispute the point. Believe it, and welcome. I could tell other strange tales concerning that place. It’s a great privilege to be beheaded there, and only granted to illustrious personages. The last two who fell there were Queen Catherine Howard, and her confidante, the Countess of Rochford. Lady Jane Grey would be beheaded on Tower Hill, with her husband, but they are afraid of the mob, who might compassionate the youthful pair, and occasion a riot. It’s better to be on the safe side—he! he!”
“You said you had some other strange talcs to tell concerning that place,” observed Sorrocold. “What are they?”
“I don’t much like talking about them,” rejoined Mauger, reluctantly, “but since I’ve dropped a hint on the subject, I may as well speak out. You must know, then, that the night before the execution of the old Countess of Salisbury, who would not lay her head upon the block, and whom I was obliged to chase round the scaffold and bring down how I could—the night before she fell,—and a bright moonlight night it was,—I was standing on the scaffold putting it in order for the morrow, when all at once there issued from the church porch a female figure, shrouded from head to foot in white.”
“Well!” exclaimed Sorrocold, breathlessly.