Bladys of the Stewponey by Sabine Baring-Gould (red white royal blue .TXT) 📕

I will let them embrace me—but never suffer the arms of the hangman to encircle me.”

“You shall be watched night and day. I shall not close an eye.”

“You cannot always remain waking.”

“Then Abraham Jarrock will take my place.”

“Abraham Jarrock will look another way whilst I help him to the place of master out of that of assistant.”

“You are a devil.”

“I was an angel before I was married.”

“Your pins and needles shall be taken from you.”

They had returned to the illuminated chamber, and Mrs Onion had shut the door.

“I have sharp scissors.”

“They also shall be removed.”

“I have but to snatch a log from the fire and cast the red ashes about—the old boards are snuff dry, and the Gate House will be in flames and consume you and your son.”

“That you cannot do, for you shall not be left alone to work mischief. I shall ever be with you by day, and at night you shall be behind bolt and lock.”

“There are other means,” said Bladys. “Means that I have learned from a wise woman. I have not been with her in vain.”

She drew from her bosom a small packet in coarse brown paper, and from it threw out some ash grey dust on the tablecloth.

“This,” said she, “this is Drie. A little sprinkled over the bread, mingled with the pepper, put with the evening caudle, along with the nutmeg, and it will free me from whomsoever I desire to be free.”

“Hark!” gasped Mrs Onion. “I hear Luke’s hand on the door, his step on the stair. If you will, for the time take yonder chamber. It is over the gate. A servant had it, but she is gone.”

“Is there a bolt within?”

“There is a bolt within and a lock without.”

“Good, I will take that room.”

The old woman thrust the girl through the doorway into the chamber mentioned and indicated.

Bladys at once fastened the door on the inside. Then Mrs Onion turned the key in the lock.

When she had done this she caught up the candle, ran out on the stone landing, and closed the door behind her through which she had just passed.

“Mother,” asked Luke Francis, “has she arrived?”

“Yes, someone has come—”

“From Kinver?”

“Yes, from Kinver.”

“Let me pass to embrace her.”

The old woman stood in the way. Her son looked at her with surprise.

“How your hand shakes,” said he. “You are spilling the tallow over your dress, and over the floor. It is running over your hand.”

“You cannot go in yet.”

“Wherefore not? How your mouth works, mother! What ails thee? What is amiss?”

“Everything.”

“With her.”

“Ay, with her. Do you know what you have brought to the Gate House?”

“Ay, I trust I do.”

“No, you do not, Luke. She is not a wench, she is a white devil.”

Chapter 12.

PETTY TREASON

On the following morning, at a very early hour, Mrs Onion unlocked the door into the room of Bladys, and knocked sharply. The girl immediately withdrew the bolt and opened.

“Are you in the same mood as last night?” asked the hangman’s mother. “Perchance, then, with the journey you were off your reason.”

“I am of the same purpose.”

“Then,” said the old woman, drawing her thin lips against her teeth, “when I give you a command you will obey. Had you said, ‘I am Luke’s wife,’ then I would have answered, ‘You are fatigued with travelling; take your ease and repose this day through.’ But as it pleases you to be so humorous, then I must lay on you my injunction and expect you to do as I bid. Therefore I say it is my pleasure that you attend me.”

“I follow,” said Bladys. “Whither?”

“To the Castle. The Foregate is connected with the Castle by a passage in the wall that I showed you overnight.”

“I follow and obey.”

Thereupon the executioner’s mother stepped forward and Bladys followed after her dutifully.

The old woman led along the corridor of stone, stone-paved, and ascending by steps. She mounted a stair of stone, thrust open a door and entered a vaulted chamber in which stood the gaoler and his assistant, as though awaiting her. The former was shaking a bunch of keys, impatient at being delayed.

“She is less troublesome now—that is to say, she is less vociferous in her cries,” said the gaoler. “She has made a prodigious noise all through the night. Nothing of that disturbs my sleep, but the other prisoners complained. I have told them that she is to be removed at nine o’clock, and they are vastly satisfied to learn it.”

“Open the door,” said the old mother.

The turnkey did as he was required, and both were admitted to the cell.

Mrs Onion looked round. There was not much light entering through the small window high up, and which looked north.

“She is gone from here. I do not see her!”

“Oh, she is yonder, assuredly enough. The creature is crouched between the bed and the wall, in the corner. She thinks, poor fool, that she can hide herself and that we shall overlook her.”

Then kneeling on the bed, he plucked away the coverlet which the woman had drawn over herself, when she had jammed herself into the cranny where she hoped to find concealment. He laid his hand on her shoulder, not unkindly, and remonstrated with her.

“Now, mistress, this is rank folly! Come forth as a reasonable creature, and do not hug yourself with such notions as that you can escape.”

The miserable woman was frantic with terror. Her hair, that was naturally a rich and lustrous chestnut, had fallen about her face and shoulders, and was tangled, sodden, and had lost all its gloss.

“Come now,” said the gaoler, “forth from this. You are behaving as a witless child. Pluck up a little courage, and, as a brave woman, face what has to be encountered.”

Then she burst into a succession of shrieks.

“I will not die! I cannot die! I am young. I have but twenty-one years. I have but just begun to taste the pleasures of life. I will not die! You shall tear me limb from limb before I am drawn from this place. And to burn! To burn! To burn!” She thrust her fingers through her hair, then cast herself down on the pavement, and scrambled under the bed, with her face to the floor.

“Help me to remove the pallet,” said the turnkey. “She has but a mean spirit. A gentlewoman should show more. She should blush to be such a coward.”

“Come forth!” ordered Mrs Onion. “You are crushing your gown, and it takes half the worth out of it. It is appointed to all to die, to some early, to others late.”

With much difficulty the assistant and his master drew the wretched creature forth, and brought her into the midst of the cell. She would not, or could not, stand.

Her face was soiled with tears, and the stain of a carnation ribbon had come off upon her wet fingers, and had been smeared on her cheeks, that were themselves flaming with the fever that possessed her, flared in her eyes, and distracted her brain.

“I cannot endure fire!” she pleaded in a broken voice between sobs; “look at my finger. I have burnt it—but a small place. I held it to the lamp to feel what fire was. I could not bear it for a second. It made me mad. It was but a little place; it has not raised a blister. How then can I endure that my whole body should burn?”

She gasped, turned her face about, sharply looking from one to the other eagerly, for a token of reprieve. Her breath was hot as fire.

“It will begin at the soles of my feet; there, there, worst of all! And then if a flame springs up to my eyes! They will bind my hands that I cannot hold them up to save my face.”

“See this now,” said the executioner’s mother; “you conceive of matters far worse than they really are. There is, indeed, no requirement that one who is sentenced for petty treason shall not really burn alive, but we are God-fearing and kind-hearted people, and my son is ready to strangle you before the fire takes hold on your body.”

“He will strangle me! How—when—with what?”

“Be cheerful, and do not be alarmed without cause. He will loop a stout twine round your throat and the stake. Then with a bit of stick he will give a twist. He has a strong hand, and all will be over. There was a case a few years ago when the executioner failed to do this in time, and recoiled before the flames, so that the woman was burnt alive and was long a-dying. But he was a sad blunderer. My son is not like that. He never fails to do a good deed promptly and right thoroughly.”

Then the unhappy prisoner shrieked: “I will not be throttled with a string! I love my life. Life is sweet—it is sweet—and death is more bitter than wormwood.”

She covered her heated face and swung from side to side, moaning, the gaoler and his assistant holding her, one on each side.

“Why did my mother force me to marry? I did not know him. I could not care for him. I had no wish to be a wife, but she drove me to it; she tortured me into it. Why do they not burn my mother instead of me? It was her doing. I would never have done him any harm, but that they forced me to be his wife. Why did he take me when he knew that I loved Paul? My mother knew it. He was told it. I swear that I did not mean to kill him. I swear that I purposed only to make him sleep whilst I went away with Paul. I did not know that nightshade would kill him; I thought it would make him sleepy. They will let me off when they know that. I did not have a fair trial. I was not told what was against me. I ask to be tried again. I am unjustly condemned. I will not die! No, I will not die!”

She started to her feet, by a sudden, convulsive effort released herself, and ran round the room, beating the walls with her hands; then she made a rush at the door, but was intercepted by the under-gaoler.

“Let me out!” she cried. “I will go to the judge, and tell him it was a mistake. I did not purpose to kill him. It is he that commits murder when he sentences me to death.”

Again she fell into a paroxysm of grief.

Then Mrs Onion said to Bladys, “Lay hold on her, and force her to be seated on the bed.”

The girl obeyed. The power to resist further had left the prisoner after her last desperate effort to escape. Assisted by the turnkey, the girl succeeded in controlling her. She took hold of both her wrists.

“Hearken quietly to me,” said Mrs Onion. “I have seen many women suffer, but none have cut so poor a figure as yourself. In one half-hour you must be conveyed through the streets. If you have any sense of decency you will be ashamed to be seen as you are, with bedabbled face, stained cheeks, and tangled hair. A woman desires to look her best, even when going to her death. You are a gentlewoman, and should set an example. As a person of fashion you should not appear in this disordered state. Moreover, consider that every woman would wish to awaken regard, pity. Such as you are now, you will provoke none; people