cart.
“I wished but to ask, sir,” he began courteously, looking up at Ewen, “—the Reverend Mr. Falconar, is it not?—how long you are like to be over your office?”
But it was Archibald Cameron who answered—to save him embarrassment, Ewen was sure. “I require but very little time, sir; for it is but disagreeable being here, and I am as impatient to be gone as you are.”
“Believe me, I am not at all impatient, Doctor Cameron,” replied the gentleman, with much consideration in his tone. “I will see to it that you have as much time allowed you as you have a mind to.”
“You are Mr. Rayner, the under-sheriff?” queried Archie. “I was not sure. Then, Mr. Rayner, as I do not intend to address the populace, for speaking was never my talent, may I have the favour of a few words with you?”
“Assuredly, sir,” replied Mr. Rayner. “And, for the better convenience of both of us, I will come up to you.”
And in a few seconds he had joined them in the straw-strewn cart. At this the clamour of the nearer portion of the crowd considerably increased, and it was plain from their cries that they imagined a reprieve had come at this last moment, and were not displeased at its arrival.
But Mr. Rayner had no such document in his pocket. Ewen heard the brief conversation which ensued as a man hears talk in a foreign tongue; though every word of it was audible to him it seemed remote and quite unreal.
“Although I do not intend to speak to the people, Mr. Rayner,” said Archibald Cameron very composedly, “I have written a paper, as best I could by means of a bit of old pencil, and have given it to my wife with directions that you should have a copy of it, since it contains the sentiments which, had I made a speech from this place, I should have expressed as my dying convictions.”
“If Mrs. Cameron will deliver the paper to me,” replied Mr. Rayner, “I will take order that it is printed and published, as is customary in the case of a dying speech.”
The Doctor inclined his head. “I thank you, sir,” he said with much gentleness, “for your civility and concern towards a man so unhappy as I,” he paused a moment “—as I appear to be. But, believe me, this day which has brought me to the end of life is a joyful one. I should wish it known that I die in the religion of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, which I have always professed, though not always practised. I know that I am a sinner, but I have no doubt of God’s mercy and forgiveness, even as I forgive all my enemies, especially those who have brought about my death.”
“You have the sympathy of a great many persons, sir,” said Mr. Rayner in a low voice. And after a second or two’s pause he added, “There is nothing further that you wish to say—no last request to make?”
“Yes, there is one,” answered the dying Jacobite; and Ewen saw him glance, but with no trace of flinching, at the little scaffold. “It is that you would defer, as long as the law will admit, the execution of the latter part of the sentence. I think you know what I mean,” he added.
“I know so well,” replied the under-sheriff gravely, “that I give you my solemn word of honour that it shall be deferred for at least half an hour. That much I can do for you, and I will.”
And, with a bow, he went down from the cart. His last words had lifted a great and sickening apprehension from Ewen’s heart . . . and, who knows, from Archibald Cameron’s also.
“I think there’s nothing now to wait for,” said Archie, and he suddenly looked rather weary, though he showed no other sign of the strain upon nerves which, however, heroically commanded, were only human. “And oh, my dearest Ewen,”—he dropped his voice until it was almost inaudible—“take my last and best thanks for coming and facing this with me—and for me!”
“But I have done nothing,” said Ewen in a dead voice.
“Nothing? You have come to the threshold with me. What can any friend do more?—And now I must go through.”
“But . . . you wished me to read a prayer with you, did you not? I think I can do it, and it would perhaps . . . seem more fitting.” In his heart, still a thrall to that dark horror of nothingness, Ewen thought what a mockery the act would be. And yet . . . would it?
“If you can,” said Archie gently. “We’ll say it together. You have a Prayer Book?”
Ewen took Mr. Falconar’s out of his pocket. And while the quiet horse in the shafts shook his bridle once or twice as if impatient, and the flame on the scaffold, replenished, shot up higher, Ewen read with very fair steadiness, and Archie repeated after him, the commendatory prayer for a sick person on the point of departure. Around the cart many bared their heads and were silent, though in the distance the noise of innumerable voices still continued, as unceasing as the ocean’s.
“O Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prison. We humbly commend the soul of this thy servant, our dear brother, into thy hands, as into the hands of a faithful Creator and merciful Saviour. . . .”
And, as Ewen went on, the poignancy, even the irony of that prayer, read as it was over a man in full health and in the prime of life, was softened by the perfect courage and readiness of him who joined in it. The black void was neither black nor void any longer; and for a moment this parting under Tyburn’s beams almost seemed like some mere transient farewell, some valediction on the brink of an earthly sea, some handclasp ere crossing one of their own Highland lochs when, as so often, the mist was hanging low on the farther shore. . . .
He finished. “Amen,” said Archibald Cameron in a low voice. He looked up for a moment into the June blue, where the swallows were wheeling. “ ‘Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.’—Ewen, you had best go now. And do not fear for me—you heard what Mr. Rayner promised?”
Ewen was gazing at him with shining eyes. “I know now that there is a God, and that you are going to Him! May He give me grace to follow you some day.”
Then Archie held out his hands as far as he could, they kissed each other, and Ewen turned away.
Yet on the narrow steps leading from the cart he all but stumbled. And above him he heard the sound of his cousin’s voice for the last time. It still held the same extraordinary and unfeigned composure, even cheerfulness, in its tones.
“Take care how you go. I think you don’t know the way as well as I do!”
* * * * *
The press was now so enormous that though Ewen was able to reach the carriage again it was found impossible to drive it away. So he was there, on his knees, when Archibald Cameron died, though he saw nothing of it. Afterwards he was glad that he had been so near him at his passing, even glad that the long groan of the multitude round the scaffold told him the very moment. And before, at last, a way could be made for the coach, he knew by the length of time itself that Mr. Rayner had kept his word, and that the brave and gentle heart cast into the fire had been taken from no living breast.
EPILOGUE
“Keithie wants to swim too!”
“Keithie cannot, and let us
