The Serf Part 29

They pa.s.sed up and up, among the chirping birds, until a little ill-fitting wooden door, through the c.h.i.n.ks of which the light poured like water, showed their labour was at an end. The serf's spirits rose enormously. At last! At last! Death was at hand. At this moment of supreme excitement, he nerved himself to be a man. The occasion altered his whole demeanour. Almost by a miracle his submissive att.i.tude dropped from him. His dull eyes flashed, his broken body became almost straight.

The heavy, vacuous expression fled from his face never to return, and his nostrils curved in disdain, and with pride at this thing he had done.

It was better to be hanged on a tower like this than on the tree at the castle gate, he thought as the little door opened.

They came out upon the platform in the full blaze of the setting sun.

Far, far below, the smiling woods lay happily, and the rooks called to each other round the tree-tops. The river wound its way into the fen like a silver ribbon. Peace and sweetness lay over all the land.

Hyla turned his weary head and took one last look at this beautiful sunset England.

A great cheering came from below as the execution party came out on the battlements, a fierce roar of execration.

While they were fitting his neck with the rope, Hyla looked down. The castle was spread below him like a map, very vivid in the bright light.

Hundreds of tiny white faces were turned towards him. Outside the walls he saw a great camp with tents and huts, among which fires were just being lit to cook the evening meal.

At last, on the edge of the coping they let him kneel down for prayer.

Lord Fulke had not yet sounded the signal, down in the court-yard, when they should swing him out.

He did not pray, but looked out over the lovely countryside with keen brave eyes. Freedom was very, very near. FREEDOM at last! The soldiers could not understand his rapt face, it frightened them. As he gazed, his eye fell on a round tower at the far end of the defences. Down the side of the tower a man was descending by means of a rope. Although at this distance he appeared quite small, something in the dress or perhaps in the colour of the hair proclaimed it to be Lewin. The executioners saw him also.

"G.o.d!" said one of them. "There goes our minter to Roger. The black hound!"

He bent over the edge of the abyss and shouted frantically to the crowd below, but he could convey no meaning to them. The little moving figure on the wall had disappeared by now, but a group of men standing at the moat-side showed that he was expected.

Hyla saw all this with little interest. He was perfectly calm, and all his pain had left him. Already he was at peace.

A keen blast from a trumpet sounded in the courtyard below, and came snarling up to them.

There was a sudden movement, and then the two hosts of the besiegers and besieged saw a black swinging figure sharply outlined against the ruddy evening sky.

Justice had been done. But may we not suppose that the death notes of that earthly horn swelled and grew in the poor serf's ears, pulsing louder and more gloriously triumphant, until he knew them for the silver trumpets of the Heralds of Heaven coming to welcome him?

Deo Gratias.

THE END