Come Rack! Come Rope! | Page 7

speak much of the Commissioners
that had been to Derbyshire once and would come again, or of the
alarms and the dangers and the priest hunters, since those things did not
at present touch them very closely. It was rather of Robin's father, and

whether and when the maid should tell her parents, and how this new
trouble would conflict with their love. They spoke, that is to say, of
their own business and of God's; and of nothing else. The frosty
sunshine crept down the painted wainscot and lay at last at their feet,
reddening to rosiness....
III
Robin rode away at last with a very clear idea of what he was to do in
the immediate present, and with no idea at all of what was to be done
later. Marjorie had given him three things--advice; a pair of beads that
had been the property of Mr. Cuthbert Maine, seminary priest, recently
executed in Cornwall for his religion; and a kiss--the first deliberate,
free-will kiss she had ever given him. The first he was to keep, the
second he was to return, the third he was to remember; and these three
things, or, rather, his consideration of them, worked upon him as he
went. Her advice, besides that which has been described, was,
principally, to say his Jesus Psalter more punctually, to hear mass
whenever that were possible, to trust in God, and to be patient and
submissive with his father in all things that did not touch divine love
and faith. The pair of beads that were once Mr. Maine's, he was to keep
upon him always, day and night, and to use them for his devotions. The
kiss--well, he was to remember this, and to return it to her upon their
next meeting.
A great star came out as he drew near home. His path took him not
through the village, but behind it, near enough for him to hear the
barkings of the dogs and to smell upon the frosty air the scent of the
wood fires. The house was a great one for these parts. There was a
small gate-house before it, built by his father for dignity, with a lodge
on either side and an arch in the middle, and beyond this lay the short
road, straight and broad, that went up to the court of the house. This
court was, on three sides of it, buildings; the hall and the buttery and
the living-rooms in the midst, with the stables and falconry on the left,
and the servants' lodgings on the right; the fourth side, that which lay
opposite to the little gate-house, was a wall, with a great double gate in
it, hung on stone posts that had, each of them, a great stone dog that

held a blank shield. All this later part, the wall with the gate, the stables
and the servants' lodgings, as well as the gatehouse without, had been
built by the lad's father twenty years ago, to bring home his wife to; for,
until that time, the house had been but a little place, though built of
stone, and solid and good enough. The house stood half-way up the rise
of the hill, above the village, with woods about it and behind it; and it
was above these woods behind that the great star came out like a
diamond in enamel-work; and Robin looked at it, and fell to thinking of
Marjorie again, putting all other thoughts away. Then, as he rode
through into the court on to the cobbled stones, a man ran out from the
stable to take his mare from him.
"Master Babington is here," he said. "He came half an hour ago."
"He is in the hall?"
"Yes, sir; they are at supper."
* * * * *
The hall at Matstead was such as that of most esquires of means. Its
daïs was to the south end, and the buttery entrance and the screens to
the north, through which came the servers with the meat. In the midst
of the floor stood the reredos with the fire against it, and a round vent
overhead in the roof through which went the smoke and came the rain.
The tables stood down the hall, one on either side, with the master's
table at the daïs end set cross-ways. It was not a great hall, though that
was its name; it ran perhaps forty feet by twenty. It was lighted, not
only by the fire that burned there through the winter day and night, but
by eight torches in cressets that hung against the walls and sadly
smoked them; and the master's table was lighted by six candles, of
latten on common days and of silver upon festivals.
There were but two at the master's table