And, last of all, there was a confused medley of more human thoughts that concerned persons other than himself.  He could not remember all the persons clearly; their names and their faces came and went.  Marjorie, his father, Mr. John FitzHerbert and Mr. Anthony, who had been allowed to come and see him; Dick Sampson, who had come in with Marjorie the second time and had kissed his hands.  One thing at least he remembered clearly as he stood here, and that was how he had bidden Mistress Manners, even now, not to go overseas and become a nun, as she had wished; but rather to continue her work in Derbyshire, if she could.

So then he stood, bent double on two sticks, blinking and peering out at the faces, wondering whether it was a roar of anger or welcome or compassion that had broken out at his apparition, and smiling—­smiling piteously, not of deliberation, but because the muscles of his mouth so moved, and he could not contract them again.

* * * * *

He understood presently that he was to lie down on the hurdle, with his head to the horses’ heels.

This was a great business, to be undertaken with care.  He gave his two sticks to a man, and took his arm.  Then he kneeled, clinging to the arm as a child to a swimmer’s in a rough sea, and sank gently down.  But he could not straighten his legs, so they allowed him to lie half side-ways, and tied him so.  It was amazingly uncomfortable, and, before he was settled, twice the sweat suddenly poured from his face as he found some new channel of pain in his body....

An order or two was issued in a loud, shouting voice; there was a great confusion and scuffling, and the crack of a whip.  Then, with a jerk that tore his whole being, he was flicked from his place; the pain swelled and swelled till there seemed no more room for it in all God’s world; and he closed his eyes so as not to see the house-roofs and the faces and the sky whirl about in that mad jigging dance....

After that he knew very little of the journey.  For the most part his eyes were tight closed; he sobbed aloud half a dozen times as the hurdle lifted and dropped over rough places in the road.  Two or three times he opened his eyes to see what the sounds signified, especially a loud, bellowing voice almost in his ear that cried texts of Scripture at him.

“We have but one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus....”

“We then, being justified by faith....  For if by the works of the Law we are justified....”

He opened his eyes wide at that, and there was the face of one of the ministers bobbing against the sky, flushed and breathless, yet indomitable, bawling aloud as he trotted along to keep pace with the horse.

Then he closed his eyes again.  He knew that he, too, could bandy texts if that were what was required.  Perhaps, if he were a better man and more mortified, he might be able to do so as the martyrs sometimes had done.  But he could not ... he would have a word to say presently perhaps, if it were permitted; but not now.  His pain occupied him; he had to deal with that and keep back, if he could, those sobs that were wrenched from him now and again.  He had made but a poor beginning in his journey, he thought; he must die more decently than that.