... Then he had seen the wainscoting begin to gape
before him, and had understood that his only chance was by the way he
had entered. Then, as he had caught sight of his father, he had ceased
his struggles.
He had not said one word to him. The shock was complete and unexpected.
He had seen the old man stagger back and sink on the bed. Then he had
been hurried from the room and downstairs. As the party came into the
buttery entrance, there had been a great clamour; the man on guard at
the hall doors had run forward; the doors had opened suddenly and
Marjorie had come out, with a surge of faces behind her. But to her,
too, he had said nothing; he had tried to smile; he was still faint and
sick from the fight upstairs. But he had been pushed out into the air,
where he saw the horses waiting, and round the corner of the house into
an out-building, and there he had had time to recover.
* * * * *
It was strange how little religion had come to his aid during that hour
of waiting; and, indeed, during the long and weary ride to Derby. He had
tried to pray; but he had had no consolation, such as he supposed must
surely come to all who suffered for Christ. It had been, instead, the
tiny things that absorbed his attention; the bundle of hay in the
corner; an ancient pitch-fork; the heads of his guards outside the
little barred window; the sound of their voices talking. Later, when a
man had come out from the house, and looked in at his door, telling him
that they must start in ten minutes, and giving him a hunch of bread to
eat, it had been the way the man's eyebrows grew over his nose, and the
creases of his felt hat, to which he gave his mind.
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