They gave
no sport, certainly; they died too quietly; and what peculiar interest
there was in it lay in the contemplation of the fact that it was for
religion that they died. Gentlemen, too, had been hanged here now and
then--polished persons, dressed in their best, who took off their outer
clothes carefully, and in one or two cases had handed them to a servant;
gentlemen with whom the sheriff shook hands before the end, who eyed the
mob imperturbably or affected even not to be aware of the presence of
the vulgar. But this hanging was sublime.
First, he was a Derbyshire man, a seminary priest and a gentleman--three
points. Yet this was no more than the groundwork of his surpassing
interest. For, next, he had been racked beyond belief. It was for three
days before his sentence that Mr. Topcliffe himself had dealt with him.
(Yes, Mr. Topcliffe was the tall man that had his rooms in the
market-place, and always went abroad with two servants.... He was to
have Padley, too, it was said, as a reward for all his zeal.) Of course,
young Mr. Audrey (for that was his real name--not Alban; that was a
Popish _alias_ such as they all used)--Mr. Audrey had not been on the
rack for the whole of every day. But he had been in the rack-house eight
or nine hours on the first day, four the second, and six or seven the
third. And he had not answered one single question differently from the
manner in which he had answered it before ever he had been on the rack
at all.
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