The man who had charge of him stood a little distance off, and did not
trouble him further, and Anthony watched in silence.
The hall was still dark, except for one candle that had been lighted by
the magistrate's party, and it looked sombre and suggestive of tragedy.
Floor walls and ceiling were all dark oak, and the corners were full of
shadows. A streak of light came out of the slightly opened door opposite,
and a murmur of voices. The rest of the house was quiet; it had all been
arranged and carried out without disturbance.
Anthony had a very fair idea of what was going forward; he knew of course
that the Catholics were always under suspicion, and now understood
plainly enough from the conversation he had heard that the reddish-haired
young man, standing so alert and cheerful by the table in there, had
somehow precipitated matters. Anthony himself had come up on some
trifling errand, and had run straight into this affair; and now he sat
and wondered resentfully, with his eyes and ears wide open.
There were men at all the inner doors now; they had slipped in from the
outer entrances as soon as word had reached them that the prisoners were
secured, and only a couple were left outside to prevent the alarm being
raised in the village. These inner sentinels stood motionless at the foot
of the stairs that rose up into the unlighted lobby overhead, at the door
that led to the inner hall and the servants' quarters, and at those that
led to the cloister wing and the garden respectively.
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