"As he passed the windows of the chamber where Archbishop Laud was, he bowed to receive his blessing, and he said, 'Farewell, my lord, God protect your innocence.' He marched to the Tower Hill more with the bearing of a general leading his army, than a sentenced man moving to the scaffold. At the Tower Gate the lieutenant desired him to take coach, fearing the violence of the people, but the earl refused: 'I dare look death in the face,' said he, 'and I hope the people do. Have you a care I do not escape, and I care not how I die, whether by the hand of the executioner or by the madness of the people. If that give them better content, it is all one to me.' And so, after protesting his innocence, saying he forgave all the world, and sending a few affectionate words to his wife and four children, he laid his head on the block. There was no base triumphing in the crowd, I will say that for them; they behaved like Englishmen. The earl fell in silence. But in the evening the brutish populace cried out in exultation, 'His head is off! his head is off!' and the city was blazing with bonfires. The people feel they have gained the first step in a victory. The Court thinks it has made the furthermost step in concession, and that thenceforward all must be peace. Would to heaven the king and the Court might be right; but it is hard to say." It was dusk before all this converse was ended and I left the Hall. Harry Davenant persisted in guarding me across the fields to Netherby, until we came to the high road close to the house. There he took leave. "My Father would like to see you," I said. "Mr. Drayton would be courteous to his mortal enemy," said he. "We are not enemies," I said, a little pained. "Heaven forbid," he replied; "but I had better not come, not to-day. The fall of the earl scarcely means the same thing in your home as in ours." "There will be no mean triumphing over Lord Strafford's death at Netherby," I said, with some indignation. "There will be no low, or ungenerous, or mean thing said by one of the Draytons!" he said, warmly. "But I had better not see Mr. Drayton this evening."