Waiting for death--Poem--Kind words for Sir Everard--The injury he did to the Catholic cause--Two happy days--Procession to the scaffold--Sir Everard's last speech--Execution--Epilogue 289-306 CHAPTER I. Nothing is so fatal to the telling of an anecdote as the prelude:--"I once heard an amusing story," &c., and it would be almost as unwise to begin a biography by stating that its subject was a very interesting character. On the other hand, perhaps I may frighten away readers by telling them at starting, this simple truth, that I am about to write the history of a young man of great promise, whose short life proved a miserable failure, who terribly injured the cause he had most at heart, for which he gave his life, a man of whom even his enemies said, when he had met his sad fate:--"Poor fellow. He deserved it. But what a pity!" If the steady and unflinching gaze of one human being upon another can produce the hypnotic state, it may be that, in a much lesser degree, there is some subtle influence in the eternal stare of the portrait of an ancestor. There is no getting away from it unless you leave the room. If you look at your food, talk to a friend, or read a book, you know and feel that his eyes are still rivetted upon you; and if you raise your own, again, towards his, there he is, gravely and deliberately gazing at you, or, you are half inclined to think, _through_ you at something beyond and behind you, until you almost wish that you could be thrown into some sort of cataleptic condition, in which a series of scenes could be brought before your vision from the history of the long-dead man, whose representation seems only to exist for the purpose of staring you out of countenance. In a large country house, near the west coast of Wales, and celebrated for its fine library, hangs a full-length portrait which might well impel such a desire. It represents a tall man, with long hair and a pointed beard, in a richly-chased doublet, a lace ruff and cuffs, very short and fringed trunk hose, and a sword by his side. He has a high forehead, rather raised and arched eyebrows, a long nose, hollow cheeks, and a narrow, pointed chin. His legs are thin; his left hand is placed upon his hip; and with his right he holds a cane, which is resting on the ground. At the bottom of the picture is painted, in Roman characters, "Sir Everard Digby, Knight, OB. 1606."