The next moment a timid knock against the front door caused everyone to start.  A strange eerie feeling descended on the hearts of all, of innocent and of guilty, of accuser and of defender.  The knock seemed to have come from spectral hands, for ’twas followed by no further sound.

Then again the knock.

Lambert went to the door and opened it.

“Be the quality here?” queried a timid voice.

“Squire Boatfield is here and Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse,” replied Lambert, “what is it, Mat?  Come in.”

The squire had risen at sound of his name, and now went to the door, glad enough to shake himself free from that awful oppression which hung on the cottage like a weight of evil.

“What is it, Mat?” he asked.

A man in rough shirt and coarse breeches and with high boots reaching up to the thigh was standing humbly in the doorway.  He was bareheaded and his lanky hair, wet with rain and glittering with icy moisture, was blown about by the gale.  At sight of the squire he touched his forelock.

“The hour is getting late, squire,” he said hesitatingly, “we carriers be ready....  ’Tis an hour or more down to Minster ... walking with a heavy burden I mean....  If your Honor would give the order, mayhap we might nail down the coffin lid now and make a start.”

Marmaduke de Chavasse, too, had turned towards the doorway.  Both men looked out on the little crowd which had congregated beyond the little gate.  It was long past three o’clock now, and the heavy snow clouds overhead obscured the scanty winter light, and precipitated the approach of evening.  In the gray twilight, a group of men could be seen standing somewhat apart from the others.  All were bareheaded, and all wore rough shirts and breeches of coarse worsted, drab or brown in color, toning in with the dull monochrome of the background.

Between them in the muddy road stood the long deal coffin.  The sheet which covered it, rendered heavy with persistent wet, flapped dismally against the wooden sides of the box.  Overhead a group of rooks were circling whilst uttering their monotonous call.

A few women had joined their men-folk, attracted by the novelty of the proceedings, yielding their momentary comfort to their feeling of curiosity.  They had drawn their kirtles over their heads and looked like gigantic oval balls, gray or black, with small mud-stained feet peeping out below.

Sue had thrown an appealing look at Squire Boatfield, when she saw that dismal cortege.  Her husband, her prince! the descendant of the Bourbons, the regenerator of France lying there—­unrecognizable, horrible and loathsome—­in a rough wooden coffin hastily nailed together by a village carpenter.

She did not wish to look on him:  and with mute eyes begged the squire to spare her and to spare the old woman, who, through the doorway had caught sight of the drabby little crowd, and of the deal box on the ground.