You have acquitted me of deeper
guilt. I can now die for my country without shame."
The Conqueror heard him patiently to the end.
"Thou knowest, then, thine inevitable fate?"
"I accept it. Ye have robbed me of all which made life worth
living."
"Thou must die, then: but we spare thee torture or mutilation.
Prepare to meet the headsman within the castle yard, at the third
sun-rising after this day--
"and, my lord of Coutances, since you have taken so much interest
in this young English rebel, we charge thee with the welfare of his
soul."
And the court broke up.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE CASTLE OF OXFORD.
"It is the crime and not the scaffold makes
The headsman's death a shame."
Wilfred sat alone in an upper chamber of the donjon tower the
Conqueror had erected at Oxford, hard by the mound thrown up by
Ethelfleda, lady of the Mercians and daughter of Alfred. For
thither the king had caused him to be removed, unwilling to stain
the holy precincts of Abingdon with a deed of blood, and confiding
fully in Robert d'Oyly, the governor of his new castle.
The passage up the river had occupied two full hours, under the
care of trusty and able rowers; for the stream was swift in those
days, before locks checked its course, as we have stated elsewhere.
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