When he
had removed it, it was observed that his hair was not curled as
usual. This was a matter that had fretted his barber Peter in the
prison of the Gatehouse at Westminster that morning. But Sir
Walter had put him off with a laugh and a jest.
"Let them comb it that shall have it," he had said of his own
head.
Having taken his leave of the friends who had flocked about him
with the observation that he had a long journey before him, he
called for the axe, and, when presented to him, ran his fingers
along the edge, and smiled.
"Sharp medicine," quoth he, "but a sound cure for all diseases."
When presently the executioner bade him turn his head to the
East:
"It is no great matter which way a man's head stands, so that his
heart lies right," he said.
Thus passed one of Englanl's greatest heroes, indeed one of the
very makers of this England, and than his death there is no more
shameful blot upon the shameful reign of that pusillanimous
James, unclean of body and of soul, who sacrificed him to the
King of Spain.
A spectator of his death, who suffered for his words--as men must
ever suffer for the regardless utterance of Truth--declared that
England had not such another head to cut off.
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