faces up to their eyes, and
carried their swords drawn. Three had hatchets. Fitzurse, with the axe
he had taken from the carpenters, was foremost, shouting as he came,
"Here, here, king's men!" Immediately behind him followed Robert
Fitzranulph, with three other knights, and a motley group--some their
own followers, some from the town--with weapons, though not in armour,
brought up the rear. At this sight, so unwonted in the peaceful
cloisters of Canterbury, not probably beheld since the time when the
monastery had been sacked by the Danes, the monks within, regardless
of all remonstrances, shut the door of the cathedral, and proceeded
to barricade it with iron bars. A loud knocking was heard from the
terrified band without, who having vainly endeavoured to prevent the
entrance of the knights into the cloister, now rushed before them to
take refuge in the church. Becket, who had stepped some paces into the
cathedral, but was resisting the solicitations of those immediately
about him to move up into the choir for safety, darted back, calling
aloud as he went, "Away, you cowards! By virtue of your obedience I
command you not to shut the door--the church must not be turned into a
castle." With his own hands he thrust them away from the door, opened it
himself, and catching hold of the excluded monks, dragged them into the
building, exclaiming, "Come in, come in--faster, faster!"

* * * * *

The knights, who had been checked for a moment by the sight of the
closed door, on seeing it unexpectedly thrown open, rushed into the
church. It was, we must remember, about five o'clock in a winter
evening; the shades of night were gathering, and were deepened into
a still darker gloom within the high and massive walls of the vast
cathedral, which was only illuminated here and there by the solitary
lamps burning before the altars. The twilight, lengthening from the
shortest day a fortnight before, was but just sufficient to reveal the
outline of objects.

* * * * *

In the dim twilight they could just discern a group of figures mounting
the steps of the eastern staircase. One of the knights called out to
them, "Stay." Another, "Where is Thomas Becket, traitor to the King?"
No answer was returned. None could have been expected by any one who
remembered the indignant silence with which Becket had swept by when the
same words had been applied by Randulf of Broc at Northam